Project: Little creative speakers

Friends,: in 2023, we had the opportunity to carry out a school radio project, agreed with the children and families of the Simón Bolívar and Brasil schools, in Montevideo, Uruguay. We humbly consider that the achievements in terms of learning (for the students and for the teacher), and also the bonding and human achievements in general, deserve to share it with you.

Andrés Núñez Leites (January 2024).

Project name: "Little creative speakers"

Initial problem:

In today's digital age, children show a growing desire to use information and communication technologies (ICT) to express their ideas and emotions. However, despite this enthusiasm, it has been detected that they face difficulties in listening attentively and actively, as well as in expressing themselves orally in a more formal and autonomous way, without depending exclusively on references from the immediate environment.

Problem indicators:

     1. Dependency on immediate references: Children tend to base their oral expression on

        in direct experiences and fail to create content beyond their immediate environment.

     2. Lack of active listening: A tendency towards distraction and lack of attention is observed

        sustained during conversations or activities that require active listening.

     3. Limited formal expression: When expressing themselves orally, children show difficulties

        to adopt a more formal and structured tone, which could affect your skills

        communicative as they advance in their education.

     4. Technological control: Although they show interest in ICT, the lack of guidance and structure

        limits your ability to use these tools creatively and educationally.

Project justification: 

This project, "Little Creative Speakers", arises as a response to these identified challenges. Through the creation and broadcast of internet radio programs, the aim is not only to encourage children's oral and written expression, but also to improve their active listening capacity, providing them with a platform where they can use ICT in an educational and creative way. . This comprehensive approach aims to address current difficulties and empower children to become more effective and technology-aware communicators.

Orality is one of the least visited linguistic macro-skills, at least in a technically strict sense, both in Primary and Secondary education. What it means to “speak well” is in itself a linguistic and also an ideological problem. At one extreme we could think of a grammatical dimension at the service of pragmatic effectiveness: the oral statement consists of at least three parts, namely: an allusion to the previous speech, especially when it is a dialogic situation, the enunciation of a idea that you want to communicate and an invitation to respond by the recipient of the message - whether it is a situation of spatial co-presence or mediated by remote technological means. Continuing within this same approach, the criterion of “what is well said” is the effectiveness of the communication in the reception of the message, that is, the ability to communicate the idea and/or arouse the emotions sought by the person who enunciates the message. At this point, the use of slang, idioms and local dialect varieties becomes absolutely valid. The problem appears when trying to reach the public, in our case, Spanish speakers in general. That is, when we intend that the message enunciated by our students can be understood by a wide range of listeners such that it transcends national borders and has as its horizon precisely the Spanish-speaking world. Putting this challenge into play, we find ourselves with the need to lean, in that continuum between the most informal pole of the spoken language and the most formal, towards the latter. The Internet era exponentially expanded the potential audience for messages. Now, leaning towards that formal pole also brings with it the challenge of not losing spontaneity and not falling into the error of, in the interest of being understandable by all Spanish speakers, speaking with such a strict and academic formality that it does not represent the concrete experiences of those The message is enunciated, in our case, by the children of two schools in Montevideo. Fortunately, children are far from “knowing nothing” regarding the linguistic appropriateness of the message for a broad audience. Born after the proliferation of the Internet and cross-border communication, they soon learn to recognize that communicators, beyond their specific geographical location, try to adapt their lexicon to those who speak the same language in distant places, and even when they use local idioms they try to subsequently a more general “translation” for all users of the lingua. From this agreement, which at times remains implicit and sometimes needs to be made explicit to generate the corresponding adaptation, we begin to talk. In simulated radio broadcasts, children soon discover that they need writing as support for a more formalized orality. Here a whole world opens up: the need for the production of radio scripts, with its writing rules whose goal is the facilitation of oral enunciation. Now, all this development of linguistic skills does not occur in a vacuum, nor even in the simple need to facilitate specific oral communications, but on the basis of what children are studying and learning in the most diverse fields of knowledge and disciplines such as as natural and social sciences. Competencies are not developed in a conceptual vacuum:  to be competent, you must know concrete content with its own internal logic in terms of logical-conceptual relationships and discursive structuring. Last, but not least, the development of both written and oral communication skills has a direct impact on the cognitive development of children, since to communicate an idea beyond the level of mere opinion and incorporating explanatory and argumentative elements it is necessary to expand the level. of understanding the world, or in other words, the growing structuring and conscious complexity of the language used, implies a growing structuring and complexity of thought.

