Is This Thing On?

One tool I've come to rely on more and more is the "record" button on my mobile phone.

Nowadays I should think all phones have a memo recorder and since most teachers should have a mobile phone, anyone should be able to make use of this powerful little tool in one-to-one or small group classes.

Why use it?
Essentially, it brings in a level of objectiveness that is difficult to achieve when you're with students. Maybe you can understand them despite some errors here and there which you may or may not always correct, but when you listen to a recording, you hear things you normally wouldn't, and if you manage to transcribe them, they are there for both you and the students to see and analyze in black and white. Another important use it has is allowing students to "self correct". Noticing their own errors is the surest path towards mastery. Finally, it gives the teacher an opportunity to correct overall phrasing which is nearly impossible to do when correction on a word-level. Types of errors could include: unnecessary repetition, word choice, syntax, L1 interference, organization, coherence (understandability), cohesion (ideas/phrases connected grammatically with pronouns, connectors, etc?), use of connected speech, pronunciation and generally ways of sounding more "natural".

So how do we do this?
Tell students why you would like to record a couple of minutes of conversation.  Then during a speaking activity or just in the midst of a conversation, push "record".  You shouldn´t need to get more than a few minutes of speech to get what you need.  Then before the next class, transcribe what they said (this shouldn´t take more than 10 minutes and you shouldn´t need to spend any more time then with planning of the class).  The first few times, I copy and paste their transcribed speech onto another sheet and edit it to a more "natural" sounding speech.  How much you change depends on the level of the student and what it takes to fix their errors.  Then I ask them to compare the two versions and we discuss the differences and if necessary, this will lead into various grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation mini-lessons.  Plus it´s great reading (aloud) practice!

The best thing about it.
What´s also great about this is that it works really well for those pesky "conversation" classes where students don´t want to use a book.  It´s a great way to prove to them they need grammar, vocabulary or whatever and it gives you A LOT of material to work with and eliminates so much need for scouring for class topics on the internet (though you still should now and again).

So give it a try a couple of times and let me know how it went!