Some purposes in using audio
- To provide "aural source material"—e.g. a conversation with a client or colleague—for the learner to analyse or react to.
- To breathe life into ideas presented elsewhere in the course.
- To talk the learners through tasks during which it would be disruptive for them to keep consulting written guidance.
- To help the learners practise skills.
- To make the teaching more human and personal.
- To say things that are not so easily expressed in print.
- To encourage or motivate the learners.
- To influence the learners' feelings and attitudes
- To get worthwhile contributions to the teaching from people who would be unlikely to contribute in writing.
- To let learners hear the voices of experts, users, clients, other learners, etc.
- To present new ideas to learners who are unable or unwilling to read or whose circumstances prevent them from reading.
- To provide necessary variety in the learners' learning.
- To act as a trigger for group sharing of ideas and experience
NOTE: Purposes 12 and 13 are useful as a bonus, but are not in themselves perhaps a sufficient reason for using audio.
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The tutor's voice
The human voice is the key element in teaching with audiocassettes. As l've described on the previous page, it may be a major type of aural source material—e.g. recorded interviews and other unscripted interactions between people.
But the teacher or trainer may use her or his own voice directly in a variety of ways on audiocassette, e.g.:
- for lecturing
- for giving talks
- for guiding, tutoring and coaching the learner.
Presenting lectures is an obvious—but potentially boring—way of using the medium. Some distance learning institutions began by basing their distance courses on recordings of the lectures that were already being presented to on-site students. These were perhaps supplemented by printed notes, which might reproduce any chalkboard drawings or slides that the lecturer may have shown.
But the usual lecturing voice is likely to sound too formal, too high—faluting for easy listening, when it's coming from a plastic box on the learner's bedside table. The most effective audio "lectures' have the more intimate tone of a radio—"talk"—where listeners can feel the speaker is talking to them alone. (Alistair Cooke, with his Letter from America, or the Woman's Hour pieces that Helene Hanff used to send from New York are examples that come to mind here.)
Only the most engaging talker should risk chuntering on for more than a few minutes—say ten at most—without bringing in other kinds of sounds to keep the listener's interest. For instance, the tape might have two presenters—two quite different voices, a woman and a man say—who pass the teaching back and forth between them. Furthermore the presenter(s) may bring in pre-recorded interviews or discussions with other people whose viewpoints or experience are likely to be of interest to learners. (if these "inserts" are the actual subject-matter being analysed, rather than experts' comments on the subject-matter, then they are examples of what I have called aural source material.)
Talking tapes have become increasingly popular in the Open University and elsewhere—both with learners and with teachers and trainers. Apart from adding humanity and variety to the teaching, they often score over print in that learners may be able to follow them while driving their car or doing the ironing. Teachers and trainers welcome being able to speak naturally to the learner, exploiting informal, everyday examples and minor asides. They can also use their tone of voice to suggest what is important and what is less so, in a way that would not be possible in print.
What about the pictures?
Some people may think audio is a poor relation of video. But that isn't so at all. Keep in mind the (wise?) old lady who said: "I prefer radio to television—the pictures are better." Many people find their imagination is more stimulated by sound alone than by a combination of sound and (the producer's) moving pictures. Much aural source material whether natural sounds or people talking—can help learners create their own (mental) pictures.
In many videos, the power of the pictures can distract our learners—unintentionally drawing their attention to aspects other than the teaching points we are trying to make. (The "Didn't our Aunt Ethel used to have one like that?" response.) Some of the early Open University television programmes, for example, still contain some excellent teaching—but the sight of the presenters in their 1960s' psychedelic shirts, flared trousers and kipper ties tends to arouse more interest and speculation than the message they are trying to convey.
Audio pictures may not be so elaborate, but they can certainly preserve your material from dating. And they may more easily help learners to relate the message to their own social or work contexts.
However, audio does not have to rely on learners providing their own pictures. Where necessary, we can easily provide them with pictures as well—provided they don't need to be moving pictures. This would be one way of using a combination of media we call "audiovision".
Other uses of audio
You may be able to think of many other ways in which audio-cassettes can be used in open and distance learning. For instance:
- If you are teaching a foreign language, you may want to enable your learners to listen to material recorded by speakers of that language, and to record and compare their responses, in some kind of "language laboratory".
- You may want to record a commentary or study guidance on any set books or other sources your learners are using.
- Tutors and distance learners may sometimes choose to communicate with one another using cassettes as well as, or instead of, by letter or phone.
- Your learners may be interested in recording their own ideas about certain topics as a way of preparing for exams.
- You may want to try an evaluation technique (pioneered by my colleague, Fred Lockwood) and ask distant learners to interview themselves, talking their responses to an evaluation questionnaire into their own tape recorders.
- If your learners are able to get together in groups, but without a tutor present, you may want to send them a "trigger audio" that will act as a stimulus to discussion.
- Audio may also be used for assessment purposes, if you get learners to record examples of their work (e.g. foreign language speaking) or their reflections about some other project they have been engaged in.
- The organizers of an open or distance learning programme may consider sending round a regular "audio-newsletter" cassette to keep both learners and their supporters aware of what is going on in the system.
But I must leave you to pursue such additional possibilities on your own. In this book, we'll be concentrating on the more central approaches I have already outlined in the previous pages.
Summary
After print, audio is the most flexible and user-friendly medium. Print scores when you want to present pictures and diagrams, statistical data or complex verbal arguments. But audio allows you to teach through your learners' ears as well as their eyes. Thus you may be able to share experiences, affect your learners' feelings and humanize the teaching more potently than you can with print alone.
The ideal approach is often to combine audio with print and maybe with practical work—audiovision. Even when pictures are required, audiovision can be as effective as video, provided that the pictures don't need to be moving pictures.
Compared with most media other than print, audio is cheap and easy for your learners to use and control. It doesn't involve expensive, non-portable playing equipment; and learners can stop, start and replay a tape with minimal fuss. It is also relatively easy and inexpensive (e.g. compared with video) for you to produce the necessary teaching materials.
For some teaching purposes you may, of course, need video, computer-based learning, multi-media or whatever. And with all open learning materials you'll need to consider how your learners might need to be supported by the "human media"—live teaching (either face-to-face, on the telephone or by exchange of written messages). But this need not always be instead of audio. Audio-cassettes can usefully be integrated with any of these other media.
As I said at the beginning, no one medium ever has all the advantages. Hence we always need to ask:
"In THIS teaching-learning situation, what is the most effective COMBINATION of media that both I and the learners can afford?"
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