Technology Teach-In

When I was thinking about what kind of technology I wanted to infuse into my lesson plan, I was trying to think about how to improve speaking activities with technology. I am continually brain storming on how to improve speaking activities that will benefit my students in the future, and increase their proficiency in Spanish. The problem with many classroom speaking activities is that it is hard to insure that all students are speaking Spanish when the whole class is doing the activity at the same time. 

How can I be listening to all of the students' conversations at once?? 

Technology allows me to do this!! 

I will have students use their cell phones to record their conversations. 

In my lesson plan, first I will have all students find a partner. This solves the problem of not all students owning a smartphone because they will only need one smartphone per partnership. Students will be given a certain topic to talk about. They have to create a dialogue and then film themselves speaking the conversation. I am not exactly sure what the topic will be right now, but I think this method of having the students film themselves can be applicable to most units. 

I want to implement this type of speaking activity that uses smartphones because I want to insure that my students are practicing speaking Spanish. When we do normal speaking activities in the classroom, it is impossible (not impossible but very time consuming for one person) for me to go to each pair of students and listen to their conversation and give feedback. When students film their conversation, I know that they are practicing because I can listen to each individual conversation. Also, students will be motivated to speak Spanish, even when I am not directly next to them, because they will be turning in the video as an assignment. 

Lastly, students love to use their phones, so I might as well use them to improve their Spanish skills!