NotebookLM from Google is the flavour of the week or month or even year

Everybody's posting examples of podcasts produced by NotebookLM but nobody really wants to listen to them because they sound samey and anyway they are far too fast for learners of English to really learn anything from. One solution to that is to slow the podcast down to 75%, but the problem remains that the content of the podcast is probably of most interest to the person who wrote the sources it is based on.

This is the way it works: you add a file or a number of related files to NotebookLM and it will produce a podcast with a male voice and a woman's voice talking about the content of this file or these files.

Learners of English

My interest is how this might be useful for learners of English (as that is the only language the podcast can be in at the moment), although you can supply it with sources in other languages. I feel that an advanced level student of English and even an intermediate one might be amused to listent to two people enthusiastically discussing what they had written or said. 

Students are likely to find it interesting and fun to hear their ideas discussed in podcast format, making it more likely they'll listen and absorb language patterns.

To test this I carried out three experiments.

• I uploaded a pdf file of a composition I had written in my C2 Catalan course and I had to imagine that I could then listen to a podcast discussing what I had written in Catalan even though, of course, it was, in fact, in English. I think I would have been delighted. The video is 7 minutes long and I found it is better to listen to it more slowly. At 75% it would take 9 minutes to view it:

• The second experiment was to use a .pdf of a composition written by a student of mine who had given me permission to use her writing, speaking and photographs for training purposes. It was a composition I had corrected and was covered in red and green ink.

Despite being covered in red and green ink, ChatGPT and NotebookLM had no problem using it. Here is the corrected version produced by ChatGPT:

You can watch the video made from the podcast recording here. I think it's best to reduce the speed to 75%

What do you think this B1 student would have made of this podcast about her composition? According to Text Inspector this is C1 57%, so some way above Dolor's Level. (Lexically, it was C2, but Readability was B1/B1+)

• The third experiment was to take a transcript of a recording made by another good B1 student and add that as a source simply by copying and pasting it into NotebookLM 

I copied and pasted various version of the transcript into The GSE Teacher Toolkit including the transcript from another tool that generates a podcast, Lettercast.ai - Turn your content into audible experiences Here is a graph showing the levels of the different transcripts:

The graph shows that the versions I asked ChatGPT to produce with corrections and improved versions for B1 and B2 should all be useful for a good B1 student to acquire some emergent language from. 

The Lettercast podcast is not much more difficult then the original and even the NotebookLM version is still only B2, a level or half a level above the student, who in any case knows a lot about the content as the podcast is based on what she said.

My next post will probably be about using the audio recording itself, which only became an option very recently.

Padlet can be used to display catalogues of readers by level and genre - two examples to demonstrate the concept

I decided to experiment with alternative ways to display information about readers at A1-A2 level from Oxford Reading Club. My original way was using Word:

• 
  
  Oxford Dominoes - Level 1 (A1-A2)

 

• 
  
  Oxford Bookworms – Level 1 (A1-A2) 

 

But after seeing someone else using Padlet to display information about readers I simply copied and pasted the information into a couple of Padlets

• 
  
  Oxford Dominoes - Level 1 (A1-A2)

 

• 
  
  Oxford Bookworms – Level 1 (A1-A2) 

Access to a Google drive folder with all the work I've done on Extensive Reading is here:

https://bit.ly/42SBkNS

It includes genre catalogues for all levels of Dominoes and Bookworms on Oxford Reading Club and a few PowerPoints I have used for talks on Extensive Reading in the past.

A Playlist of my videos on Extensive Reading on YouTube is here:

Extensive Reading 

ChatGPT can tell a story if you upload 4 pictures, but get the prompts right!

 

I uploaded the pictures and used these prompts after I corrected two mistakes in the four descriptions ChatGPT produced.

- Can you retell the story in the four pictures at the level of a student at B1 on the CEFR scale?

- Could you make the story sound a little bit more conversational?

Transcript of ChatGPT's more conversational version of the story:

So, there’s this guy riding his bike down the street. Suddenly, he crashes into a truck that’s turning the corner. He falls and gets hurt pretty badly, and his bike is all messed up. The truck driver sees what happened and rushes over to help. He quickly calls for an ambulance. The paramedics arrive and put the injured cyclist on a stretcher to take him to the hospital. The truck driver stands by, looking really worried about what happened.

How to use screen recording and ChatGPT to get feedback on your speaking

This spoken conversation with ChatGPT was recorded using Screen Recorder on my Android phone. The student's recording was played on my PC to simulate a student recording herself.

It's 5 minutes long.

  

Summary

Spoken Prompts used:

- What I'd like you to do is to provide my student with some feedback on her speaking in English.

- Could you make a more coherent version of what my student made?

Transcript of my student's recording:

My flat is very, very beautiful. I think that the decoration must have different colours. I don't like only a colour for a house. So, my bedroom is pink. The kitchen is blue. The bedroom is orange. The water is green. And the living room is red. And the space for the table is also pink, but more strong. And I am very happy in my house.

Transcript of ChatGPT's more coherent version:

"My flat is very beautiful. I think the decoration should have different colours. I don't like just one colour for the whole house. So, my bedroom is pink, the kitchen is blue, and the bathroom is orange. The walls are green, the living room is red, and the dining area is also pink, but a stronger shade. I am very happy in my house."

Luggage for Children Turboscribe & ChatGPT - how to get corrections and suggestions for improvments

Breaking News!

Students can now record themselves using Turboscribe.ai

See an example showing how the transcript from Turboscribe can be pasted into ChatGPT to get corrections & an improved version at B1

Luggage for Children Turboscribe & ChatGPT

Transcript correction and enhancement by Gemini, ChatGPT, Copilot or Claude

https://g.co/gemini/share/16c0248c7a9f Transcript correction by #Gemini can be just as useful as that provided by #ChatGPT or #Copilot or #Claude

Try this prompt with them all:

Can you correct this transcript marking the errors and the corrections in some way? One evening in October, Hannah was at work. She was meeting Jamie at 5.30. She looks her watch and it was 5.20. It was raining and she was in a hurry because she has 10 minutes to meet Jamie. She was driving along the high street and she was driving very fast. Suddenly a man crossed the road and Hannah didn't see him.

Check to see if Read Aloud works on them all as it is very useful for #EFL #MFL #ESL students. 

Then use this prompt:

How could an ... level student express this better? try with A2, B1, or B2

The transcript was produced by #Turboscribe

But the innovative thing is that Turboscribe now offers a microphone option, so students can record themselves live three times a day for up to 30 minutes each time with a free account. 

Turboscribe now allows live recording!

 

Breaking news!

It may be difficult to see but turboscribe.ai is now more useful than ever as there is now a microphone so students can record themselves 3 times a day for up to 30 minutes!

The transcripts are very accurate and students can listen while following the transcript to notice automatic corrections that have been made.

Editing the transcripts to correct obvious mistranscriptions usually caused by pronunciation problems is possible, although a bit fiddly. 

(Corrected) transcripts can be exported in various formats, in which it may be easier to make corrections.

These can then be pasted into ChatGPT, for example, with prompts asking for corrections or a more coherent version at A2  B1 B2 etc