Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are omnipresent and may be used as a motivational asset (Raskind & Higgins, 1999; Snider, 2002) in education provided they are implemented effectively and efficiently. Their use in the classroom can, on the one hand, aid to bridge the gap between students with functional diversity and their peers by promoting accessibility and student independence (Lee, 2011; Raskind & Higgins, 1999; Snider, 2002). On the other hand, ICTs provide all students with multiple and flexible means of representation, production and expression, in accordance with Universal Design for Learning guidelines (Katz, 2013; King-Sears PhD, 2009; Messinger-Willman & Marino, 2010) to cater for their different needs or interests. In accordance with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, reducing social inequalities among those groups at risk of exclusion or that have traditionally been excluded should be a priority, i.e. people with disabilities among others (UN, n.d.) . In that sense, speech-to-text or speech recognition tools play a pivotal role in reducing differences in the classroom since these tools are within the average student’s reach (Pennington et al., 2018) and allow for an alternative medium of expression and production. Higher education standards demand proficient linguistic written skills (Chen et al., 2015; Coffin et al., 2003; Marulanda & Martínez García, 2017), which, in turn, have become paramount by virtue of globalisation and are a sine qua non for employability (Bellés-Fortuño, 2016; Ferretti & Graham, 2019; Gomez-Laich et al., 2019; Graham, 2013). Yet, many students struggle with written compositions. Even though most students are considered digital natives, that does not mean that they are proficient at typing; in fact, poor typing skills are often an added obstacle when writing (MacArthur, 2009) and proofreading may be needed (Bellés-Calvera & Martínez-Hernández, in press). By using voice-recognition tools to dictate their texts, students would compose higher quality writings in a shorter time span (Goldberg et al., 2003; Higgins & Raskind, 1995; MacArthur, 2009; Millar et al., 2005; O’Hare & McTear, 1999; Pennington, 2020; Snider, 2002). The aim of this paper is to offer the steps and guidelines to the design of a review-writing workshop for first-year undergraduate Translation and Interpreting students at a Spanish university with the help of speech recognition tools incorporated in Microsoft Word® or Google Docs®. In this paper, we propose implementing speech recognition tools in the classroom while ensuring accessible educational services (Wald & Bain, 2008) to, firstly, boost students’ writing competences. Secondly, to raise pronunciation awareness by focusing students’ attention on the relation between letters and sounds in English and emphasising the importance of long and short vowels. Thirdly, to teach the importance of reviewing and text-editing skills. This proposal may shed light on the need for quality education, which complies with the fourth UN Sustainable Development Goal given that learners will be able to work on their communicative competence through the combination of written and spoken skills. Therefore, the implementation of speech dictation tools may lead to the development of effective practices in EFL learning environments following the UN’s 2030 Agenda.
Dykinson S.L.
