Student vs Student / Student vs Speechling - which one will you choose?

Being fluent is essential in language learning as it is related to students' meaning making skills. Fluency consists of the effort from both speaker and listener - speaker has to convey his/her meaning to listener, while listener needs to understand the message synchronously, so when students are training their oral skills, they are training their listening skills as well. 

The learning tool that I introduce today is beneficial for developing speaking and listening skills. It is Speechling.

Speechling

Firstly, not only limited to English, but there are other language courses available in Speechling, for example, Spanish, Japanese etc. If students have interest on learning other languages, they can spare time on this tool after their school schedule.

Different Modules

Secondly, there are different modules available in Speechling. 

Core Curriculum

The core module is divided into different levels, from Beginner to Expert. You can let students choose which level to start according to their English level.

Speechling Foundations

Apart from core module, there are specific topics available in Speechling. If your students need improvement in vocabulary, you can use Speechling Foundations, which allows students to build up their vocabulary foundation.

Speechling Phrasebook

On the other hand, if students are interested in English for specific purpose, for example, travel, weather, etc., or your lesson is related to certain topic, you can prepare the materials with the aid of Speechling Phrasebook since it provides simple expressions for different scenarios. These topics are more interesting and familiar than core module, which help students to build their confidence.

Toolbox

In terms of exercises, you can find different kinds of tasks available in Toolbox, for example, Dictation, Listening Practice etc. Among these tools, I like Multiple Choice Quiz very much because it can achieve my goal - improving listening and speaking at the same time.

Multiple Choice Quiz

The sample of Multiple Choice Quiz is shown above. It requires learners to listen what the recording is about, and they need to choose the correct sentence below. At the same time, they can record the sentence. This can train up students' speaking and listening skills. If you are teaching junior school students, this simple task is suitable for you as it allows students to learn some basic expressions.

Answer the Question

Another exercise that can achieve my goal is Answer the Question. This task is more advanced than Multiple Choice Quiz as it requires learners to create their own answers in order to give respond to the questions. They can record their sentences in the system and you can listen to what your students said. Different with the exercises above, it will be more suitable for senior school students with a variety of vocabulary and basic knowledge on sentence making.

Overall, Speechling is a good tools for improving fluency since it provides a large variety of tasks with different level of difficulty. Because of this characteristics, it is suitable for majority of students. It also give a modification on traditional fluency training (e.g. face-to-face group discussions) as students can do the task themselves via digital devices instead of physical training. 

However, there is a drawback that it doesn't allow learners to save their recordings. If you want to use this tool for students' homework, I will suggest that you can use it with the combination with other audio or video recording tools like Videomail or Vocaroo.

I hope you will enjoy using Speechling, and see if you will have different experience on it.😉