Voices of the World

  Today Sharon introduced us to 'Voices of the World'. Every month she creates new tasks which people from all over the world participate in. The participants use the same software as she has used  to create their own version of the task. They complete the task in their own language and include their own resources. I think this is an effective way of encouraging the children's understanding of all the different languages around the world. The tasks require the use of simple and basic language to make it easier to translate and learn the words in the different languages.


  My group decided to do something quite simple that required basic vocabulary children would enjoy learning. Our chosen topic was "Our favourite sports." We selected 10 different sports, found pictures relating to the sport and displayed them on a PowerPoint. We used audacity to record each of the pronunciations of the sports in English. This software is very easy and effective to use because you can instantly playback what you have recorded and can cut the bits you don't like out. This took some time because we were trying to get the pronunciation correct. We then used a website called myplick in order to put the audio and PowerPoint together. The software is extremely straightforward to use. Although, it took a while to upload both files and then we found that we could not access our work because we did not have an account with the website. This resulted in us running out of time therefore having to stay behind to finish it quickly. Once it was all uploaded we just had to adjust the voice recordings to go in time with the PowerPoint. Although the software's were easy to use, it was quite time consuming so I would carry out this kind of lesson over a number of lessons. I am really excited to see what people from all over the world create and learning how to say the different sports in a variety of languages.



'Voices of the World' May Task'

• Children in the class will draw/create pictures to go alongside the sports mentioned.
• Note: No children are to be in the pictures.
• These pictures should then be placed on a PowerPoint.
• Using a sound recording program, such as Audacity, the class can then record themselves saying each of the words aloud, in their first language.
• The teacher can then merge these using a simple program such as 'myplick'.
  Our Favourite Sports