VerbCast

Bon courage pour les examens!

You've completed the VERBcast and hopefully you've found it a good way to prepare for your French exam. If you're doing the Scottish Standard Grade then that means you'll be sitting your exam tomorrow, Tuesday 9th May. If you're doing Higher you've got another week. You may well just be listening in from elsewhere or doing GCSE or A-Level French. Regardless, we hope you've found it useful. Please do give us some feedback on the site - your thoughts are very much appreciated.

If you're doing Higher French then you may be interested to know that we're running another series of podcasts at the moment which covers everything you need to know about the Higher exam, using the 2005 SQA papers as examples. You can find out more about this on the PiE website, and you'll need to contact us for a username and password in order to access these shows.

Very best of luck with the rest of your exams, well done for sticking with the VERBcast, and we look forward to working with you in the future on other projects!

Verbs everywhere...

Just something a bit daft for a Friday night... Since you started listening to the VERBcast, many of you have been saying how you've started reciting verbs in your head at the strangest times and in the strangest of places. So let us know where the strangest place is you've been thinking about verbs! Just close your eyes and imagine your cerebral screen - you can revise your verbs anywhere.

Is it just me, or does that all sound a bit sad?!

User update

One week into this rerun of the VERBcast and I'm absolutely delighted with progress we've made.

All our listeners who have been tuning in daily to the episodes (and there have been 525 downloads of the shows since last Wednesday!) have now covered all regular verbs in the present tense and around 20 common irregular verbs. VERY well done to you all - it's not easy finding 20 minutes per day, especially at this busy time of year before the exams.

The website itself has had over 1200 hits, averaging 204 per day. During the past week the PiE website has also received more visitors than usual, and the rerun of the VERBcast has been featured on the MFLE website, where some of your comments have also been posted!

As you know, the VERBcast is a podcast and as such is featured on the iTunes Music Store. Click here to access the podcast on the iTMS. If you have an iTunes Music Store account (no purchase necessary!) you can also leave a review of the VERBcast on there which would be very much appreciated, not least because it would move the VERBcast up the charts a bit (we're currently at number 51!)

We also have an entry in the Podcast Alley charts - you can vote once a month for your favourite podcasts. Again, if you've got time, why not head over to the VERBcast and leave a comment, or at least vote for us. You need to respond to the automatic email it generates, and you can only vote once a month from any one email or IP address.

By voting for the VERBcast on iTunes and Podcast Alley you'll help to spread the word about the VERBcast and we will hopefully be able to see our listener base grow and grow!

Feedback time

It's the end of the first quarter of the VERBcast. In the original launch of the programme the VERBcast was only on weekdays so this in a sense is the end of the first week of four. We're obviously squeezing things in a bit tighter this time round because of the exams which are fast approaching.

However we need your feedback. What do you think so far? How is it going? We obviously really hope you're still enjoying the experience, and we'd like you to post some comments on this post.

Update

Thought you'd be interested in another wee update on how things are going. There have now been about 112 downloads of the VERBcast so far, not to mention 317 hits on the VERBcast website in a little over 24 hours. Since the first launch of the VERBcast last year episodes 1 and 2 have been downloaded a total of 6265 times! So you're in good company!

There are now 29 of you signed up for the enhanced version with text messages, and we've contacted most of the schools involved in the PiE project so hopefully more of you will sign up over the next couple of days. By the way, if you don't post your comments on the site, we'll assume you no longer want to be part of the enhanced project and we'll cancel your texts. This isn't meant to be some kind of big threat, but the texts are expensive so we have to ensure that you're using the system as it's intended. Hope that's ok. More soon!

VERBcast: day 1 update

The VERBcast was launched about 6 hours ago and I thought I'd just report back on our first day's events. In the first few hours of the programme being available, the first episode has been downloaded directly from this site around 45 times. The page itself has been accessed over 100 times and I've had about 20 students sign up for the enhanced version. Tomorrow we should see a few more join the project as teachers in the schools who have asked to be involved in the VERBcast speak to their classes. We look forward to having you on board!

Those of you signed up for the enhanced version should be receiving your first messages on Thursday morning, by which time programme 2 will be available for download!

The VERBcast story

The VERBcast started out as a project we developed last summer. It was tested throughout the month of September with a small group of students who had signed up for a "secret assignment" on the LanguageZone website. Over four weeks they followed each programme and throughout the four weeks they completed tests on the website.

The VERBcast was the first full course in Europe delivered entirely by podcasting, and at the end of the four week trial period the programmes were released to the public via the iTunes Music Store. Since then the episodes have been downloaded over 35,000 times across the world!

