Each week a sound file question of weekly thematic relevance is composed, recorded and uploaded to Blackboard by the course coordinator. Students listen to the sound-file and record and upload a response (in the case of LOTE courses, this is done in the language being taught). The course coordinator listens to responses and provides detailed, personalised feedback via Blackboard and/or email. By providing feedback online rather than in class, contact hours can be dedicated to weekly learning activities that teach foundational knowledge and threshold concepts. All sound files remain on Blackboard, creating an accessible record which can be used to evaluate student progress throughout semester. In addition to receiving feedback, students are also able to listen to their own voice recordings, which is of great pedagogical benefit for reflexive learning. This assessment is designed to improve spoken language proficiency in LOTE courses, as well as through use of discipline-specific language in courses taught in English, but also provides opportunities for rapport-building beyond classroom interaction. Building collegiality in this way also has important potentials for enhancing learning, motivating students, and reducing learner anxiety. In other words, this task authentically reproduces social interactions at the heart of professional language learning and use.
Details
- CLASS SIZE
- 20-40
- CLASS LEVEL
- Second year
- ASSESSMENT SECURITY
- High security
- TIME REQUIREMENTS
- High time
- GRADUATE ATTRIBUTES
- Effective communication skills
- FEATURES
- Online
- TAGS
- oral, technology enriched learning, feedback-rich
Advantages
Extends learning beyond the classroom (into the digital space) in a way that caters to student flexibility and provides ongoing, personalised interactions between students and teachers. Students are able to work and learn independently and generate original ideas, thus fostering Independence and creativity (a key UQ graduate attribute). This task can be usefully applied to all HaSS courses, especially those that focus on spoken language proficiency (in LOTE courses), as well as those that engage unique and discipline specific professional dialogues.
Challenges
This can be a time intensive task for staff who may have to listen to each student sound-file several times in order to mark equitably and provide detailed, personalised feedback – however the pedagogical benefits of this task warrant the demanding time requirements
Tips for implementation
It is useful to provide scaffolding measures to initially familiarise students with the task - explain the task in class during week 1, reward students who attempt the task in week two (regardless of proficiency), and grade students according to the established criteria from week three onwards.
How it supports academic integrity
Through in-class and weekly sound-file activities, staff become familiar with students' voices – effectively reducing the risk of outsourcing this assessment. Students are also encouraged to discuss their own lived experiences, which may encourage them to produce original responses to prompts.
Dr Wendy Jiang
w.jiang2@uq.edu.au
Dr Wenying (Wendy) Jiang taught at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Alberta in Canada and The University of Western Australia in Perth before taking a position at School of Languages and Cultures at The University of Queensland in Australia. She is a specialist in Applied Linguistics, a graduate of Qufu Normal University (BA 1988, MA 1998) in China, University of Luton (MA 2001) in UK and The University of Queensland (PhD 2006) in Australia. She taught English at Taishan Medical University in China for more than ten years before switching to teaching Chinese as a foreign language in English-speaking countries such as the UK, Canada and Australia. She has been publishing regularly in the fields of second language acquisition, language teaching and learning, and computer assisted language learning (CALL) since 1992. Her monograph "Acquisition of Word Order in Chinese as a Foreign Language" was published by Mouton de Gruyter in 2009. Her article "Measurements of development of L2 written production: the case of Chinese L2" appeared in the journal Applied Linguistics in 2013 is a widely cited piece of publication. Find out more