IATEFL Exeter Learning Technologies SIG Pre-Conference Event | Teaching English | British Council

Last Monday saw the IATEFL Learning Technologies SIG event on Audio Technology for Language Learning.

This is a brief summary of what we got up to:

1) An introduction to audio technology for language learning - we looked at iTunes, finding and subscribing to podcasts, working with http://www.chinswing.com and http://www.voicethread.com

2) Participants then went on a podcasting tour, listening to a selection of podcasts made both specifically for ELT and authentic podcasts. There was also a heated discussion of what represented good practice and questions about support materials (the need for them, etc) and whether learners were expected to listen to the podcasts on their own outside of class, or whther they could be used as classroom tools.

3) Next, Chris Cavey of the British Council presented the British Council's Learn English magazine podcast for A2 learners (soon to be made live at http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish ) and looked at the planning and reasoning behind this.

4) This was followed by the BBC giving a demonstration of the types of equipment they use for podcasting, and some very useful tips on recording.

5) We looked at audio editing with Audacity next. Audacity is free audio editing software that is easy to useand is available here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

6) Finally, all the participants planned and recorded and then edited and uploaded some short podcasts to get hands-on experience of using the tools. Here are the results:

All-in-all, I think everyone believed it had been a successful day!