Voki

What is Voki?

Voki is a website that enables users to express themselves on the web in their own voice using a talking character. 

For the visual part, you can customize your Voki in many aspects, for example you can choose your favorite character, the background picture, you can choose his/her clothes and even the color of the eyes.

And when it comes to voice, you can either directly record yourself speaking on Voki, or you can upload a recording, and you can also choose another voice and type your sentences so that he/she would read it for you.

After finishing your Voki, you can send a link to others' email or embed it into your own blog or your face book account.

How to use Voki?

Why language teachers should use Voki?

What are the limitations of Voki?

• The recording is limited to only one minute, which is too short for speaking practice. But if you pay and become a member, you can get more time to speak and record.
• There are so many options for customization that young learners may be easily distracted to the look of the characters rather than focus on speaking practice.
• It seems you can only embed one Voki in one post, you can't do more in one post.
• At least on my computer, the recording doesn't go well, therefore, I made a recording on Vocaroo and then upload it on Voki. Hopefully, it works well on others'.

Dvolver

What is Dvolver?

Dvolver is an online free movie maker. Teachers, as well as students, can use it to create your own cartoon movies, and send them to others' email or embed them in your blogs.

Click here to access Dvolver: http://www.dvolver.com/moviemaker/

How to use Dvolver?

Dvolver is very easy to learn for everyone and even students can learn to use it very quickly. Basically, you can just follow the instructions (the words in yellow in the upper left corner) and click "Next" (on the lower right corner) until you finish. Below is a Step-by-Step instruction, which presents an example of how to make cartoon movies using Dvolver. 

1. Select a background and a sky.

2. Select a plot.

3. Select one or two character(s).

4.Type in the characters' lines. 

5. Select music. IF the dialogue is not finished, select 'Add a new scene' and repeat the previous steps until you finish the whole dialogue. Otherwise, select 'Finish movie'.

6. Select movie title design and type in the movie title and director's name.

7. Preview and send the movie.

8. Copy the code in the white box and make sure paste it into your blog in "HTML" mode.

Done! It's just as simple as that. And this is the movie I made.

The dialogue above is cited from Longman New Concept English Book 1 by  L. G. Alexander.

Why should language teachers use Dvolver?

1. It is absolutely a more interesting way to present dialogues than textbooks.
2. Students/Teachers have many choices of the characters and the scenes. You can type in any dialogue you like. Therefore, students are better motivated, especially young learners.
3. It is easy to use, for both teachers and students.
4. Students can create their own dialogues. They are not just 'passive knowledge receivers', instead, they are encouraged to be explorers and creators of language (Brown, 1991).
5. It assists Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT), for example, role play tasks.
6. It stimulates students' imagination.
7. Once you finish a movie, it is saved online, so it doesn't take up your computer space.

How can Dvolver foster language learning?

Role play

1. When teachers first introduce the text or dialogue to students, traditionally, by playing a tape or simply reading the dialogues to the class. Now, you can play a cartoon movie.
2. Instead of teacher giving some example sentence and asking students to read after him/her, students can make up their own dialogues using the grammar patterns they have just learned from textbooks. 
3. Teachers can type in the students' dialogues, make a movie in class and ask students to do a role play by dubbing for the movie.
4. Instead of asking students to recite the text, teachers can ask students to make their own movies and send it to the teachers or embed it into students' blogs.
5. Teachers can also use Dvolver to give feedback using the 'one person speaking' plot.

What are the limitations of Dvolver?

1. There's a 100-letter limitation for each speaker in one single turn. Therefore, it can't be used for very long or many sentences.
2. There are only six turns in one scene. But you can add as many scenes as you like. Theoretically, the dialogues can be as long as you like, but they have to be breakdown in to separate scenes.
3. The characters are limited. Especially, in a Chinese EFL context where I belong to, students are not really familiar with any of these cartoon characters.
4. It only allows for one or two character(s) at most and it doesn't work for three or more speakers in one scene. 
5. You can't download the movie. You will have to access the internet in order to watch. I suggest you use a screen recording software to record your movie and save it in your computer so that you can use it where you like.

Lesson plan using Dvolver

This is an sample task to show how teachers can use Dvolver to make short dialogues and use them in the classroom for students to make up a dialogue of their own. 

Context

In this class, students are 14-15 years old in a public junior school in China. Their mother tongue is Mandarin Chinese. This is a speaking class and the topic for this class is 12 zodiac signs.

Role play situation

Situation A

You are an Aries man. You are due to get married next month. Last Saturday you went to a party (without your fiancée) and met another beautiful girl. You fell in love with her immediately and, as a result, you no longer feel you can go through with the marriage. You decide to phone up your fiancée to try to explain in as nice a way as possible why the marriage is off. You may tell the truth that you fell in love with another girl, or you may tell a lie, make up an excuse. But remember you are Aries, and you are likely to be self-centered and hot tempered.

Situation B

You are a Virgo woman. You are due to get married next month and are really excited about it. You are sitting at home one evening when the phone rings. It is your fiancé. You are glad he has phoned because you want to discuss whether or not to invite some of the people you work with to the wedding. Remember you are a picky, indecisive perfectionist. 

Task Design

Pre-task

• The teacher give instructions to students about how to do the role play.
• The teacher offers students with an example using the Dvolver. The teacher could provide an opening dialogue  between the two characters, which is displayed above.

Task circle

• The teacher asks students to discuss and make their own dialogue.
• The teacher observes students' discussion and scaffold students when they are in need of help.
• Students in pairs, present their final dialogue to the rest of the class. (If students have computers, they can make their own short cartoon movie using Dvolver and present while their are doing the role play.)

Post task

• The teacher gives students feedback of their role play performance.
• The teacher explains some language focus to the students.