The VERBcast has been covered in a number of press articles and has been among the top education podcasts on the iTunes Music Store several times. There has also been interested from Apple Computers and we're looking forward to announcing an exciting project with Apple in a few months.

By taking part in the VERBcast you're joining thousands of people all across the world who have dared to try to learn a bit differently! Enjoy it, as we count down from 10 to 1 ...

Information for parents

This is a message to the parents of all students involved in the VERBcast.
The VERBcast is an innovative project aimed at students currently studying French in the upper secondary school. It's primarily aimed at students involved in the PiE project, currently underway in the three local authorities of Argyll & Bute, East Ayrshire and North Ayrshire, but we have made the programmes and information available to all those who want to take part.

We felt it was important that we provide this information for you to give you some background about the project and to answer any questions you may have. If you wish to discuss any aspect of the VERBcast with us, please contact us. We have also provided a FAQ for students involved, and we'd encourage you to read the VERBcast FAQ along with your son or daughter.

The VERBcast is made up of audio programmes, each one lasting about 15 minutes, which can be downloaded to computers, iPods, mp3 players, etc. The audio programmes cover pretty much everything that students need to know about French verbs in preparation for their exams. The verbs are introduced using various methods, both traditional and alternative. We have developed some innovative learning strategies involving relaxation techniques and visualisation. You should be aware that the programmes encourage the listener to become totally relaxed and open their minds to learning. These techniques, however, do not involve any form of hypnotism.

If students have been invited to take part in the VERBcast by their schools, they will have been invited to send their mobile phone number to Partners in Excellence. You should be aware that all mobile numbers and/or email addresses supplied to Partners in Excellence will be entered into an electronic database for the purposes of communication within the VERBcast project. This information will not be shared with other users or with any third party. Students involved in this part of the project will receive 1 or 2 text messages each day with reminders, revision and tests on what they've been learning. These text messages will be sent around 8:15am and at lunchtime, in line with the research done on our initial release of the VERBcast.

Finally, we're aware that this launch of the VERBcast is coming at a time when students will have other subjects to think about. We are in no way suggesting that French should be more important than any other exams. The programmes last 15-20 minutes each day and are intended to take the listener away from traditional, book-based study for that short time.

We very much hope your son/daughter enjoys using the VERBcast and that they learn a lot from the experience. We hope that they will be able to provide feedback to us in the form of comments on each programme on the website.

Once again, please don't hesitate to contact us should you have any further questions about the VERBcast.

VERBcast FAQ

What is the VERBcast?
The VERBcast is a series of audio programmes which introduce you to French verbs and teach you all about the various tenses you need to know. Verbs are a very important part of any language, and in French it's important to know your verbs in order to make speak and write the language more effectively. At this stage of the year much of what you cover in the VERBcast will be revision, but hopefully you'll benefit from doing 15 minutes of mental revision each day in the run-up to your exam.

Why is the VERBcast different from learning from a book?
That's the real point of the VERBcast! You'll be learning in a very different way from normal. In fact, rather than looking at anything while you listen to the programmes, you'll be encouraged to switch off, close your eyes and relax completely so that you are in the best possible learning environment. The programmes use alternative learning techniques involving relaxation and visualisation. Don't worry - you'll be talked through everything on the recordings.

What do I need to join the VERBcast?
Each episode is an mp3 file which can be downloaded from this website. The files will be provided in both high and lower quality, making them suitable for users with broadband or dialup internet access. If you're involved in the enhanced VERBcast you'll also need access to a mobile phone.

What's all this about the enhanced VERBcast?
For the time being this is only available to students who attend school in East Ayrshire, North Ayrshire and Argyll & Bute education authorities in Scotland. If you're one of these students then you'll have been invited to send your mobile number and/or email address to us and we'll have added you to our list after a quick security check. You'll then receive daily updates, reminders and tests on your phone.

Why can only students from these areas access the VERBcast?
The three authorities mentioned are running and funding the PiE project and funding is limited at the moment. We're trying to set up a system where students from other areas could get access to the VERBcast but for the time being the system is unfortunately not available to students from outwith the PiE area.

If you have any other questions, please post a comment on this post, or contact us.

Welcome to the VerbCast

It's Wednesday, 19th April and if my calculations are right that means we have exactly 20 nights before the Standard Grade French exam, and just a few more before the Higher / Int 2 exams. This means that there's just enough time to complete the VERBcast before the exams.

Over the next few weeks you'll have access to a daily dose of French verbs on your computer, your iPod or your mp3 player. We'll provide each episode on a daily basis and you can download it to your computer.

For more