What did students create and share? 

In this read-aloud project, a group of 12 English language learners were asked to read aloud for a minute and record themselves on an online audio editing platform over the course of 10 weeks. After they created the audio clip, they made a Google Slide and answered three reflection questions. Each week, they made a new entry in their audio journals to improve along the Six Elements of Voicing.  

Goals/Objectives

• Improve students’ oral language and speaking using the six elements of voicing (pacing, expression, volume, phrasing, tone and energy)
• Support student use of technology, including the audio editing tool Soundtrap and Google Slides

Audio recording and editing: Soundtrap for Education on school-issued Chromebooks with school-issued headphones with built-in microphones

Read-aloud self-reflection: Google slides

Context and Classroom Rollout

What: Each student at the school has English Language Development daily for half an hour. This special project was tailored for students who are not newcomers, yet remain classified as English Language Learners after several years at the school. In this case, the audio journal/read-aloud project took place once a week between December 2023 and March 2024, but could have gone all year. 

Why: Audio is a strong method for improving student oral language skills. In this project, students could record into the audio tool rather than read aloud in front of the teacher or a classroom audience. In addition to my assessment, they were also asked to reflect on their own progress, which empowered them to take greater ownership of their learning and progress. There was the added benefit of repeated use of technology tools (Soundtrap and Google Slides). Students also gained greater skill and confidence with these tools as they repeatedly used them. 

Project Outline

Step 1: Introduce the read-aloud protocol to students and sign them into the audio tool. For each session there would be an initial group welcome and check-in question, and then students would record their audio clip. 

Step 2: We used the same protocol for each class session, since we only had 30 minutes. 

Students did their audio recording in class. We started together and then we would separate when it came time to record. Each student had a Chromebook and headphones with a mic. They would scatter around the classroom and some would go into the hallway and sit on the floor. Since they were only supposed to record about a minute, they only had about ten minutes total to find a place and sit and record a couple of takes. We would then come back together to close and share.

In our first meeting in early December I introduced the students to the Six Elements of Voicing: volume, expression, pacing, phrasing, tone, and energy. Each week, they chose one element to get better at and each week the students attempted to improve by listening to their previous week’s recording and choosing one to get better at.

In the second week, I turned the Six Elements of Voicing into a modified single-point rubric to track student progress. The single-point rubric created for this project had two columns to the left and two columns to the right. If the column on the far left was checked that meant that the student did not approach the criteria, if the near left column was checked, the student was approaching the criteria. The far right column meant that the student exceeded the criteria. The near right meant that the student had met the criteria. This class was not graded in the summative sense, but this assessment tool allowed both students and myself to track the ways students progressed over time. 

I believe for most students the idea of discussing and modeling improvement along six elements of voicing rubric helped them to slow down and improve. The consistent use of the same tools and routines also helped us to aim right at the objectives. Students who took this project seriously improved in their oral reading. 

• Getting Started with Audio Journals (slides)
• Six Elements of Voicing Rubric 
• Six Elements of Voicing Infographic