Technology Matters

Promoting Speaking Outside of Class
Through Flipgrid

Nicole Moskowitz and Brian Dubin
Kwansei Gakuin University
Speaking practice is an important aspect of second language acquisition because
a lack of spontaneous speaking opportunities can lead to less automatization andslower processing, as well as fewer feelings of competence and confidence in thesecond language. However, assignments given for homework typically do notgive students the opportunity to practice speaking. In order to address this lackof speaking practice outside of class, Flipgrid was implemented in eight secondyear university classes to provide students with spontaneous speaking practice.
Flipgrid is a Microsoft-operated, free social learning platform that allows teachers
to create original topics which students can respond to via video. In this paper
we discuss set up and basic use of Flipgrid, the positive and negative aspects ofusing Flipgrid, its limitations, a brief outline of how it was used in classes, student
reactions, and other ways it could be used in an EFL class.
Many EFL learners admit wanting to improve their speaking abilities yet havefrustration and a lack of confidence when attempting to do so. Kitano (2001)
hypothesized that because the majority of learners believed speaking skills to be
the most important, they then experienced more self-created and self-focusedpressure on being successful in speaking. In addition, Marzec-Stawiarska (2015)
found that out of 54 masters students in a university English department, morethan half were worried about ﬂuency, vocabulary, pronunciation, the content of
their oral performances, errors, and communication with native speakers. This
example suggests that many learners are not satisﬁed with their speaking skills
which can then be compounded by a lack of speaking practice outside of theclassroom. Many students do not have the opportunity to speak with someone
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Moskowitz & Dubinin English outside of the classroom, yet research into EFL and SLA have foundthat speaking skills remain one of the most harshly judged skills, in terms ofaccentedness and comprehensibility (Saito et al., 2016). This pressure and desire
to improve students’ speaking skills has prompted many teachers to implement
spontaneous communicative speaking tasks inside the classroom. Spontaneouscommunicative speaking comprises any activities when students speak without
planning or preparation, such as discussing texts, group discussions, interviews,
information gaps, describing objects, telling stories or jokes, jigsaw activities, etc.
These are any activities when students speak without planning or preparationthat use their implicit knowledge (Spada & Tomita, 2010). The promotion of
speaking fluency development in students’ L2 has been proven important at alllevels of proficiency (Nation & Newton, 2008), not only because of motivational
factors, but also because it also helps the learners automatize and advance theirlanguage use, and it is a crucial part of second language learning (Kayi, 2012).
However, it is also quite easy for students to completely avoid speaking English
outside of the classroom, possibly due to anxiety (McLain, 2018).
Moreover, it can be challenging for teachers to implement spontaneous
speaking tasks outside the classroom. When teachers assign students to practice
speaking aloud at home (such as practicing presentations, reading texts aloud,role plays, or other homework connected with in-class speaking activities), it
is not spontaneous but planned. Moreover, even if spontaneous speaking is
assigned, it can be difficult for students to prove that they have completed thesetasks and difficult for teachers to check students’ practice. One way to solve thisproblem is for students to create videos of themselves speaking.
Flipgrid (2019) is an ideal platform to address this issue because it gives
students the chance to practice spontaneous speaking outside of the classroom
while allowing teachers to check, assess, and provide feedback on student work.
Again, spontaneous speaking in this article is referring to speaking that has notbeen planned (such as written out using dictionaries or translation software,memorized lines from a textbook or other text, or other ways of planning)but speaking that is unplanned, unprepared, and focused on communicationand fluency development. Flipgrid combines aspects of social media platforms
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and video capture tools to give students opportunities to practice spontaneous
speaking outside of the classroom that they would typically not have. Flipgrid
allows teachers to set topics (prompts) which students can respond to withvideos. It is free and can be downloaded onto students’ smartphones via theApple Store or Google Play or used on a PC equipped with a webcam throughthe Flipgrid website. In this article, we aim to introduce Flipgrid as a tool for
supporting spontaneous speaking practice by illustrating its use in our classes
throughout a semester. We will consider our class background, how to set up agrid, and finally the advantages and disadvantages of using Flipgrid.

Class Background / Setting Up Flipgrid

Flipgrid was implemented in eight mandatory English communication classes(two different levels, Elementary English Communication III & IV, andIntermediate English Communication III & IV classes) with the objective of
increasing opportunities for students to practice spontaneous speech. Fourclasses were elementary level (around CEFR A2), and the other four wereintermediate level (around CEFR B1), though the individual levels withineach class tended to vary. The course objectives for both courses stated, “Theprimary goal of this course is to develop students' ability and confidence in using
English to communicate in informal, everyday situations.” From these objectives,
we believed that by implementing Flipgrid, we would be able to provide more
opportunities for students to practice speaking English outside of the classroom,
ultimately raising their confidence in speaking English.
To begin, Flipgrid must be configured for use with a teacher’s classes.
Teachers can label classes as groups called “grids” (Figure 1) either by registering
student emails or school ID numbers (Figure 2). It is also possible to create
unique student ID numbers if there is concern about student privacy or security.
Alternatively, teachers can input an email domain (e.g., @schoolname.ac.jp),
and this would allow students using an email address with this domain access to
the grid. After creating a grid for each class, teachers create a short “Flip Code”
which will become part of the URL used by students to access the grids (e.g.,“Mon02” to denote the day and class period).
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Figure 1. An overview of teachers’ Flipgrid grids.

