XpressLab

Practice Exercises: This type of listening and speaking assignment presents a question prompt. The question prompt is usually a voice recording but it could be text. The question may also refer to a picture. Students will answer the question by making a voice recording. They can compare their answer to the sample answer by clicking the “Play” button in “Sample Answer” area.

Student Journal: In this type of assignment Students will make a voice recording that is submitted to the teacher. This type of listening and speaking assignment presents a question prompt which is always a voice recording. Examples of a journal assignment might be to read a short story and then answer a set of questions about the story or to listen to a short story and then record answers to questions about it. You might also be asked to reflect on an experience, situation or event. Teacher may provide students with recorded feedback to help with pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.

Oral Discussion Forum: This type of discussion forum is like a text discussion except that posts to the forum are voice recordings. Usually there will be a voice recorded discussion topic which students will respond to by making and submitting their own recording. Students may also listen and respond to voice recordings submitted by other students in the class.

Flex Test: In this type of test, questions are presented in the same manner as a practice exercise but recorded answers to questions are submitted to the teacher for marking. This is a “mastery” style test. Students may listen to recorded questions as many times as needed and they may re-record answers until they are satisfied. After completing all questions students will click a “Submit Test” link to send it test to be marked.

Oral Competency Test: This is a test that will assess students’ ability to respond to questions promptly. The test will help to assess their ability to participate in a normal conversation. The test will run from beginning to end without stopping. Questions are presented one after another. After each question has been presented, students will be given a pre-set number of seconds to think about their answer and then they will hear a beep which will indicate that the recorder has started. Students will be given a pre-set number of seconds to record their answer. When the test is finished, answers will be automatically uploaded for marking.