Claire Wilkinson

Penryn College

Reasons for choosing a podcast

Some learners find that even a verbal one to one feedback is helpful only to a point and they STILL face the problem of a blank page at the start of rewriting. This makes self editing their own work extremely de-motivating. By being able to access verbal tips for improvement that can be re- and re-listened to from the comfort of their own personal work space, these learners feel much more secure about the task of re-writing.

We have a number of year 11 students at the college who need to improve grades for their coursework if they are to achieve their potential final grades. One way we discovered we could do this was to reassess the work orally, this was allowed for some pieces and we found that a small number of students benefited considerably, one student upgrading his piece from E to C. The example that follows is an example of feedback for that student on a different piece of coursework. He is a very sociable teenager and is very happy to talk but finds writing a difficult task. He finds editing and rewriting even more difficult as he thinks the rigour and repetition is a waste of time. His descriptive writing needs further work as he tends to rely on repeating common adjectives, as he might in speech, and his sentences are often not well structured. I decided to try out podcasting.

The podcast ‘Tips for rewriting’ is an example of recorded feedback to help learners to review and analyse their own written work, in order to improve it.

Equipment and technique

In this example the message for the student was recorded on Audacity and saved as an MP3 file. (See section on how to make a podcast). It refers to paragraphs that reflect the structure of the student’s written work. Equipment used, was a basic cheap headphone and microphone set, computer and freeware. This student copied this on to an MP3 player, others used a memory stick for use on their home computer.

Examples to listen to:

Tips for rewriting Tutor Running time:00.05.00

To student

Here is the podcast of my notes to improve your piece of descriptive writing on Canada.
You must make sure that all the items in your original assignment are covered! SHOW OFF! That you know:

• Similes
• Metaphor (include referred and embedded metaphors)
• Lots of juicy adjectives (remember the ‘three rule!’)
• Make an enticing introduction and a leave-with-a-message ending.

AIM: to get a higher grade!!

From the student

Using the feedback Student Running time:00.00.17

Many learners who prefer auditory learning methods may well respond better when listening to text rather than reading it on paper. One student of mine liked the idea of comparing a sound recording of his early draft with a sound recording of a second draft so that he could hear the difference he had made to a piece of descriptive writing.

		Reading of an early draft Two MP3 files of the student reading his own second draft Running time:00.01.00
		Running time:00.00.41 Listening to the reading Student, explaining how listening to his own work has helped him Running time:00.00.30

This led to an idea of an audio comparison of recordings of an excellent piece of descriptive text with an altered version of the same text. Some students of a colleague found it was a useful way of highlighting how choice of words and other literary techniques can enhance text.

Conclusion

I found this a very useful method to help learners who enjoy employing this style. It helped my student feel secure enough to have a go at rewriting his work. It gave him the confidence to go over and over it until he felt it was right because he could listen again and again however many times he needed to. His own editing did improve his work and will certainly finally improve his grade. He became aware of another aid to writing and that was to listen to what he had written, he found that more useful than reading it over.

As a medium for feedback, once set up, this method actually saves time, as a quick voice recording can be faster than typing or writing notes for students. My only drawback was finding a quiet place in school where the application Audacity was functioning. I know it can be run on most home computers and have downloaded it onto mine, so this problem now can be overcome. I found the editing function ‘normalise’ very useful for amplifying my relatively quiet voice. Distance from the microphone took a bit of practice.

I know that this learner will continue using sound recordings to help his learning. I am happy that it provides another method for some students to access learning. I think that it would be relatively easy to use for differentiation as it can be tailor-made to fit the personal needs of each student, it is ideal for revision and revisiting as learners can work without others knowing, so it gives ownership and control as to when the activity happens, so is great for extending and/or supporting students who enjoy the auditory approach. I feel sure this would boost self esteem for some students and possibly help raise their grades.