Figure 2. Interface of how to set up a grid on Flipgrid.

Once a grid has been created, teachers have many options for setting up eachassignment. Initially, teachers need to create a title for their assignment and aprompt telling the students what the assignment consists of and how to do it.
Files, pictures, YouTube or other website links, and videos can be attached toan assignment to use as schemata activation devices (Figure 3). The student’s
assignment is then to respond to these prompts by creating a video in Flipgrid
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Figure 3. Flipgrid setup page where teachers can choose topics, recording time, prompts,
and resources from other websites.

with them speaking. Teachers set a time limit for the student videos, which canrange from fifteen seconds to five minutes in length (this has been increased toten minutes, as of April 2020). For our assignments, we set the length of ourvideos to five minutes and provided various visual aids, such as comics, photos,
cartoons, or GIFs. We also provided questions to prompt spontaneous speaking
related to topics that had been covered in class (Figure 4).
After an assignment has been created, teachers can modify its settings inadditional ways such as adding deadlines (one day, weeks, months), providing
tips and prompts, and enabling student-to-student replies, which is useful forencouraging student interaction. Teachers can choose to provide feedback tostudent videos either by using a pre-made rubric, or by creating their own custom
rubric. We utilized this feature by creating our own rubric with three categories:
complexity, time, and details (Appendix). We explained to the students thatthese grading criteria were not dependent on accurate English, as we wanted
them to simply speak in a relaxed manner without planning for up to five39

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Figure 4. Flipgrid assignment with visual aid (picture) and prompt for students.

minutes. Because most students have been focused on form since they began
studying English, this was challenging for them. This rubric was chosen because
the criteria helped facilitate spontaneous speech while minimalizing accuracybased anxieties. We rationalized that as students became accustomed to doingthese Flipgrid assignments, they would experience less anxiety.
Finally, other activity settings can be enabled, such as likes, view counts, andvideo editing, which allow students to personalize their videos and to present
themselves to their classmates in their own unique way. Students can personalize
their videos by adding stickers, filters, drawings, text, and uploading photos.
By giving students options as to how they present themselves to their peers, it
provides them with a sense of ownership and encourages them to create videos
they will be happy to share with their classmates.

Flipgrid in Use

Over the course of a 15-week semester, 180 second-year university students ineight classes were asked to make a total of five Flipgrid videos each, ranging fromthree to five minutes in length. The assignment topics were related to units intheir class textbooks which were English Firsthand 1 (Pearson) and Smart Choice
3 (Oxford) so that they could reuse and strengthen target vocabulary. Students
were explicitly told not to prepare a script for each assignment. However, they
were allowed to delete and rerecord their videos if they were displeased with them.

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These deleted videos were not turned in; only their final videos were uploaded to
Flipgrid and assessed. To alleviate concerns regarding privacy, students were given
the option of editing their videos to obscure their faces while speaking using
emoji stickers, pixilation, or uploaded photos.
In order to prepare students for making Flipgrid videos on their own, various
activities were implemented during class time. Students engaged in activities
including reviewing and using textbook vocabulary in pair and groupwork,
explaining and practicing conjunction use, practicing supporting opinions withthree reasons, adding adjectives before nouns, as well as creating mind-maps.
Students created videos by downloading the Flipgrid application via the AppleStore or Google Play onto their smartphones (which the majority of our students
opted for), or using a PC equipped with a webcam and the Flipgrid website.
Instructions for students to create and set up their accounts are in English, thesoftware is free, and only requires an email address. In our experience, students
were familiar with downloading and setting up apps on their phones, so there wasno difficulty. Students accessed their class grid via URL or QR code shown on apresentation slide in class. Alternatively, if teachers have a learning management
system such as Moodle, Blackboard, or Google Classroom, it is easy to keep alink to the class grid there.
Once students have accessed a grid, it is saved on their account, eliminating
the need for a URL or QR code in the future, and protecting against accidental
data loss. After they have accessed the grid, they are shown a list of clickableassignments (Figure 5). Once they are inside an assignment and have read theprompt material, students press the large green plus sign (Figure 6) which starts
the recording process by activating their cameras. After students start recording,there are options to pause or delete videos, activate filters, upload photos, use theback-facing camera, use a whiteboard, and more. When students finish, they canreview the video and either submit it or go back and change it.
Teachers graded videos and provided feedback individually, which took
some time. Throughout the semester, we watched and graded all student videos
from start to finish. Once we had watched a video, we graded it based on our
rubric, wrote detailed comments about what students did well in the video and41

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Figure 5. Student grid interface on Flipgrid.

Figure 6. Green plus record button for students to press when they are ready to record their
video.

what they needed to improve for their next video, and sent them the feedback
via email. This was done for every student video that was turned in for a grade.
Students never commented on their feedback; however, if students were taking
these assignments seriously, the feedback given could be seen in improvements
in subsequent videos. Despite the fact that it is a lot of work to grade and give
feedback, teachers will ultimately have to decide for themselves what is best for
their contexts.

