This is what I offer my face-to-face students:

• My students record themselves speaking English every class. Sometimes it is pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar practice, but each student records themselves re-telling a story and/or being interviewed every class.
• I listen to some of these recordings and give very informal feedback twice a week.
• I ask my students to select their best recording of them re-telling a story or possibly being interviewed and I give detailed feedback on one minute of their best recording every week.
• My students write an email, a letter, a story, an article, or a description every week.
• I correct all the errors in their weekly writing and mark 5 mistakes as being the most important to learn from.
• My students send me a corrected version of their weekly writing for me to check.
• I check their corrected version and make any additional suggestions for improvement.
• In theory, my students add their best recordings and their twice-corrected writing to their e-portfolio each week.
• My students read a simplified book every week (in theory) and write a two line comment about it for other students to read.
• After reading 6 books at one level I suggest they try the next level. Ideally they will read books from four levels in the three terms.
• I suggest homework from the workbook and DVD(s) but tell my students to be selective and say “ONLY DO WHAT'S IMPORTANT FOR YOU” as there is too much to do it all.

This is what I don’t offer my face-to-face students:

• I don’t correct the homework from the workbook and DVD(s) in class or at home. But I offer to help them with any doubts they have about the answers to this homework.
• I don’t correct all the mistakes my students make when speaking in class, but I do write a selection of errors on the board after most speaking activities.
• I rarely ask individual students to give answers to questions in exercises. Instead, students do the exercises in pairs, while I listen and tell them if I hear that they make a mistake.
• I rarely ask individuals to speak to all the class. I nearly always ask them to work in pairs or groups of three when speaking and record themselves.
• I don’t tell my students their grade for their writing until they have sent me a corrected version, although I have given them a grade and made a note of it after the first correction.
• I don’t correct worksheets my students do in class or at home, but instead, I give them the answers and ask them to correct it themselves in a different colour. Sometimes I collect the corrected worksheets to see if there is something I need to teach again.
• I rarely say “Excellent!”, “Very good!” etc in class, but I’m always saying things like “Great!” to my students online.

We use English File Pre-intermediate and Intermediate 3rd edition. We have already done one term using the book and plan to finish the book over the next two terms. Our class is equipped with an interactive whiteboard and I use it a lot. We use mobile phones in class and the internet out of class.

How best can technology help students speak? [I always write about the same thing!]

Speaking as much as possible is the best way for students to speak better. Any materials which encourage students to speak to each other will help. I prefer students to work in pairs as that creates the most opportunities to speak. I adapt materials to maximise opportunities for students to speak in pairs.

Where does technology come in? I am lucky as I have a projector attached to a computer so it is easy to project a series of questions that half the students in the class can see but the others can't as they are sitting with their backs to the screen. If possible, when they swap roles, I have another set of questions for the second interview. The projected questions are rather like the auto-cue used on TV. This can be done without technology, by preparing posters and sticking them to the whiteboard.

In this kind of activity there is a lot of simultaneous speaking and it is sometimes hard to monitor, help or assess students. However, if students record themselves answering the questions using their mobile phones it is easier for teachers to monitor errors and or assess students' speaking. Teachers can still help during the activity

Using apps like audioboo or ipadio smartphone owners can build up a portfolio of their speaking which their teacher can follow using feedly. Students can follow each other, too. Even simple mobile phones can be used with an ipadio account for free in many countries of the world.

This is just one example of how speaking in pairs can be set up and recorded. There are many advantages in getting students to record themselves:

- Students are more likely to speak in English when they are recording themselves.

- Being able to listen to themselves makes students more aware of how well (or badly) they speak

- Building up a portfolio of their speaking showing their progress is motivating

- Teacher feedback on one minute of every recording takes about the same amount of time it takes to give feedback on written work and generates a manageable number of errors to work on

- Providing students with small amounts of regular individual feedback on their strengths, weaknesses and errors in grammar and pronunciation is more effective than brief general classroom feedback

- It is much easier for teachers to get to know their students' speaking level by listening to them regularly. Assessment is much easier as a result.

The other type of speaking activity in pairs we do in class involves creating an information gap which students have to explain. Typically it is a story or article which only half of the students listen to and/or read. They listen to it a number of times and often see the script for a moment the last time they listen. They then practise retelling it to each other before retelling it to one of the students who hasn’t listened to it. I offer help with problems I overhear when they are practising retelling and students usually only record themselves when they are retelling it for real.

These extended monologues are a real test of and opportunity for speaking and involves real communication and are ideal for assessment.

Depending on your definition of speaking you may or may not consider the following activities to be speaking as they don’t involve communication, but do involve saying words and sentences in English. My students also record themselves doing these activities:

-          repeating new vocabulary after a model (and recording both the model and their own version

-          repeating new grammatical structures in the same way to reinforce them and to work on their pronunciation

-          repeating pronunciation exercises

-          reading aloud paragraphs from the course where there is a model to compare with

These recording are also added to their portfolio of spoken English, which I listen to on my way to work and give them the words they need to look up later on howjsay.

Here is a list of the websites mentioned above:

audioboo https://audioboo.fm  which my students use to record their pronunciation

ipadio http://www.ipadio.com/  which my students use to record their real speaking

feedly http://feedly.com/  which I use to follow my students recordings

howjsay http://www.howjsay.com/  where students can check the pronunciation of words

Edmodo https://www.edmodo.com/ where I give formal assessment in private