Play the ABC game feeling like a contestant in a TV show

Make your players feel like contestants in a TV show answering with their voice instead of using their keyboard.

You will see how the activity can get more fun and exciting thanks to the speech recognition.

At the end of this article we help you on how to activate the dictation tool on your device so you can write speaking.

Apart from living another experience, you will see that in a cellphone it can be easier to play like this than with the touch keyboard.

If you have never used the dictation tool in your device, try it before starting the activity to set it on if needed, and to get familiar with it.

Practice pronunciation with a Videoquiz, a Quiz or a Dictation game

Give the activities Videoquiz, Quiz or Dictation a U-Turn thanks to the dictation tool. This is perfect if you want your players to practice Spanish pronunciation, for example.

To do that maybe you will probably have to change the language on your device. We show you how to do it at the bottom of this article.

Instead of writing, change the rules and make them fill the text making an effort to repeat or answer what the video, audio or text tells them with a pronunciation as close to a native speaker as possible.

There are lots of ways to do this, but maybe the easiest one is to create a Quiz to practice together in class.Create a question with a picture of a lion, the word “león” or an audio, choose the option “The pupil will have to write the answer on a line”, and tell your players to answer with the dictation tool.

You can also create a Videoquiz to make them repeat words or sentences, or answer questions with their voice.

In this case, we have to choose “Written” or “Wide written” on “Type of response”.

Another option is playing a Dictation activity where they have to write with their voice instead of the keyboard, so they have to give it all to repeat the words talking as close to a native speaker as possible.

Editor, search bar and other uses

You can use dictation not only as a player but also when creating your activities, talking instead of writing your items. You can even use it in our search console.

After this article, we bet you thought about many other ways you can get the most of the dictation tool in online education and in life in general. That’s great!

How to activate the dictation tool

If you have more than a microphone plugged in, make sure your device is getting the good one (for example, the one in your earphones and not the one in your webcam).

In a cellphone or tablet

·  Click on the text box.
·  Depending on your device and the keyboard installed, you will have to look for the icon (a microphone or a keyboard) to activate it. Usually you can find it in one of the corners of the keyboard interface.
This is how you do it with the Google keyboard.

In a Windows computer

·  Press Windows key + H and a rectangle with a microphone icon will appear, which you can turn on after clicking in the text box.
·  If you haven't done so yet, you will have to press on the blue text to activate the speech recognition.
More information in this official Windows site.

In a Mac computer

- With a Mac computer, you just have to click on the Fn key twice to activate the microphone. If you don't have the speech recognition turned on, it will ask you to do it.
- Once activated, you just have to click on the text box, click Fn twice and say the correct answer.
More information in this official Apple site.

How to change the language of the dictation tool

If you want to use the dictation tool to make your players practice Spanish pronunciation, you will have to ask them to change the language for this to work.

In a cellphone or tablet

You will have to look for the keyboard language options, which will be in different places depending on the device and the keyboard you use.
You will find how to do it in an Android device in this Wikihow page.

In a Windows computer

You will have to first install the language and then change the keyboard language.
More information in this official Windows site.

In a Mac computer

You can do this from the "Language" option in the "Dictation" tab on the keyboard settings.
More information in this official Apple site.