An initial problematic element is the fact that a good part of oral communication, especially in its more informal town, rests on the knowledge that the speakers have of the immediate context in which the communication is generated. This kind of epoché of everyday life, once pointed out by phenomenology, is not a problem, but a necessary practice, to the extent that it would be exhausting, in each speaking situation, to be defining and conceptualizing each thing that is said and to what purpose. it makes reference. The problem appears with remote communication for a broader audience. Here the substitute solution is the inclination towards the more formal pole of speech and towards the use of a more standardized lexicon and the explicit clarification of local referents. Another of the initial problems that we pointed out above is the lack of active listening: it requires, especially when our students are children, an effort not only attitudinal, as one might initially think, but also an intellectual effort: listening to what It is said, to understand it, to allow the completeness of the speech to capture the complete idea. The idea of the radio project is to convert each session of analysis, co-evaluation and self-criticism of what was said, into an opportunity to develop actively conscious listening. Another no less important element, which we also pointed out above, is that the technical medium imposes its own limitations and potentialities on enunciation and reception: temporal limitations, possibilities of using multimedia elements, recursiveness of listening, duration of access time, possibilities of interaction with the audience. All these elements must be put at a conscious level to make the best decisions in terms of what you want to communicate, to whom and for how long. Without trying to escape these material limitations and potentialities, it is essential that children and adolescents can learn to use technical means in the way that best suits their intentions.

General objective: Promote the development of oral communication and scriptwriting skills in children, through the creation and broadcast of internet radio programs.

Specific objectives:

     1. Develop children's oral expression, improving their diction, intonation and fluency.

     2. Stimulate creativity and imagination by writing scripts for radio programs.

     3. Promote teamwork and collaboration among participants.

     4. Encourage the responsible use of technology, specifically in the creation and dissemination of content.

     5. Improve active listening and constructive feedback skills among children.

Activities:

     1. Oral expression sessions:

         ◦ Games and dynamics to improve diction and intonation.

         ◦ Reading aloud practices to practice verbal fluency.

         ◦ Dramatizations to encourage emotional expression through voice.

     2. Screenwriting workshops:

         ◦ Introduction to the basic elements of a script: introduction, development and conclusion.

         ◦ Creation of imaginary characters and scenarios.

         ◦ Development of creative plots and dialogues.

     3. Production of radio programs:

         ◦ Classes on the use of basic tools for the production of internet radio programs.

         ◦ Creation of a script collective for a pilot program.

         ◦ Recording and editing of programs using simple, child-friendly software.

     4. Live program drills:

         ◦ Realization of simulated live programs to improve spontaneity and reaction capacity.

         ◦ Rotating participation in roles such as announcers, interviewers and sound technicians.

     5. Putting programs on the air:

     • Prior invitation to families to participate as an audience and provide comments live and recorded.

     • Realization of live programs through Twitch and Rumble services.

     6. Feedback and continuous improvement:

         ◦ Feedback sessions between participants after each program.

         ◦ Use of recordings to analyze progress and areas for improvement.

         ◦ Implementation of adjustments and improvements in future emissions.

Evaluation: 

The evaluation was carried out through continuous observation of oral expression skills, the quality of the scripts and active participation in the production of programs. In addition, we work through self-assessment and children's reflection on their own performance.

What changes do we notice through the evaluation?:

- A less frequent use of spatio-temporal references from the immediate context. The children became aware of the need to explain what was specifically being talked about when a reference was made in a dialogue, in the development of a news story or even in a story. For example: “Here we broadcast from the school” soon became “Here we broadcast from school 32, Simón Bolívar, from Montevideo, Uruguay” and “Stay tuned to the best school radio, the radio of Escuela Brasil, Montevideo, Uruguay". They did not arrive at that specific change that we cite as an example, but also at the change in general, by direct instruction from the teacher, but by a teaching guide that led to questioning the intelligibility of the message some time later (listening to the recordings) and imagining that they were students. from another country. In this specific sense, the contributions of immigrant boys and girls helped a lot.

-  The generation of an analytical and reflective tool: active listening. A communication without spaces, silences, pauses, is a noisy communication, which subtracts from the rational exchange of meanings. Active listening became a tool to analyze what was said, highlight progress, and propose changes. After the live broadcasts, the demand “Now we have to listen to each other to see how it came out.” It became everyday. In the classroom, a reflective silence was generated. First, the segments or “programs” were listened to, and then they were listened to again but in a fragmented way, taking into account various vicissitudes of the enunciation. In some cases the teacher and in other cases the students were the ones who suggested which parts needed to be listened to again.

