Korean Job Discussion Forums

ddeubel · Joined: 20 Jul 2005

I made a game using the speech accent archives. Who Is Speaking?

Lots of audio of the same passage being read by people from different countries. Can you both: Guess who is speaking (which photo) AND where they are from?

Score like it says: 2 for the correct person , 5 for the correct place/country. What's your total? First 10 the whole 20 questions. There is one first practice question which doesn't count. Control by clicking the screen. Stop the audio with the controls.

Feedback appreciated. Enjoy, good luck. Might be useful with students of a higher level.

DD
http://eflclassroom.com

crossmr · Joined: 22 Nov 2008 Location: Hwayangdong, Seoul

chris_J2 · Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Location: From Brisbane, Au.

There were a couple of those images which threw me. The veiled Middle Eastern looking woman from LA (USA), & the Chinese looking woman from Canada. After the practice run, it was really just a memory game.

Also, I couldn't work out if you're supposed to click on the person or country. I might try it a 2nd (3rd) time, clicking on country only. I am very good at geography.

Ok, did that, Round 2, I scored 24/25.

Some of those images overlay the map of their respective country, making it impossible to click on them (EG, Sweden, Ireland, Belarus).

ddeubel · Joined: 20 Jul 2005

Oh sorry, it really is primitive. Just click to get the audio. click again to get the answer. You can't click on the country but that's a neat idea and I could probably make this into a flash based game along those lines (with a lot of work).

As the credits state, these are stock photos. Not those actual people speaking. So really the focus is on the accent and that element of "Who" is really just to make it more engaging. The purpose in a way is to get it to be more educational and for English language learners than native speakers. The Language Accent Game did it well but wasn't very good for use with ELLs (no text/repetition and too wide a choice).

But also, one of the main purposes (as you discovered) is to get students to think covertly about stereotyping. Some are what we expect , others aren't . That's more real than our own generalizing.

I'm sure I can do this better - my hearts in the right place...just tinkering.

DD
http://eflclassroom.com

crossmr · Joined: 22 Nov 2008 Location: Hwayangdong, Seoul

tzechuk · Joined: 20 Dec 2004

It would be good to have idea of where the person is from - when you are presented with two Asian faces, not only do you have to guess the accent, you also have to guess which one is Korean and which one isn't, for example. So eventhough you know the accent is, say, Scottish, but with two caucasian, it could be either.

I'm no Picasso · Joined: 28 Oct 2008

My experience teaching ESL in the international center at a university really paid off here. I'm obscenely good at placing accents. One of those mostly useless talents....

Hightop · Joined: 11 Jun 2003

The idea is good but it should just be which country is this person from without the pictures of the people. Some of the pictures you use, the people do not come from the city/country that it says, eg Beijing/China. I think it gets too tricky by trying to play 'spot the stereotype'. Would be better used as a straight accent recognition game. But when it came to picking the accent I think i did well and got most of them, slipped up on the Sweden, Spain and Saudi I think it was.

samd · Joined: 03 Jan 2007

I also think losing the photos and making it a click-the-country game would be much better in terms of testing knowledge of accents.

Otherwise, as other posters have said, the one of the veiled woman from LA is impossible, and a lot of the others have less to do with picking accents, and more to do with trying to guess, for example, which Asian photo is Chinese and which is Korean.

ddeubel · Joined: 20 Jul 2005

thanks for all the feedback so far (but keep it coming!).

I'm going to make some changes in the next day or two based on these comments. Much appreciated.

I'll add a Check the answer box which will clearly take you to an answer and the suggested speaker. I'll be changing the photos and I guess I made it too tricky to be educational. I like and think faces are needed (when we learn language - a face is so important, even just a picture with listening - this is a well researched topic). However, I'll just make them simple, clear A/B choices and not try to be so tricky. (Scottish/China comments noted ---- however the LA woman is real and a friend came to mind with that example - however, as noted, I'm being too tricky for an educational game...).

More soon and if you do have an accent you think might be good to highlight, let me know. This fine resource has plenty but it is making it engaging for students that is the tricky part Smile

http://accent.gmu.edu/browse_language.php

DD
http://eflclassroom.com

ddeubel · Joined: 20 Jul 2005

I've updated this and think its an improvement. GO HERE

Thanks again for the comments and samd - I'll be thinking through a larger project of no faces, just a flash map and you click the country to guess after hearing a random accent from the archive....

Cheers,
DD
http://eflclassroom.com

earthbound14 · Joined: 23 Jan 2007 Location: seoul

I checked out the improved one.

Seems a bit odd, a cool idea, but I'm not sure where you are going with this one. Are you looking to place accents with a geographical location or are you trying to make some statement about accents and stereotyping?

I think you'd be better to have something that was less obvious if you wished to test ones racial stereotyping. Perhaps ask people to rate various statements with different accents on percieved intelligence, wealth and education. One might wish to use real qoutes from real people to make the point. Let's say a doctor from India reading his grocery list or a drug dealer in the US talking about politics...

Otherwise I think you might wish to look purely at ones ability to peg an accent with a geographical location rather than a person. Not at all a racial profile, just a matter of fact.

Another thing, were these real pictures of the real people reading the statements? Not a bad idea, but I think in most cases people with accents will be of some visible ethnic group, that's just the way it goes. You will only find people from places like Aus, the UK or some such places with people who have accents that do not match their ethnic background. I think to make this more interesting you'd have to provide some story about the person that might have something worth talking about in class. Like Bruce Lee, who was an American or even Brandon Lee who looked Asian butt was actualy a mixed American. Both men can be used as an interesting tale of racism and prejudice.

Bruce Lee is famous in Korea, yet few people here know he had a mixed son, that he was American, and of the troubles he faced wth both Chinese and Americans because of his race and lifestyle. Brandon Lee only started his acting career in Asian roles and is largely unkown to Asians despite his fathers fame.

You could also focus on Jim Peak, the Korean hockey player who made the NHL. He isn't well known, is Korean, yet lives life like any other Canadian.

Or perhaps Toby Dawson, the American Olympic skier adopted by Americans but born in Korea.

Or mixed Asians who look western but grew up in Asia (some in Korea). Would be interesting. There was a photographer named Rick Smolan who had an interesting story about a mixed girl in Korea named Natasha.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpi6us7wQfE

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/rick_smolan_tells_the_story_of_a_girl.html

All interesting cases that Koreans can relate to and that offer some sort of insight into the difference between ethnicity and culture.

As a young man, I myself found it interesting that Chinese folks with Chinese parents who didn't speak English could be more Canadian than myself.

peppermint · Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 6:16 am Post subject:

You might have your students take a look at this rather than reinventing the wheel. It's somewhat more difficult than yours, but very professionally done.

Privateer · Joined: 31 Aug 2005 Location: Easy Street.

^ Good test except I don't think it's fair that they put in all those people from continental Europe. Who can tell the difference between an Estonian accent and a Latvian accent??!

ddeubel · Joined: 20 Jul 2005

Yes, I agree. That's the main problem both for native speakers but especially ELLs (I mentioned this earlier in the discussion).

My game is simpler but yeah, needs some work and I'll let it digest in my brain a bit and come up with a new approach. But still a handy way to access the archives and give students some idea of the breadth of English speakers/accents around the globe. Who is speaking game?

DD
http://eflclassroom.com