Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Flip video guide for external audience

The use of Flip meant that we could easily share our students' videos with the external audience, and only with them (access via a link). This would have been much more difficult to achieve with Media Gallery or Youtube.
This was a motivating task with a purpose beyond the assessment item; the existence of an audience beyond teachers  can promote consideration of how to speak to a "real" audience; there isa requirement for critical thinking in that students must reflect on the information which would be useful for the audience.
For marking and feedback purposes, short videos can be marked when and where the marker wants, in contrast to live orals; richer feedback can be provided, in particular on pronunciation. 

• Finding an audience - a group of target language speakers who genuinely need the simple information which beginners can provide.
• Providing very clear instructions to UQ students as to where and how to upload their videos. 

• Plan ahead so that you can locate a suitable audience.
• Provide students with practice in uploading Flip videos.
• Be aware of the maximum length of Flip videos.
• Create two Flip groups/ channels: one which is moderated to which all students can upload their assessment items students can only see their own work; one which is open, to which staff copies the videos of all consenting students, for sharing with the audience.
• We have found it useful to ask students to provide a transcription of their recording, to facilitate the provision of feedback. (This can help marker comprehension in the case of the weakest performances). 

• Describe [your] family, living conditions, educational background, present or most recent job. [...] describe people, places and possessions in simple terms" (CEFR scale for Sustained Monologue (Spoken Production), A2).
• Show some awareness of French-speaking cultures and cultural practices (including terms of address and generic conventions)
• Demonstrate ability to use communication technologies, in French.

It is possible that students could work from a script written  or corrected by an expert speaker or by generative AI. The assessment criteria have however been designed to require demonstrated engagement with course content: the criterion "Linguistic quality" rewards correct use of language seen in the course, language not seen in the course isn't considered; the criterion "Delivery" rewards confident, natural, conversational delivery, and awards 0 to "the impression of being entirely read from a script which you have difficulty following".

Less punitively: by redesigning this assessment item to allow the students to speak in their own voice, to a real audience, we hope to have increased the intrinsic motivation of the task itself and so to have engaged students in it.