This presentation discusses developing online listening exercises for English using speech recognition technology. It addresses challenges like getting text from audio, creating exercises for different devices, and tracking student progress. Speech recognition software like Dragon and Dictanote can extract text from audio with varying accuracy. The presenter suggests combining audio and text by having students speak into speech recognition software to generate text they can read along with. Multimedia exercises created with Hot Potatoes can embed audio and video to allow students to practice listening comprehension.

1. Developing online listening
exercises for natural English
Presented at the TESOL Arabia
Conference in Dubai, March 13, 2015
by Vance Stevens

2. Access this presentation later
• Written version of this presentation
http://tinyurl.com/tacon2015vance
That’s - tacon2015vance
• Slides on http://slideshare.net/vances

3. Pedagogical challenges
• “Teaching” listening materials in large classes
• Getting machine-readable text from audio
media
• Creating exercises accessible on student
devices (PC’s, iPads) in 1-to-1 contexts
• Tracking student progress efficiently

4. Easy: Getting text from print
• Scan it to OCR
• PDF to Word conversion
• One Note – copy text from image
• Speech recognition
More difficult: Text from speech

5. Speech Recognition SR
• Discrete
– Phone routing systems
– Traci Talk
• Continuous
– Natural language processing
– Dragon Systems

6. Dragon on iPad
• Strengths
– Fairly accurate
– Easy to use
– Works offline
• Weaknesses
– Can’t see text while
recording
– Not easy to correct text
– Getting text from iPad

7. Dictanote on PC
• Strengths
– See text as you speak
– Full set of text
processing tools
– Autocorrect
• Weaknesses
– Must be online

8. Affordances for combined skills
• Start with Audio
– Speak it into an SR
engine to get text
– Present student with
audio enhanced with
• Reading material
• Machine-readable text
support
• Online audio practice
exercises
• Start with text
– Speak it into an SR
engine to get soft text
– Record it in Audacity
simultaneously
– Present student with a
reading enhanced with
• Audio support
• Machine-readable text
support

9. Pedagogical implications
• Students can read at pace of recorded audio
• Provides audio support for silent reading
• Paste text into Google Docs, share with students
– FIND vocabulary words (contextual practice)
– Create text manipulation exercises
– Quickly find / display examples / teaching points

10. Getting text from unclear speech
• Develop Hot Potatoes
exercises that
– Embed audio or video
– Allow students to pace
and repeat audio
– Provide copious
materials to teach /
assess listening
comprehension
– Allow teachers to track
completion of assigned
tasks
• Start with unclear audio
– Speak it into an SR
engine
– Present student with
audio enhanced with
• Reading material
• Machine-readable text
support
• Online audio practice
exercises
Air Traffic Control recordings
tend to be unclear in places

11. Delivery of Multimedia HP
• Multimedia Hot Potatoes
comprises 2 files
– A Hot Potatoes html file
– A multimedia file
• Both files must be proximal
for the lesson to run. How
can we package them?
– Zip files
– RAR files
– Scorm

12. Together they look like this
Try it: http://vancestevens.com/kbzac/hotpots/videolistening/sukhoi.htm

13. Code added in configuration menu
For Audio
<audio controls>
<source src="sukhoi.mp3"
type="audio/mpeg">
Your browser does not support the
audio tag.
</audio></br>
For video
<video width="320" height="240" controls>
<source src="Sukhoi.mp4"
type="video/mp4">
Your browser does not support the video tag.
</video></br>

14. You can also embed online media
From the embed code supplied here:
https://soundcloud.com/pilotedge/full-ifr-clearance
<iframe width="100%" height="150" scrolling="no" frameborder="no"
src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com
/tracks/24468540&color=ff6600&show_artwork=false"></iframe>

15. Here is the result
http://vancestevens.com/kbzac/hotpots/pilotedge/pilotedge_ifrclearance.htm
http://vancestevens.com/kbzac/hotpots/pilotedge/pilotedge_ifrclearance_dragndrop.htm

16. For more information
• Written version of this presentation
http://tinyurl.com/tacon2015vance
That’s - tacon2015vance
• Slides on http://slideshare.net/vances

17. That took 30 minutes
Vance Stevens
http://adVancEducation.blogspot.com
http://learning2gether.net
http://twitter.com/vances