Designing Listening Practice

Designing Listening Practice by Using “Stickies”

by Majid Wajdi

    App Store" (can be accessed by using our Mac computer or laptop) provides various kinds of application. These applications can be freely downloaded or we can find them for charged ones. It means we can download by buying it or them.
      One of the applications we are going to discuss and demonstrate is what popularly called “Stickies”. “Stickies” is a Mac computer or laptop application used to make a quick note or some notes. “Stickies” is usually used to make a note, but we are going to discuss and demonstrate is another use of “stickies” for our teaching and learning processes. By using “stickies”, we can design listening practice in teaching and learning processes in the classroom or outside the classroom.
The following statements refer to “Stickies” which I would like to discuss.
1) It can be used to make a note.
2) The note or text we are typing will atomically be corrected, especially misspelled words, by showing suggested words.
3) If the suggested words do not appear instantly, misspelled words will be underlined red. It means we have to edit it.
4) The note or text we typed by using "Stickies" can be played in order to read for us.

How The Text Read For Us

1). Click “Edit”, “Speak”, and "Start Speaking".
2) in order to let the software read the text for us one line or one number only: Block the sentence(s) you would like to hear; click “Edit”, and then click “speak” and "Start speaking". It will read it for us.

The text can be copied from another file.
  How to copy the text from the other file:
A) go to the file you are going to copy
B) find and open the file, click copy
C) go back to "Stickies"
D) click “edit” and "paste"
E) The text will appear on the "Stickies" and ready to use.

Male or Female voice?

To choose and change the voice from male or females voice.
1. Click “System Preferences” on your Mac computer or laptop.
2. Choose and click “Speech” in the system of your Mac computer or laptop.
3. Choose "Text to speech" of your Mac computer or laptop.
4. Click "System Voice" on your Mac computer or laptop.
5. Choose male or female voice

 There are three alternate male voices: Alex voice, Bruce voice, and Fred voice. For female voices, there are four different female voices: Agnes voice, Kathy voice, Vicky voice, and Victoria voice.

Recording Listening Practice

In order to facilitate non-mac computer users, we can record listening practice using the following application. The recorded material can be saved in flash disc or CD, so it can be played using a non-mac computer.

The following are applications that can be used to record:
(1) Video in Photo Booth of mac computer
Return to and click “Photo Booth”. Select video mode. This application (Photo Booth) is already installed in a mac computer.
(2) “Extra Voice Recorder LITE”
(3) “iScreen Recorder Lite”
(4) “Screen Capture Lite”
(5) The text can be also recorded using “audio text LITE - text pad and Voice Recorder”.

      “audio text LITE - Textpad and Voice Recorder” are an application we can access by using our mac computer or laptop. We can record practically utilizing this application on our mac computer or laptop. Beside it can be utilized to record, it can also be used to edit written text instantly, since it will appear suggested words we type wrongly.
BUT the drawback of “AudioText LITE - Textpad and Voice Recorder”:
It only records for 5 minute duration.
(6) Smart Recorder Lite = recording duration: 3 minutes

The remaining four applications need to be downloaded first before we use them.