Make a soundboard with Glogster

Soundboards can be a quick, easy way to train our ears, but if we make them ourselves, they can also boost fluency and meet proficiency standards.

I really wish I could find a soundboard creator page or app where you press a button to record directly to the button. However, failing that, I’ve discovered a relatively simple way to make my own soundboard using Glogster. Students could certainly follow the steps themselves and make their own, either to help with words or lines they have trouble spitting out or those they just need help remembering–a handy tie-in for North Carolina Essential Standards NL.COD.3.3 (Use readily available technology tools and digital literacy skills to present in the target language) and NM.COD.3.3 (Use readily available technology tools and digital literacy skills to present academic information in the target language), for example.

Steps:
1. Record yourself reading the whole list/text on Audacity, pausing your speech–not the recording–between each to leave a little room for editing
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2. Highlight one word/line of the recording at a time (listen to the highlighted part and adjust to make sure the beginning and end of the word/line are not cut off).

3. Export the highlighted selection as WAV or MP3 (I often forget to choose the selection export option, which means the audio is not divided in nice little hunks for the soundboard like I wanted.)

4. Name each audio “selection” you export with the word/line therein (or first word or two of the line).

5. Create a Glog.

6. Upload all WAV or MP3 files to Glogster.

7. Add a text box of your choosing.

8. Duplicate the text box until you have one for each word/line you recorded.

9. Type a word or line in each box in Spanish and put them in order of the text being read or other logical order (I alphabetized a list of trouble words students gave me).

10. Insert the audio for each file: I prefer a small, unobtrusive player (well, the default) to attach to corresponding text boxes.

Soundboard ideas:Collect a list of words that students feel they will have trouble saying to make a listening reference for the whole class. Hint: alphabetize the list and eliminate repeats. 

Highlight words in drafts of upcoming presentations that you want students to record on a soundboard ahead of time (Read: ANY NUMBERS, especially years…plus words you’ve heard them mispronounce before or just plain tricky words).Have students submit their audio “selection” WAVs or MP3s to a class dropbox/folder on people/places they’ve researched and create a class glog of all of the names and places. Then after presentations, have students fill in a scorecard, writing in the name of the classmate(s) who presented in a blank whre each person/place would be on the soundboard. Essential Standards–NL.CLL.3.1 Use single words and simple, memorized phrases in presentations to identify the names of people, places, and things; NM.CLL.3.3 Use appropriate pronunciation and voice inflection in spoken presentations.

Have students choose different children’s songs or rhymes from the target culture, possibly leading up to some Día del Niño festivities. They make a line-by-line soundboard of their own then must learn one other classmate’s. Essential Standards–NL.CLL.3.2 Use the language to recite memorized poetry and songs from the target culture; NM.CLL.3.2 Use the language to recite and act out simple poetry and songs from the target culture.

Students create soundboards for their favorite (non-Spanish) teachers to learn ways to talk about some basic concepts in their own classes. Bonus: work in the teacher’s favorite catchphrases too! Essential Standards–NL.COD.3.2 Use single words and simple, memorized phrases to name common objects and actions related to other disciplines; NM.COD.3.2 Use memorized words and phrases to describe common objects and actions related to other disciplines.

Students choose countries to research, finding names of traditional arts and artisanry/musical genres, popular artists/celebrities/shows, and favorite pastimes, creating soundboards with just the names before presenting basic facts for each. Before presentations, classmates have to guess which category each name falls into, then listen to presentations to see if they were right (Optional: fabulous prizes). Essential Standard: NL.CMT.3.1 Identify arts, sports, games and media from the target culture.

Also, how many times do students just shift back into English when they see a word remotely resembling one from their native tongue? Perhaps after a semester of, say, blogging and finding similarities, they could create a soundboard of cognates and loan words they have used–and misused!–but saying them with the right inflections. Essential Standard–NM.CLL.4.2 Exemplify instances of cognates and loan words.