TEACHING EAP SPEAKING: ENGAGING STUDENTS THROUGH TRANSCRIPTS AND VIDEO

Transcription

1 TEACHING EAP SPEAKING: ENGAGING STUDENTS THROUGH TRANSCRIPTS AND VIDEO Theresa Rohlck University of Michigan English Language Institute November 20, 2013 LTTC Workshop, Taipei

2 Imagine...

3 Using Transcripts of Authentic Academic Spoken Language What do we mean by authentic? Where can we find it? How can we make it accessible for students/classroom use /materials development?

4 Spoken Corpora MICASE Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English Research project started at ELI in hours / approx. 1.8 million words Academic speech at the University of Michigan Office hours, discussion sections, dissertation defenses, labs a total of 152 speech events

5 Spoken Corpora COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) BASE (British Academic Spoken Corpus) ELFA (English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings CSPA (Corpus of Spoken, Professional American English) HKCSE (Hong Kong Corpus of Spoken English) VOICE (Vienna Oxford International Corpus of English

6 Adapting transcripts for classroom use Transcription conventions Researchers must choose how to represent in their transcription what was recorded Decisions will impact future use Readable yet still capture details of the speech event Decisions about spelling, abbreviated forms, punctuation, capitalization, overlapping speech (e.g. how to consistently represent features of speech) Example from MICASE

7 Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English Title: Intro Biology First Day Lecture Transcript ID: LEL175MU014 Academic Division: Biological and Health Sciences Publisher: Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English, English Language Institute, University of Michigan Interactivity Rating: Mostly monologic Number of Participants: Students: 100 Speakers: 7 Recording Date: May 5, 1998 Recording Duration: 47 minutes Word Count: 6613 Download entire transcript in XML <MICASE RECORDING ANNOUNCEMENT>S1: i think the intent is just to see if, people use big words or little in the classroom and what kind of words they use, and to once they know that that should help them, uh train T-As, train G-S-Is help people speak English as a second language. so we'll see what comes out of it maybe i'll speak good today. <SS: LAUGH> um, okay... so let me get to my notes, so i've already introduced myself i've been at the university three years i came here from the University of Washington, um, and before that i went undergrad to uh University of Minnesota so, i've always seen this as enemy territory and, three years of cashing paychecks is, only gradually wearing me down. um, i will be the professor for the whole uh, the whole term in this course that's different uh than we normally do it and, uh it'll be the first time in a while that one person has done the whole course. my own background is in microbiology and molecular biology which means the first half of the course is sort of my natural half of the course that's what i've taught before. when we get to the second half of the course, i'll be uh sort of winging it even more than i usually am. so, we'll see how that goes in theory if you can learn, evolution and ecology i should be able to learn it just as well and teach it to you. um, luckily i've got four very good G-S-Is that are gonna help me out this term all of them are experienced veterans and, it is one of the pleasures of teaching in spring term, besides just having a smaller class in general, that you get good veteran G-S-Is. so those four G-S-Is and we may add one more, are Tom Mills, Sara Patel, uh where is Mark and, uh Katy. Mark Lighter and Katy Kolowski, who is probably running late. in any event one of them will be your G-S-Is but all of them will have, office hours and hours in the Science Learning Center, where they can help you uh understand what i am saying. okay, um, my office hours in fact i didn't put down there, um, but they will basically be <WRITING ON BOARD> Mondays twelve to two or by appointment... so, that puts it into the same timeblock as this class and if that's a problem just call me up or, me and set up a separate appointment. okay what will you need for this class? you will need, the textbook the textbook either comes as three softcover uh editions like this or it comes as one hardcover uh version, i don't care which you buy just make sure you buy the one with the elephant on the cover. um, this will be the same textbook that you use in Biology one fifty-four if you go on to take that course. um lab manual, is this one, that's the same one we've used uh throughout the year so far, so it_ there should be copies of that uh in bookstores, uh you will need that starting tomorrow when labs start. coursepack is this thing that's available at Grade A Notes which is upstairs uh, in_ above Ulrich's on East U and South U they may have it downstairs on the bookshelves too i'm not sure about that. um what i have tried to do in the coursepack is, put in uh those figures that i'm going to use uh, during my lectures that i think would be helpful to you to have. for example, when i show this figure in a couple of days i'm not interested in having you guys spend three minutes taking a time-out scratching all these little bonds in okay? so i've put that overhead in there, so you can just turn to that page in the coursepack and make your notes, uh on that. some of you will wanna use it like that some of you will just note the figure number and go back to it later. i wouldn't say that this is a hundred percent necessary, it does have all of the course policies in there... but, mostly it's just figures that are already in your textbook. um and i will try and point out when a figure that i'm using up here has an equivalent in the coursepack although i tend to forget those things. um and then, lastly, there may be listed in the uh, in the bookstores an optional thing for either a C-D or a video called Sciren. what these are are sort of, a cartoon animations of, several of the im- many of the important processes that we'll be covering uh in particularly in the first half of this term. so meiosis mitosis transcription translation D-N-A replication, all those kinda things. for me personally i always found it was easier, rather than a series of pictures if i actually had, sort of a moving video that showed these processes, uh, in process or you know as they move along. i may or may not show clips from this video in class, uh it just depends on how ambitious i get. this would be an optional thing for you guys to buy if you think it's helpful i forget the price i think it's, somewhere between ten and twenty bucks, probably on the upper end of that. again, um, uh, your choice whether to buy it let me know if this is not in video s- uh in the in the bookstores. okayand <><>S2: will it be on reserve? S1: say that again. S2: will it be on reserve? S1: um no i'm not putting it on reserve. um, okay and, if you haven't already gotten familiar with the Science Learning Center that's sevent

