Voki for TOEFL teachers

Hi, 😎Beijing colleagues. I have already studied in University of Warwick for 4 months. I am extremely grateful to all the teachers here for their help. I feel that I am making progress every day. I also have experienced several moments when I questioned my effort, ability, and experience. Fortunately, the encouraging words from my teachers here always inspire me whenever I felt disappointed with myself. I gradually realize that the learning activity, to some extent, is similar to the experience of leading a life. They all continue in a process during which I explore, upgrade and then further explore. Sometimes I don’t exactly know where the next destination is, but I do know I am climbing the ladder to the next deck. 

Voki

One of the best ways to reinforce my own learning is to turn around and teach it to somebody else. In this blog, I want to share with you one technical tool called Voki (https://www.voki.com/), which I have just learned in ICT class. Voki accords with PPP (presentation, production and practice) approach to language learning and it is also consistent with task-based pedagogical practice. I hope that it could facilitate your TOEFL teaching for international high school students. 

Before class- more appealing preview work 

Voki contains a library of over 200 customized speaking characters, which TOEFL teachers could use to create presentation for lesson preview. The form of animation may help stimulate students’ learning motivation. For example, the extinction of dinosaur is an important topic in TOEFL reading and listening subject. You could use “create” function in Voki to create video products presenting background information associated with dinosaur extinction hypotheses. Besides, the “present” function could create vocabulary flashcard and allow already-made video to be added into the presentation. Then through this kind of preview task, students could have a preliminary understanding of the target topic and new words in advance of class, which would definitely enhance reading fluency and listening efficiency in following classes.

(The above is a Voki video sample created by me. See it on Voki, click here: https://tinyurl.com/29h9wsup )

 (a Voki presentation made by me)

After class- differentiating assignment and assessment

On Voki platform, you have the power to assign personal tasks and assess students’ uploaded works. You just click the “classroom” button, create a class and add student accounts into the class. Then different assignments could be created and submitted to students. For instance, after a TOEFL listening class, you require students to retell a piece of “Scientific American's 60-second Science” after intensive listening. Students could use attractive characters and voices on Voki platform to create their digital retelling tasks.

After reviewing students’ assignment, you could give individual feedback to every student. Interestingly, the “classroom” has “try again” and “approved” choices for you, meaning that you could give students opportunities to refine their works. What a considerate tool it is! I believe Voki could help you engage every student and organize class with less time and energy. 

However, you may worry that this tool may focus more on the form of presenting knowledge. It serves as the candy wrapper that aims to attract teenagers’ attention. After experiencing several moments with Voki products, the level of students' learning motivation, stimulated earlier by this tool, may decline sharply. what's more, if you are not good at technological tools, you may consider creating teaching products on Voki as one time eater in your daily work. 

So much for Voki today. see you next time!