Vocaroo- a voice recording site which can transform the concept of homework!

Vocaroo is one of the simplest voice recording sites on the internet! We do not have to download or install anything neither to create an account to use it. We only need to have internet connection and a computer with microphone. Then, we can go to http://vocaroo.com page, literally click on one button and start recording instantly. Finally, we can save, share or embed our recordings extremely quickly and easily. Vocaroo is free and by far the most easiest to use tool I have ever seen.

How can we use Vocaroo?

1.	Well, we simply open Vocaroo page.
2.	We click on the “Click to Record” button and as soon as we click on this, Vocaroo is going to request permission to access our microphone and camera. Then, we have to click on “allow”.
3.	As soon as we click on "Allow", Vocaroo will immediately start recording what we are saying. We should bear in mind that we can do recordings up to 5 minutes.
4.	When we are finished, we can click on “Click to Stop” button.
5.	Then we can review our recording and if we are satisfied with it we can save it.
6.	Another option is to share it via email or embed it onto websites, blogs. We can also download it as MP3.
	If you need more details about how to use Vocaroo, you can visit Russell Stannard's teacher training video . Reasons for us to use Vocaroo! First of all, Vocaroo is free and easy to use, really easy. So, it is suitable for inexperienced in technology teachers and for intermediate and pre-intermediate level students. I know that when it comes to technology, we as teachers feel the need to have full control of the web tools and Vocaroo can make us feel secure and confident. Furthermore, have you ever been worried that our students are not given many opportunities to speak in class because of the limited classroom time? How many times have you struggled to give all of your students the chance to practice speaking? Vocaroo can help us transcend our classrooms' borders and have our students do audio recordings while being at their homes. They will have the chance to practice more on their pronunciation, grammar, to develop their listening and speaking skills, their fluency and gain some confidence before the next time they will be requested to speak in front of the whole classroom. What is more, Vocaroo can establish a connection between what we do in class and our students homework. To become more explicit, we can work on the above skills and language knowledge in our classrooms and prepare them for the recording they will have to make at their homes (I will refer to this again later on). Homework might become more meaningful and pleasant as well. I remember recording myself singing songs in Greek and English using my cassette recorder. Nowadays, thanks to technology things are easier and many of our students might like the idea of recording themselves, pretending to be singers or sports journalists. Our students might develop their own interests and become more autonomous and by doing something interesting they can become more motivated. Finally, it is extremely easy for our students to send their recordings to us and we can also easily make recordings which will function as feedback and send these to them. In this way, we can have a more personal relationship with our students and address their needs individually. Activities and tasks with Vocaroo! Grammar We can use Vocaroo to help our students practice past simple. For example, we can ask them to do a recording and refer to what they did yesterday, over the weekend or during their Christmas holidays. Vocabulary We can work on the already taught vocabulary. For example, in every chapter there is a vocabulary build up section. We can choose some key words or difficult ones like idioms and make a recording by simply saying these words. Afterwards, we can send it to our students and ask them to write down the words they heard and make their own recordings by producing correct sentences which reveal the meaning of these words. Finally, we can send individual feedback to each one of our students indicating the areas they have to work on.  Speaking In our classes we usually deal with topic areas like family, professions, pets, friends etc.We usually make a warm-up by showing them some pictures and then we help them remember some relevant words. We then make some questions to initiate a dialogue and help them speak. Unfortunately, the time we have is very limited, thus, I believe it is essential to use Vocaroo and ask our students to record themselves at home while talking about their best friend, their pets etc. We can give them some questions as a guideline.  Another idea is to have them talk about their favourite food, book, or city. You can present these recordings in your class and ask from their classmates to guess what they are talking about. Of course, if our number of students is big we might not have the time to do this. In addition, you can have them occasionally talk about anything they want or even create imaginary stories. Finally, our students can record themselves reading the text we have done in classroom. I sure that most of them will go through the recording process many times till they feel satisfied.  Communicate with our students We can use Vocaroo to inform our absent students about what we covered in the lesson they missed and give them instructions for their homework. Our students can say to us what they have not understood. Some things to consider Vocaroo can be a very good tool but there are some things we have to bear in mind. First of all, if our group of students is big then we will have to devote a lot of time to listen to each recording. Now from the part of our students, they have to speak quite loudly and close to the microphone. This can be frustrated at the beginning because they might not be used to the idea of recording themselves. Nevertheless they can try again and again when being alone at their homes and overcome that problem. Another issue is that there is no interaction, no communication since the students produce monologues. To deal with this, we can ask them to work in pairs and assign them roles like interviewer and interviewee so that they will have to listen to each other and answer properly.  I like Vocaroo because it gives our students the chance to speak. I used to hate it when my teachers planned extra teaching hours for speaking only a week before the exams and expected from me to speak confidently and fluently. Let's give our students the chance to practice on speaking and communicate with us through recordings. Our lesson can be so much different, funnier and more personal than the other school subjects. This is one of the advantages of being a language teacher! So, let's make the other teachers feel jealous of us! Printscreens from Vocaroo