Interpersonal
"Learners interact and negotiate meaning in spoken, signed, or written conversations to share information, reactions, feelings, and opinions." (World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages)
- Active negotiation of meaning among individuals
- Participants observe and monitor one another and see how their meanings and intentions are being communicated
- Adjustments and clarifications are made accordingly
- Speaking and listening (conversation); reading and writing (text messages or via social media)
(ACTFL Performance Descriptors for Language Learners, 2012)
Google Voice (Link)Google Voice can be used in a number of ways for interpersonal speaking activities and assessment.
You set up a pre-determined phone number using your Google account (not your real phone number) and students call in and listen to your voicemail greeting. You are able to change your voicemail greeting as often as you would like and you can also label them according to the task or activity (i.e. "Spanish 1 Unit 1.1 Quiz" or "Spanish 1 Unit 1.1 Homework). When students call in (via any phone, land line or cellular), they must wait for it to go to voicemail and then respond accordingly to your message. You are able to view how many times the student called in and therefore can tell them that they can only call once or twice, etc. to make it more authentic. At the beginning of the year, it is a good idea to sent home a letter to parents to explain Google Voice and get permission for their student to call in. It is also essential that you add student phone numbers into your "Contacts" so that when they call in, their name shows up in your Google Voice account. This makes for a lot right away, but makes assessment much easier throughout the year! For in-class speaking assessments, students can step into the hallway and use their cell phone to call in. This can be done individually (making the assignment more presentational, rather than interpersonal) or with a partner (have the students use speakerphone to capture both voices). It is a good idea to put a sign in the hallway explaining that students are using their phones as part of a class assignment, and also to warn colleagues in the classrooms near you on days that you will be using Google Voice. In addition to organizing voicemails within your Google Voice account, all voicemails can also be saved as MP3 files to later organize into digital voice portfolios (such as attaching them all to a wiki or embedding them into Google Sites). Furthermore, they can be emailed to students for self-assessment purposes. |
Example of letter home to parents
Example of sign for hallway
Example of interpersonal rubric (work-in-progress!)
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Google Forms (Link)
Google Forms is a great tool for capturing students' written responses. If page breaks are used, it can be used to simulate interpersonal writing situations (IMs, text messaging, etc.)
By inserting page breaks and requiring each question, students have an experience where they encounter different types of question as they progress through the form. As students aren't sure of the questions that will come next, they have to work to express their responses upon receiving the prompting questions/comment. All of the students' responses are then compiled into one excel document for you to have and record (so make sure an early question is for their names!). You can then use sort function to create alphabetical documents, which when done throughout the year make easy references to check in on students' growth and performance. The interactive example on the right allows you to try a novice level Spanish form as if it were a text message from other students. |
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Audacity (Link)
Audacity is a sound recording program, with many features for recording, editing, and synthesizing audio. Although it looks very involved and has many features, which may make it look intimidating, it is actually fairly simple to use for basic recording.
Students can place a computer with a microphone in between them and hit record. The computer will record the conversation. Students can then use the program to export the audio to different file types, including .mp3. Those .mp3 files can be kept in folders to collect longitudinal data for each student. Students can take those files and add them to digital voice portfolios, can load them onto iPads or iPods to play, or upload them to many other programs to serve as backgrounds to animations, movies, or other digital artworks. The files that are exported are small and take up minimal space, ideal for schools with low amounts of storage space. Additionally, .mp3 are able to be loaded to Google Drive or Drop Box for cloud storage. For example, one way this could be used is to make individual student folders in a DropBox (or shared folders in a Google Drive). As the year goes on, students can upload their recordings to their specific folder, which allows them to maintain a portfolio of their speaking growth as the year goes on. |