Video Chatting in ELL Classrooms

One of the most incredible and, in my opinion, underused recent technologies is video chatting.  It gives you the ability to speak with anyone with the service, anywhere in the world.  This is obviously valuable for teachers of foreign languages, who struggle to give students sufficient opportunity to practice with native speakers- and that can sometimes include teachers of English in English speaking countries.  In my home town of Marshalltown, Iowa, 19.1% of the population speaks Spanish at home.  With 1/5^th of the town speaking Spanish, many speaking it better than they speak English, as well as several Mexican grocery stores, it is often unnecessary for children and adults who are not comfortable with English to venture outside their comfort zones, and people can be impatient and rude when they make an effort to speak English. 

Regular Skype partners, face to face, could help solve this problem.  They would give students a chance to speak English in real contexts with people who are tolerant of their errors because, after all, both people are there to learn.  It could even be a boost for students’ confidence and encourage them to keep developing their first language to be the expert on a language another student is learning.

                But how can you use Skype to give students English practice?  There are hundreds of Skype tutors advertising online, but what if you just want some free practice and a way to make connections with other students of the same age? 

 1.       One good site for this is Skype In the Classroom.   There are still a lot of teachers seeking employment as one on one tutors on this site to sort through before you find a classroom of students who might want to connect with your students. Nonetheless, these classes do exist, and you can also make a profile and advertise for the exact sort of language exchange you’re looking for. I think a situation where each student can speak to their own "Skype pal" would be more valuable, but as this video shows, even group Skype chats are an exciting learning experience for students, at least as a reminder that the language they are learning can be used with students their age.

  2.      To find more one-on-one partnerships, and to allow students to have more choice in their conversation partners The Mixxer might be a better website.  I made an account a week ago, and so far, I have not found any teachers advertising for business.  Within the first two days, I made contact with a speaker of a language I want to improve in, German, and we already have a Skype date.  The drawback to this website is that, since it is not classroom to classroom, but rather student to student, nobody is monitoring what your students’ conversation partners type or say to them.  There is a process for banning members, but that is no guarantee of good behavior.  A second issue with this site is that, since it is a site members sign up to individually, it is dominated by adults and older teenagers.  For that reason, it should probably only be used for adults and older high school students.  There is also no way to sort conversation partners by age, so you will have to take some time clicking through to find viable conversation partners for your students         

    3.     A very similar site to The Mixxer is Conversation Exchange.  It gives you the option of communicating face to face, only in typed message, or in video chats.  It has the same problem as The Mixxer, though: most users are adults, and there is no way to sort by age, but at least it provides an extra batch of potential conversation partners. 

Unfortunately, if you want to use Skype in your classroom, it may take a lot of extra work, and if you have students younger than about 16, education.skype.com may be your only viable option.  But the  potential benefits makes it worth making an effort to find a connection.

Image by Flickr user Heather Durnin.