Teaching idea: storytelling with voice dictation & story cubes

USING VOICE DICTATION WITH STORY CUBES

In one of my speaking classes this week, I was teaching about storytelling, so I designed a warm-up I would like to share.

First of all, I started the lesson by dividing the class in two groups of 6 students, and I handed each group a bag of  story cubes.

These were the steps they had to follow:

Step 1: Each student was asked to take a die from the bag.
Step 2: One person from the group was in charge of lending their smartphone to use voice dictation and a notes app. Here I asked them to use the google dictation app that comes with androids (but any speech to text app could be used).
Step 3: Each group decided who would start and how the turns were taken (clockwise or counter clockwise)
Step 4: The first student to roll the die started telling a story according to the object that appeared on their die. This was dictated into the smartphone using voice dictation.
Step 5: Each turn had to provide a complete idea for the story (i.e. they had to say a complete sentence).
Step 6: After each turn, the student who followed had to add to the story according to their die image.
Step 7: Students had two rounds to complete the story. In other words, each student had two turns to add to the story.
Step 8: When the story was finished, they had to read and proofread their story.
Step 9: Each group shared their story with the class by reading it aloud.
Step 10: Feedback was provided regarding the outcome and language use.

When groups were done, I asked them to send me the stories. Here is one of the two stories my class came up with:

At the end of the activity, I asked my class for feedback and this is what they had to say:

• It helped them visualize their mistakes
• They were able to make connections throughout the story creation process
• It required them to think fast
• It helped them practice pronunciation
• It was fun

I am definitely adding this one to my teaching toolbox.