Saturday 13 December 2008

IOW Show and Tell Update for October 2007 and 2008: In The Audio Mirror




I am delighted to announce that Joe Dale has now published ALL the audio for the Show and Tell from this year and last year’s Isle of Wight Conference.
As I could not attend last year, no doubt this will make me realize how much I have missed out!

It felt odd listening to my own session “Preaching To The Converted”, about how to spread the word about ICT in languages. I wrote a blog post about it and even included my presentation but listening to the audio felt so different from what I remembered.


My first reaction was “Do I really sound like THAT?” but Joe assured me he had not been using any of the trendy Audacity sound effects that he demonstrated at the conference!

Funnily enough, this really made me think about how I use my voice and I am very tempted to sneakily record one of my own lessons to hear what it sounds like to be in my own classroom…
I love singing and acting and I have always been very aware of my voice and how I use it in a physical sense. The recording made me listen to my intonations –sometimes very French, sometimes very Northern English.

I love accents because they say so much about what makes us who we are. It always makes me smile when I have the following conversation with a cheeky student (remember I work in a school with about 50% students from ethnic minorities):
“You are French? Why do you speak like THAT, then?
-Like what?
-You have an accent.
-So have you.
-Oh yes…
-You should be proud of it-that’s who you are.”
(end of conversation-Student usually smiles back and grows that little bit taller!)