Introduction

In this article, we'll walk you through how to set up an Oral Practice activity from the perspective of a teacher.

Oral Practice gives students a private, low-stakes environment to practise explaining their thinking out loud. Students can practise through a live conversation with a peer or with the Acai voice agent and repeat the activity to build confidence before an oral exam, viva, presentation, or similar activity.

Tool In Action

How this article is structured

Setting up an activity follows three stages, shown at the top of the activity whenever you're in edit mode:

1. Build activity — get an overview of your activity and its learning steps.

2. Edit steps — configure each step individually.

3. Finalize activity — configure settings that apply across the activity, such as deadlines.

Everything below describes what you can configure before the activity is published — students cannot access the activity at this stage. You can still edit some settings after publishing; however, once students start making progress, certain options lock to protect their work and data. Wherever that applies, we'll note it.

Note: When you open a published activity, you'll land on the Active Assignment view by default. To return to setup, click Edit in the upper-left corner.

Accessibility

We're devoted to making our tools as accessible as possible for all learners. To read more, see Accessibility: Within FeedbackFruits Tools.

Stage 1 — Build activity

The Build activity stage gives you an overview of the learning steps in your activity.

The setup shown in this article contains:

1. Read instructions

2. Hand in

3. Oral Practice

The Hand in step is optional. You can include it when students should submit work that provides context for their oral practice session. Once your activity structure is ready, continue to Edit steps.

Stage 2 — Edit steps

Here you configure each learning step individually. A Student preview is shown alongside the settings so you can see how the activity will appear to students.

Step 1: Read instructions

Add the instructions students will see when they begin the activity. Use this section to explain the purpose of the practice activity, what students should prepare, and what they can expect during the conversation.

Step 2: Hand in

If students should practise discussing a specific piece of work, you can use the Hand in step to collect it before the conversation.

Students hand in as

Choose how students submit their work:

• An individual — each student submits their own work.

• A group — students submit one contribution together as a group.

Required files

Set how many files students are required to submit:

• Minimum — students must submit at least the number of files you specify.

• Between — students must submit within a specified range.

• Exactly — students must submit exactly the number of files you specify.

Allowed file formats

Choose which types of files students are allowed to submit:

• Document

• Video

• Website

• Image

• Audio

• Other

Select the formats that are relevant to the activity.

Submitter anonymity

Enable Submitter anonymity if student contributions should appear anonymously to other students. Teachers can still see who submitted the work.

Advanced settings

Click Advanced settings to configure additional options for the Hand in step.

Plagiarism check

Enable Plagiarism check to have submitted documents checked using Turnitin.

Visibility of hand ins

Choose who can access students' submitted work.

Optional instructions for this step

Add instructions that apply specifically to the submission, such as formatting requirements or what students should include.

Step 3: Oral Practice

Configure how students complete their oral practice conversation.

Conversation mode

Choose how students practise:

• Peer — students have a live conversation with another student using the topics and questions provided in the activity.

• With Agent — students practise speaking with the Acai voice agent, which guides the conversation by asking questions and follow-up questions.

Topics & questions

The topics and questions determine what students discuss during their practice session.

• For Peer practice, click Edit next to Topics & questions to configure the topics and questions students will discuss.

• For With Agent, the topics and questions are predefined and cannot be edited. The Edit button is still visible, but when opened, a message indicates that the topics cannot be changed.

Advanced settings

Click Advanced settings to configure additional options for Oral Practice.

Notify educators on recording completion

Enable this option to notify educators when a student completes a recording. This can help educators keep track of activity completion without needing to check the activity manually.

Guiding instructions

Add additional instructions that students should keep in mind during their oral practice session. You can use this field to clarify the purpose of the conversation, provide preparation guidance, or explain what students should focus on while practising.

Stage 3 — Finalize activity

The Finalize activity stage contains settings that apply across the activity.

Deadlines

Turn on Deadlines to add end dates to applicable learning steps. Use deadlines to define when students should complete the different stages of the activity.

Once everything is configured, click Done.

Grade weighting

Turn on Grade weighting if you want to grade students based on their participation in the Oral Practice activity.

Please note that Oral Practice can only be graded based on participation. The quality of the conversation is not graded, and students are not assessed against a rubric.