Speaking Tool: Voki

     Voki is an online, free tool where students create an avatar character and use them to talk about anything. The students can do their homework, projects or engage with each other through their avatars and their audios.

The Voki website is shown above.

The webpage also gives information on how Voki can be used.

    The students can sign up for free and create their avatar. With this avatar, they can join their classrooms or casual hangout sessions among each other. It is not only good for students but also for teachers, they can sign up as the teacher and teach their class through their avatars and as well as find designed curriculums to use for their classes made by other teachers.

Speaking Tool: Discord

 

Discord is an app that allows individuals to create groups called "servers" dedicated to a topic or just for chatting, and these servers can be divided into separate groups called "channels" that are dedicated to different topics. These channels can be put into two different categories: text channels and voice channels. These are self explanatory, the text channels are for texting and the voice channels are for individuals to speak with each other. 

A teacher could create a server for a classroom, and use the voice channels to practice speaking with the students. The teacher could also monitor the students speaking each other via muting themselves as to not distract the students while they practice. Also, as the server manager, in this case the teacher, could mute or unmute someone at any time, and they could also check if the student has lower their voice input and make it higher, so no cheating! 

Speaking Tool: Speak & Improve

    Speak & Improve (https://speakandimprove.com/) is a research project from the University of Cambridge. By using it, English learners can both improve their speaking/pronunciation by talking to the robot on the screen and also help Cambridge improve technology that will help English learners around the world. 

    The robot's called Sandi and it asks the learner some questions, then gives them a grade for their speaking. It uses new technology developed at the University of Cambridge so it can tell how well one speaks English just by listening to them. Plus, the grade that English learners get is an accurate grade on the internationally-recognised CEFR scale. This can help students understand their speaking ability for study and exams (including Cambridge exams).

Listening Video: Wall-e : How to Tell a Story Visually - Pixar Video Essay

                        Question: What do you think the speaker means when he says "This shot tells you                                         everything you need to know about Wall-E."? (Timestamp:5.32)

Listening Video: What's the smartest age?

Comprehension check question: Why is there no single answer to the question of what's the smartest age?

Listening Tool: Does grammar matter?

 

    "According to the video above, how did grammar become so important through the years despite almost all the languages were in the spoken form for the vast majority of history of the humanity?"