Company Blog

Our partners NCCA recently released their report on the latest phase of the FÓN project. This third phase carried out the recommendations from the previous phase - to examine the potential role of Learnosity Voice in supporting the assessment of spoken Irish in the state oral examinations.

The project took place in 2010 over 14 weeks and involved 117 students and 5 teachers during the run up to the Junior Certificate Oral Irish exams.

The students used Learnosity Voice in a structured way to enable continuous assessment models and use of e-portfolios. The participating students were given the opportunity to be involved in selecting their best pieces of recorded spoken work and submitting them as evidence of learning.

During the project the students used the following elements of Learnosity Voice that were mapped onto the existing elements of the oral exam structure:

• Voice Response – Using Learnosity TalkBack to enable students to record spoken responses to questions set by teachers.
• Picture Sequence – Using TalkBack in conjunction with five hard copy pictures, the student has a minute to review the image and then record a spoken description of what he sees.
• Role Play – Using Learnosity Connect for role play where each student is assigned to participate in any one of 8 role plays.
• Voice Chat – Using Learnosity Connect to enable student-to-student conversation on subjects guided by the teacher or for general practice by students.

Findings:

All teachers involved said that that their students had benefited from their participation in the project. They said that there were huge improvements in class behaviour, motivation for learning Irish, submission of homework and general enthusiasm for the Irish language.

All of the teachers were very happy with their students’ performance in the state exam and cited FÓN’s benefits as an exam preparation tool as well as the transferable benefits seen in terms of aural and written language.

Teachers praised FÓN for its unique ability to enable spoken homework. The report tells us of instances where students did not have a family member at home that that could help them practice oral Irish and in this case FÓN was of great benefit.

In using FÓN for continuous assessment, teachers saw the benefits in the reduction of stress and anxiety.

Read more about FÓN phase 3