- The increase in the frequency and naturalization of the use of formal expressions. This can be seen in two dimensions: on the one hand, without reaching an artificial “universal Spanish”, increasingly, as a result of the reflection promoted by active listening, people began to prefer using lexicons and expressions that, although they corresponded to the River Plate variety, of our language, could be understood by Spanish speakers in general; On the other hand, learning, both through educational visits to community radio stations and listening to material broadcast by commercial stations, is useful in the use of formal phrases that generate closeness and, as they say in the world of marketing, “loyalty” and closeness. with the audience. “Don't go away, stay tuned, we have much more to offer you!”

- Greater technological control. On the one hand, the need, given the condition of minor boys and girls, to care for privacy. Thus, for example, the use of pseudonyms or common names became common. There was also a greater awareness of the duration of the broadcasts, according to the technical limitations of the platform used for live broadcasting (Twitch) and then the importance of circulating the links to allow families to listen to the programs on a delayed basis. on the platform we choose to save the programs (Rumble). In the last stages of the project, we began to manage the interaction with the audience through messages.

Some notes about the process:

At first it was chaos. The possibility of broadcasting live took away the children's spirits and we had to have the flexibility to, while carrying out the preparatory activities mentioned above, start already with some live broadcasts. From our adult perspective: transmissions full of errors, potholes, nonsense. With a more compassionate and proud outlook, the families' response was exciting. We had hundreds of people listening to the broadcasts live and sending messages of support, which were also expressed personally to this teacher at the school door. The machine was running and clearly couldn't stop, it just had to get better.

A first obstacle to generating improvements in the level of script writing and voice-over was the initial sporadic nature of the live broadcasts. Added to this was a typical risk of this type of project: that they would swallow up all the school work time, causing us to neglect other disciplines and skills as important as those developed through the project. We were able to solve both things in a single movement: regularize the transmission on a specific day and at a specific time, frequently weekly, and allocate two or three hours a week for writing, simulation of transmission and proposals for improvement for re-writing, without detriment. of the writing work voluntarily carried out by several children at home. The result of these decisions agreed upon with the children was very positive: the school work week was highly stimulated by writing workshops, games or transmission drills, intonation practices, etc., and a rhythm of school transmissions and participation was generated. familiar.

Then, some decisions had to be made that implied, in fact, an ethical debate: stable or rotating drivers? Stable drivers provide the possibility of specialization in functions, and a much more effective rate of improvement and mastery of the role; This is how commercial and community radio stations work. The rotating drivers provide a greater possibility of including diverse child-communicators, the possibility of living the experience and also developing their skills in reading, oral communication, improvisation in the face of errors and emerging situations. In the two groups that carried out this project, after intense discussions, different solutions were reached: in one, it was decided to have two stable groups of announcers, who would alternate between one transmission and another; In the other case, the option was to rotate the announcers (I use the feminine because it was actually girls in both groups who volunteered for the role). The results were as expected as we wrote in the opening lines of this same paragraph, with its “pros” and “cons”. At the other extreme, there were several cases of boys and girls who wrote with determination and great quality, but never agreed to lend their voice for broadcasts. Otherwise, all the boys and girls participated either by writing, speaking live, or doing both. Nobody was left out. I leave it to the reader - if the topic warrants their interest - to continue reflecting on what the best participation and inclusion strategy should be.

Finally, the closing of the annual project was accompanied by a mixture of melancholy for the end, happiness and pride for what was done and learned. Many things were done well and many others could have been done better, but I dare say that, in twenty years of teaching, I have rarely seen so much shared joy, so much family support and so much feeling of healthy pride. A final note: this teacher's voice was not heard in the broadcasts, because the voices that, in my humble opinion, should be heard in school radio projects, are the voices of boys, girls and their families. .

The sound recordings of some of our work can be heard at bit.ly/rumble03 or https://rumble.com/c/c-1392272

Bibliography:

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NICHOLS, Michael P. (2009) – The lost art of listening, Guilford Publications, New York.

TEICHMANN, R. M. (2018). Writing script: Creative and reflective process of audiovisual narrative construction, EDULP, La Plata.

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