Posted the Valentine’s Day episode earlier tonight.
http://bardwellroad.podOmatic.com/entry/2006-02-10T11_49_07-08_00
1. Language mistakes
The issue of linguistic mistakes in unscripted student-produced podcasts nags at me. I’ve never been much of a believer in the effectiveness of correction of oral mistakes. But in a podcast, there they are, and as I work on the audio content, I start to notice them a lot, and wonder about what I should be doing about them. So far, I haven’t really focussed on that aspect. Perhaps one solution would be to get the students to analyse a bit of their own recorded speech subsequently, e.g. by asking them to make a transcript of part of their own speech, and to identify mistakes in it.
2. Embarrassing content
Another issue is that of content that may be embarrassing to one of the speakers. Last podcast (episode 5) one of the students sort of admitted doing something against his religion. One of the visitors or subscribers commented that if news of this travelled to the student’s country, it could be extremely awkward. In this episode, one student reveals that at the advanced age of 18, he’s never had a girlfriend, and hopes to get one in 2 or 3 years. Another student of the same age reveals he’s never kissed anyone. Could these admissions lead to embarrassment? Should I have published them? Well, neither student prohibited publication, and I’ve gone ahead.
3. “Photoshopping” students’ speech to make them sound more articulate, etc, vs. authenticity of speech
I’ve found that in some cases, especially with students who are not very articulate, or whose level of fluency in English is weaker, or whose utterances are garbled or incomprehensible or irrelevant, that I’ve been micro-editing their speech, in order to make them seem more articulate. I’ve actually beeen editing out long pauses, false starts and repetitions, ums and ahs, even whole sections if they were garbled, in order to make the students seem more articulate, fluent, etc. Although I think this is probably common practice in the mass media, I’m actually creating false utterances, simalcrums of the event, not authentic speech acts.
On the one hand, I’m thinking, I’m misleading the audience. These speakers are digital creations, not real people. On the other hand, I’m thinking – big deal, so what, it’s just a show, of course you’re going to “photoshop” participants, to make it accessible and attractive to the audience.
5 responses so far ↓
1
Clive
// Feb 11, 2006 at 11:31 pm
Three very good points.
1 I suppose this depends on what you want to publish for. Is it as a showpiece for an audience, or is it prmarily for the benefit of the participants? If the first answer is correct then maybe it would be a good idea to polish things up as much as possible – this would be in line with editing out gaps, mistakes etc. If you simply want to use it as an exercise for the students, then show it warts and all. They will then be able to see their faults and mistakes and do something about it.
2 This point was mentioned early on during this EVO session. Some people didn’t seem to think it was of any great importance if you were dealing with adult students. But it is not just a matter of age [as we see it] – many of our students come from very different societies to us and things which we would think nothing of can be deadly serious to them and their families. In China for instance, where I teach, homosexuality is a definite no-no subject. A couple of years ago I came across a student who was gay but he managed to keep quiet about it. A foreign teacher got to know about this and, without thinking, let the information slip to other students. The gay student was terrorised by his colleagues and subsequently commited suicide. This is something of an extreme example but it is the sort of thing that happens.
2
Elizabeth Hanson-Smith
// Feb 12, 2006 at 9:59 pm
Geoff–
I had a couple of thoughts on your ponderings:
1. Language mistakes – I think it is up to the students to rehearse and re-record if they wish. I rather like the idea of having students later transcribe what they have said, although spoken English and written English are quite different from each other. If the purpose is to have polished speech for an audience “out there,” then as Clive mentions, it might be good to have the students (not you) polish the utterances. If it is part of the learning process, the podcasts early in a term and late in the term should reflect what the students have learned. No matter how much they may rehearse, the initial product won’t be as good as the end-of-term ‘casts.
2. Embarrassing content – I agree that you need to consult with the individual students about whether the content embarasses them. I suspect many students just do not realize how wide an audience a podcast might have, not just this term, but years down the road!
3. Photoshopping the ‘casts–I’d say not a good idea unless the students do it themselves for some purpose, e.g., a special audience. I think it would be better, as I suggest in #1 to have them see how much they can improve over the longer term.
Just a couple of centavos of thought. You’ve raised some very important issues, and I am sure there are many possible answers.
–Elizabeth
3
geofftaylor
// Feb 13, 2006 at 9:48 pm
Listening to Richard Green’s Peruvian student, and reflecting on his noticing the slip-up the student made with the form of the word “prosper”, I was reminded of a line in Groundhog Day (one of my favourite films), which I think has a bearing on the issue of student mistakes.
Bill Murray’s character, stuck in a time-loop of a single repeating day, is in a bar, describing some of the great days he’d had in his life, and wishing that the day he’d got stuck in was a different day than this day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. One of the guys he’s drinking with says something like: “Some guys would look at this glass here and say that glass is half full. Other guys would look at the glass and say that glass is half empty. You’re a glass half-empty kind of guy, aren’t you?” Same with language students (= the glass) and the language they produce (= the beer).
4
carole macdiarmid
// Feb 14, 2006 at 4:10 pm
1. I think for this it would be interesting to see what the learners think. When i was drafting my on, i started recording, then decided to draft, and then rehearsed a couple of times to tidy it up- and that is as a native speaker. so their perceptions as to how accurate and rehearsed they want to be, and also what they see as the funtion may be useful- if tey see and know it as a more spontaneous thing, then perhaps they will feel fine about it? and what ever they do, it will be a usful source of lanaguge for them to work on
carole
5
geofftaylor
// Feb 14, 2006 at 10:17 pm
Dear Carole
Yes, you’re absolutely right. I found that when I spoke alone, recording a podcast, I needed to prepare skeleton / key word notes for myself. Otherwise I lost the thread or started umming and ahhing too much.