Get your students to:
·
record themselves speaking
·
get the transcript
·
ask ChatGPT for suggestions
·
use the audio from their recordings to generate
a podcast about what they said.
More than 10 years have passed since Vicky recorded herself
talking about “The Spanish Couple on the Titanic”. It was a very good example
of her speaking as you will see below. It was four and a half minutes long.
Today there are many ways to record your voice and get a transcript for the
recording. I used https://app.soundtype.ai
to make a transcript of her audio file. You can listen to
it here and follow the transcript:
https://app.soundtype.ai/#/dashboard/9a7104fb-7cc9-4572-b957-9902dff88573
I then used ChatGPT to ask for help with the transcript. I wanted:
- a corrected version without any repetitions
- Suggestions on how Vicky could have said it better at her level (B1)
- And the next level (B2 or First Certificate).
It is possible to listen to it on ChatGPT as you read although there
are only a few American voices to choose from.[i]
Here is the conversation:
https://chatgpt.com/share/66fed23f-e92c-800b-a659-7f6ee8f36ef5
I also used the recording itself[ii] to get an amazing podcast using https://notebooklm.google.com/ (It is very fast, about 180 words per minute.) It is also about four and half minutes long. Once again, I used https://app.soundtype.ai to make a transcript and spent half an hour adding in the little interjections like, ‘Right’, ‘Yeah’, ‘Really?’ etc that it missed. (This was fascinating because it is part of how these podcasts sound so genuine and a reminder that the person listening is rarely silent.)
You can listen to it here and follow the transcript:
https://app.soundtype.ai/#/dashboard/d8c6b8af-b954-439a-9d4c-88d57eed5edb
The podcast is very fast and the problem with https://app.soundtype.ai
is that you can only change the speed to 50%, 150% or 200%, whereas with https://turboscribe.ai/ there are speeds of 50%, 75%, 100%, 125%,
150%, 175%, 200%, 300% So, I used https://turboscribe.ai/
and said there were two speakers, and asked to get a transcript.
At first glance it seemed that https://turboscribe.ai/ had made a better
job of catching all the little interjections made by listeners, but I ended up having
to type in, in brackets, all the ones it had missed and there were a lot!
The question of whether the podcast is too difficult or not is not just about the speed, which https://notebooklm.google.com/ and https://turboscribe.ai/ can both solve by allowing you to reduce the speed to 80% and 75% respectively, but whether the language itself is too difficult.
To measure that I used the two tools
below:
- I used https://textinspector.com/ to rate the different texts.
Vicky’s original transcript was rated (w) B1+ 38%
The corrected version (writing) B2 46%
The improved version for B1 (writing) B2 48% [reading A2+ 29%, listening B2
48%]
The improved version for B2 (writing) C1 63% [reading B1+ 42%, listening C1
61%]
The podcast (writing) C1 59% [reading B1 31%, listening B2+
52%]
- I also used https://www.english.com/gse/teacher-toolkit/user/textanalyzer/ to rate the different texts
Vicky’s original transcript was rated GSE level: 45 – 49 CEFR level: B1
The corrected version GSE
level: 45 – 49 CEFR
level: B1
The improved version for B1 GSE
level: 49 – 53 CEFR
level: B1+
The improved version for B2 GSE
level: 62 – 66 CEFR
level: B2
The podcast GSE
level: 57 – 61 CEFR
level: B2
The two tools don’t agree exactly on the levels but there is
a clear progression from Vicky’s original through the other versions leading up
to the podcast.
I haven’t had the chance to find out whether Vicky thinks
she would have found it useful to listen to while following the highlighted
transcript, but using a different podcast, my granddaughter said she understood
60%, but got a bit lost at two points in the podcast. I only played it once as
I was treating it as extensive listening, which you only get one opportunity to
listen to it, like in extensive reading.
I feel the podcast is sufficiently realistic with all the
interjections to be a source of Comprehensible Input in Krashen’s sense of
being a little above the learner’s level but not so far above to make it
incomprehensible particularly because the learner already knows what they are
talking about.
So, I recommend introducing this idea of students using https://notebooklm.google.com/ to generate podcasts based on transcripts of something they have said, or some of their writing. Demonstrate the idea with something the whole
class has read or listened to and then demonstrate it with the recording of one
student’s version of a retelling task half the class have done and the other
half have listened to. Then make a video demonstrating this and give students a
handout outlining what they need to do to get and listen to similar podcasts based on
all their other speaking and writing.
In my next post I’ll include a comparison between https://notebooklm.google.com/ and https://lettercast.ai both of which can
be used by students to make podcasts based on their writing and/or their
recordings.
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