Work in pairs, learn in Tandem
In order to improve oral skills in foreign language students, SpeakApps is developing a set of tools for online working and practicing. One of these tools is Tandem, a content management system that allows doing synchronous oral tasks in pairs.
Sometimes, online students are not willing to interact since there is not always a reason for doing so. However, Tandem gives them that reason to talk and interact, since they both need to work together to reach a specific goal. Another advantage of the tool is that teachers do not need to be there, and students can practice as much as they want to.
Tandem is a useful system to give students speaking practice outside the classroom. Furthermore, the tool is an open source and Creative Commons licensed software available at our Moodle platform, so if you are a teacher willing to use it just contact us at speakapps@uoc.edu. If you are a student, let your teacher know about this tool.
If you want more information about how it works, see the short video below.
[SWF]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeYcUb2vOLw,480,350[/SWF]
