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Practice and analyze beginner-level English conversations with a new activity plugin: the P-CHAT #5

This presentation introduces a new activity plugin for Moodle called “P-CHAT” (Practice Conversations as Holistic Assessment Tools). The P-CHAT plugin is a formative assessment tool that provides students with 1) an opportunity to practice conversational English, 2) immediate feedback based on hard data of their contribution, and 3) a timely opportunity to reflect on their performance with a view towards future improvement. Adapted from a formative assessment technique that has been developed over the past two years, teachers can use the plugin for student assessment and evaluation of speaking skills, and researchers can utilize a large quantity of data (e.g., audio recordings, transcriptions, student responses, quantitative analysis of speech) for investigating a variety of questions. In a P-CHAT activity, students first prepare to converse in English about a particular topic by considering target vocabulary before making an audio recording of their contribution. Once the conversation has ended, students transcribe their contributions. When students are finished transcribing, they receive immediate feedback on their oral production including total words spoken, turns taken, average turn length, longest turn length, target vocabulary used, and a comparison of their transcript against one generated using automatic speech recognition (ASR). Students complete the activity by answering a series of reflective prompts. Presenters will demonstrate the plugin by walking through each step in the student interface before highlighting teacher controls. This plugin is being developed with support by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 19K13309. It is available for download and use at no charge.