ELI at Kanda University of International Studies

This month’s issue of the Oxford University Press ELT Journal features Students Transcribing Tasks, an article by former and current ELI lecturers Christopher Stillwell, Brad Curraba, Kamsin Alexander, Andrew Kidd, Euna Kim, Paul Stone, and Christopher Wyle. In this video former ELI lecturer Christopher Stillwell talks about the origins of the experimental project, while Paul Stone and Dirk MacKenzie discuss how the project continues as an established classroom activity.

Teachers, students, and administrators who use audio recording devices such as (MP3 recorders or podcasts) for language learning activities should find this video and podcast useful.

Student Transcribing Tasks Abstract:

Student self-transcription can greatly enhance the power of tasks to promote language learning, for it allows students to re-examine their experience freed from the pressure of performing the task itself, so they can notice and reflect on the language used and encountered. This is a powerful step in language development because it allows for increased awareness and informed goal setting. Students can thus become researchers into their own language use, with their transcriptions offering teachers an efficient means of tracking their performances. This article shares findings gleaned from the implementation of a self-transcription activity that followed a poster presentation task, in which post-task reflection had the students assess their transcribed language according to simplified measures of fluency, accuracy, and complexity. In the closing, alternative means of adapting such work to suit a range of classroom conditions and purposes will be discussed.