8 (example in Word Doc)

9 Adapting transcripts Features adapted for clarity and ease of use: Punctuation Capitalization Pauses Names/roles Embedded speech

10 Engaging Students with Transcripts There are Challenges... and Rewards

11 Challenges Real language is messy false starts incomplete sentences grammar errors odd word choices made-up words readability/clarity may be lacking

12 Challenges, continued Requires time investment up front to adapt, clean up, prepare for use as materials for instructors to gain familiarity and to be able to teach how to use transcripts for students to learn how to read and analyze transcripts to make content more accessible if needed

13 And Rewards! Transcripts are like Gold Mines can reveal cultural expectations starting points for discussion speaking practice vocabulary, idioms grammar, usage pragmatic language use politeness strategies, appropriateness

14 Rewards, continued encourages students to explore further students can create their own corpora lessons applicable to other contexts

15 Data vs Intuition Corpora provide data Data informs materials

16 Data vs Intuition What language do you think is most typically used to give opinions, for example, in a class discussion? Imagine you are discussing whether it should be legal to talk on a cell phone while driving...

17 Data vs Intuition In my opinion, talking on the phone while driving is really dangerous and should not be legal. I think it s really dangerous to talk on the phone while driving. I really think it should be illegal.

18 Data vs Intuition From MICASE data we find that: in my opinion occurs 14 times I think occurs over 4,000 times

19 Data vs. Intuition What about language to suggest something? I suggest You might want to You might wanna

20 Simple searches e;page=simple e&cc=micase&type=simple&q1=i+suggest+that e&cc=micase&type=simple&q1=you+might+want+to e&cc=micase&type=simple&q1=you+might+wanna

21 Tips for How To Use Transcripts in the Classroom Students role play, reading aloud Instructor reads aloud Instructor and students read parts aloud Partners or small groups read/role play Assigned ahead for homework Read with a native-speaker Instructor prepares a recording (if audio files not available)

22 More Tips break longer transcripts into chunks focus questions on specific sections or lines have different groups responsible for different parts, then report to whole class

23 If no corpus, then... Record own classes, transcribe Students as ethnographers Web resources (also excellent materials for listening practice) youtube (e.g. UM Channel) E overview&list=uulloyck0qnh1mdkpvtnmx-q academic events (e.g. 3MT ) TED talks (with transcripts) NPR (National Public Radio with transcripts)

24 EAP speaking contexts Presentations (solo) Office hours Conferences Poster presentations Job interviews Group presentations Discussions (leaders, participants) Panel presentations Group negotiations with peers

25 Working with a transcript Situation: group presentations in classes What to investigate: how to start, what language is used, what strategies are used examples from MICASE: a Public Policy Class and a Biochemistry class

26 (example in Word doc)

27 Engaging students with Video Situation: 4 students negotiating their roles for an upcoming group project You have: 2 videos (with different outcomes) and a transcript Now what? How can we use these in our classes?

28 Providing meaningful feedback on EAP Speaking Consider purpose of assignment and purpose of evaluation What to use? grading rubrics / feedback forms Video review by instructors, by students Importance of self-evaluation

29 Feedback form example ELI 530 Feedback on Presentation 2 Student: Topic: Organization was there a clear organizational structure? was information organized well? were transitions smooth? Content - clear? terms defined? Use of visual aids/models were they effective? supported language? Speaking skills body language, eye contact, voice volume/projection, gestures Timing between 5 and 7 minutes? Specific words/phrases needing attention to pronunciation: Other comments:

30 Providing feedback via Viddler What is Viddler?

31 So, now... can you imagine how you might engage YOUR students through transcripts and video...? thank you