AI can help students improve their speaking

AI can help students improve their speaking and the first step is to get an accurate transcription.

Since last June (2023) I have studied more than 70 apps and webpages trying to find the best systems to help students get accurate transcripts for the recordings they do in class.

Students should be able to:

Use an iPhone or an Android phone to:

•          Record themselves
•          Listen to the recording
•          See the transcript quickly
•          Edit the transcript
•         Copy, export or share it
•       To Copilot or ChatGPT

In this final report, I only include systems that offer the above with a free account and note what exactly they offer along with the number of languages that could be used because, although I only taught English, I know that teachers of other languages might be interested in doing the same thing with their students.

I decided to include in this post only those systems (apps or web pages) that would provide transcript accuracies of 90% and above. Students can correct obvious errors in the transcripts before asking for help from Copilot or ChatGPT, which will mean transcripts will often be very accurate records indeed of what the student said.

All four offer a reasonable length for each recording and the total length of all recordings with a free account. They all also offer transcriptions in a wide range of languages. I have put them in order of accuracy in their transcriptions.

Here are the main details I noted for the four best speech to text systems I found:

The ‘Final Four’:

Address	https://soundtype.ai/en
Accuracy	96%
Number of Languages	90
What you get free	180 minutes/month Only the first 8 minutes of transcription per audio are accessible
Android 7.0 and up, iPhone iOS 12.1 or later

 

Address	https://app.transkriptor.com
Accuracy	96%
Number of Languages	60
What you get free	90 minutes of free transcription 5 minute limit + Earn 120 minutes if you install Transkriptor and leave a review on Google Play, App store, Chrome store, TrustPilot + Earn 90 minutes for each platform you share: Twitter or Facebook +Earn 180 minutes for each review on Capterra or G2
Android 5.0 and up, iPhone iOS 13.0 or later

 

Address	https://www.notta.ai/en
Accuracy	94%
Number of Languages	104
What you get free	120 minutes / month + 10 prompts
Android 7.0 and up, iPhone iOS 11.0 or later

 

Address	https://app.fireflies.ai
Accuracy	92%
Number of Languages	69
What you get free	800 minutes storage Unlimited transcription
Android 8.0 and up, iPhone iOS 13.0 or later

Many of these systems offer to provide summaries of one sort or another as well, but in view of the very limited control students have over the level of complexity of the language used by these systems, I decided that it was better to use Copilot or ChatGPT to ask for help with their language.

1. I first asked Copilot or ChatGPT for a corrected transcript to compare with the original by displaying them both side by side in columns of a table.
2. I also asked it to provide an improved version suitable for the level of the learner. If this prompt is spoken, I could hear it read aloud, too.
3. Finally, I asked for some brief notes to be used when retelling the story and recording it again.