Transcripts of IM Conversations

Instant messengers, such as Skype, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, Windows Messenger, etc., have an option that allows you to keep an archive of all text messaging conversations. Applied to ESOL, if a tutor has a learner with basic computer literacy who is proficient enough in English to hold a reasonably good conversation, text discussions between the tutor and one or more learners could be corrected and returned to the learner as an example of an authentic conversation. A recording of the corrected discussion could also be made and given to the learners to help perfect their aural skills.

Over the weekend, I did this with a long conversation I had with a French tandem language exchange partner and it worked extremely well. I just copied and pasted the text from Skype into a word processor, where I translated the French and corrected the English.