🎙️ Creating a “Speak the Words” Activity in H5P (WordPress)
This activity allows students to speak into a microphone, and speech recognition software will match their spoken input to accepted answers. Great for:
- Pronunciation practice
- Vocabulary recall
- Language comprehension
🛠️ Step-by-Step Setup
1. Install the “Speak the Words” Module
- Go to the H5P plugin in WordPress.
- Click Add New.
- Search for the content type “Speak the Words”.
- If not installed, click “Get” to add it.
2. Basic Task Creation
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Title | Name of your activity (e.g. Speak the Words) |
| Task Description | The prompt or question the student will see (e.g. “Speak the following phrase: The boy walked to school by himself.”) |
| Accepted Answers | List all acceptable answers (e.g. the boy walked to school by himself) |
| Correct Feedback | e.g. Good job! |
| Incorrect Feedback | e.g. No, try again. |
| Speech Input Language | Must match the spoken language of the expected answer (e.g. English (US), Russian, etc.) |
🎯 Three Use Cases
📘 1. Basic Q&A in English (Not ideal)
- Prompt: What is the name of our planet?
- Answers: Earth, the Earth, planet Earth
- Speech input and accepted answers both in English.
⚠️ This use case isn’t ideal—students might as well just type it. Speaking isn’t necessary unless you’re testing pronunciation.
🌍 2. Language Learning (e.g. Russian vocabulary)
- Prompt: What is the informal Russian word for hello?
- Answer: Привет
- Set Speech Input Language to Russian.
- Ensures pronunciation is checked correctly. If input language is wrong (e.g. English), it won’t recognize the answer correctly.
🗣️ 3. English Pronunciation Testing
- Prompt: Speak the following phrase: The boy walked to school by himself.
- Answer: the boy walked to school by himself
- Speech input language set to English (US).
- Great for checking fluency and pronunciation in English learners.
⚙️ Important Settings & Limitations
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| One Prompt per Activity | Each “Speak the Words” activity supports only one question. To include multiple prompts, use a Question Set or Interactive Book. |
| No Partial Scoring | Students either get full points or none — even if they speak most of the phrase correctly. |
| Speech Recognition Works Best in Chrome | Requires permission to use the microphone. Firefox and others may not support it properly. |
| No Toolbar | You can hide extra options/toolbars if desired for a cleaner experience. |
🔁 Example Walkthrough
- Prompt: Speak the following phrase: The boy walked to school by himself.
- Student says: “The boy walked to school by himself” → ✅ Good job!
- Student says: “The girl walked to school by herself” → ❌ No, try again.
- Click Show Solution → See accepted answers + what was actually heard.
✅ Ideal For:
- English pronunciation testing
- Foreign language vocabulary recall
- Speaking/listening comprehension tasks
- Beginner-intermediate ESL/EFL learners
⚠️ Final Notes
- Works only in Chrome.
- Requires microphone access.
- Great speech recognition accuracy, even better than many standalone tools.
- For multiple questions, use it within:
- Question Set
- Interactive Book
📢 Want more interactive content tutorials?
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Got questions or creative ways you’re using H5P? Drop them in the comments—I’d love to hear what you’re building!
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