How to Improve Oral Fluency -- Using SpeakingPal on Your Phone!

Nice to meet you! Last week, we learned about Speechling, a website for learning spoken language. Although Speechling can help our students practice speaking to some extent, its untimely feedback and detached practice content from reality has limitations. This week, I will introduce you a more convenient and effective software for practicing spoken language, SpeakingPal English Tutor. This is an interactive application that uses mobile voice recognition function. It features a series of mini courses, dialogues, interactive exercises, role-playing, and language activities, providing immediate feedback for users' oral performance and providing a review mode for the future. It can be used for free both on iPhone and Android. With this software, we no longer worry about searching for situational dialogues to teach words and sentences, and our students can also practice their communication skills.

Usage Guidelines

(1) Use your mobile phone to download SpeakingPal through the link: https://www.speakingpal.com/. 

(2) Register and log in.

(3) Select a preview of the unit example dialogue, you can practice individual words and sentences, as well as entire conversations.

(4) The comment area displays the words and sentences you practiced, and native speakers will evaluate your recordings.

(5) You will receive color-coded feedback, green feedback means you do a good job, yellow feedback means your practice is ok, while red feedback means your oral English should be improved.

(6) You can repeat the word, the sentence, or the dialogue according to the advice of the native speaker and colorful feedback.

Software Evaluation

Advantage 😀😀

(1) Because SpeakingPal can be downloaded on mobile phones, users no longer need to carry heavy books or have a computer device to practice speaking. They can practice anytime and anywhere (Pachler et al, 2010).

(2) Compared to Speechling, students can not only receive help from native speakers, but also receive timely feedback through AI.

(3) The practice of SpeakingPal usually only requires users to spend 3-6 minutes, helping them use fragmented time to learn.

(4) The practice of SpeakingPal is based on interesting conversations in real life, which can not only provide users with a natural speaking experience, but also provide teachers with more language teaching materials. By practicing English in familiar situations, students can learn faster.

Disadvantages 😔😔

(1) The SpeakingPal lacks long conversation practice, making it difficult for users to form a systematic learning system.

(2) While teachers require students to use mobile phones in class, it increases the risk of distraction and makes it difficult to manage.

(3) The feedback provided by artificial intelligence is not always accurate, and it may mislead users.

(4) The voice input function is limited by the environment, thus noise and bass volume may lead to inaccurate content input.

If you want to learn more about SpeakingPal, you can watch the video below. 👀👀

In summary, SpeakingPal is a mobile app that is highly recommended for students to engage in autonomous oral practice. Through authentic conversations and timely feedback, it helps users improve their oral fluency, communication skills, and comprehension abilities. However, we need to guide our students to practice relevant dialogues in a targeted manner, and using the SpeakingPal in the classroom requires proper supervision to prevent students from being distracted.

Reference

• Pachler, N., Bachmair, B., Cook, J., & Kress, G. R. (2010). Mobile learning: Structures, agency, practices. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0585-7