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Advantages of Using Flipgrid

The website and app themselves are free, simple to setup and use, have unlimited
storage, require no prior knowledge of coding, and are private and secure.
Assignments are highly customizable, as are student videos, which can makethem more engaging and personal than mass-produced textbooks. The technicalsupport staff are fast to reply with help and patience, and they are constantly
upgrading the website. New features include closed captioning for the hearing
impaired, which can then also be downloaded and edited if teachers want
students to self-correct or if teachers were interested in doing research on student
utterances. It is also possible to create a grid cooperatively with another school.
For example, if students were engaged in a study-abroad program, Flipgrid could
function as a simple forum for students to ask questions about their host country
or current events, share different celebrations, or participate in other cultural
exchanges.
In our context, Flipgrid videos were used for spontaneous speaking
tasks, which provided much-needed opportunities for fluency practice anddevelopment outside of class (Segalowitz, 2010). Fluency development is a majorpart of Nation’s four strands theory (2007), and a lack of fluency development
has been linked with slower speech rate, longer pauses, and less automatizationof L2. Because students were able to repeatedly make videos until they aresatisfied with them, they often practiced a few times before submitting the final
version. If tasks are repeated, this repetition will strengthen access to proceduralknowledge, and students will be able to access the language faster, which should
also improve fluency and fluency development.
As students became accustomed to speaking English more, for some,their anxiety about speaking decreased which facilitated more willingness tocommunicate. The students who spoke spontaneously improved over the courseof the semester not only in fluency but also in confidence. One student said of
Flipgrid, “I think Flipgrid especially improve (sic) my English. Flipgrid is hard
every time. However, English skills will gradually increase.” Another student
stated that, “If I used Flipgrid more than now, I learned English’s skills and I
am good at speaking English.” These comments echo the findings of Hashim et
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Moskowitz & Dubinal. (2019), who concluded that using Flipgrid helped learners to develop selfconfidence and to combat speaking anxiety.
Another theory underpinning this implementation of Flipgrid was thecomprehensible output hypothesis (Swain, 2005), which states that output
provides three main affordances: noticing gaps between interlanguage and thetarget language, testing hypotheses about the target language, and reflecting
on and modifying language. Flipgrid allows for more opportunities of output,
and because learners can watch themselves when reviewing their videos prior
to submission, it creates a unique opportunity to notice their gaps, try out new
language, and raise metalinguistic awareness of their language.
Finally, teacher observations suggest that students who completed all of
the assignments as intended by attempting to speak spontaneously showed
improvements in their speaking abilities with fewer hesitations and pauses
and more fluent, spontaneous speech. During group discussions in class, thesestudents were observed to be able to speak in longer sentences and give support
for their opinions, to make more eye contact, and generally seemed to be morerelaxed and confident. These students were also more willing to raise their hands
in class and continually worked well with other students. These are teacher
observations, however, and do not represent quantitative data.

Disadvantages of Using Flipgrid

Despite the advantages to implementing Flipgrid for spontaneous speaking, there
are disadvantages as well. During the semester, as students continued making their
videos, two issues became clear. First, students who obscured their faces often
had prepared what they were going to say, and it was not spontaneous speaking.
This was evidenced by the sounds of paper rustling, the monotonous way thestudents were speaking, or by unnatural use of infrequently used vocabulary.
This was also the case for some students who did not obscure their faces; someof the students spoke spontaneously while others read aloud. More than half ofour students had expressed anxiety about being on video, even after being told
they could obscure their faces. Over the course of the semester, some students
completed every Flipgrid assignment with no difficulty, some students started
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off well then gave up halfway through the semester completing at most half of
the assignments, and some students didn’t attempt to make videos at all. Thismight have been due to factors such as a lack of motivation towards English in
general, technology anxiety, lack of vocabulary to complete an assignment, or
anxiety due to presenting themselves in front of their peers. Students were able toview each other’s videos; thus, they might have worried about being seen by theirclassmates. For example, they might have felt that they would be ridiculed if they
could not speak English fluently and clearly and might have simply decided to
avoid using Flipgrid altogether to avoid this problem.
Second, students experienced technical issues such as upload failures,
accessibility errors, and the inadvertent creation of multiple videos. There is adefinite learning curve to using this technology, especially if students are notcomputer or smartphone literate. Furthermore, the application interface isentirely in English; therefore, students who do not have at least an elementarylevel foundation of English vocabulary will have difficulties navigating theapplication. Some of these problems were solved by modeling how to use theapp in class, demonstrating each step individually and making a video, having
each student make a practice video in class (not as an assignment, simply to say
hello and run through the steps of how to upload videos), and having a page on
the learning management system with screen shots and directions on how to use
Flipgrid.
In addition to drawbacks for students, there are some shortcomings to using
Flipgrid for teachers. Watching each video, commenting, and grading them istime-consuming, especially with multiple classes creating multiple videos. For
example, if all 180 students each created five videos of five minutes each, thiswould add up to 75 hours of video. It is possible to speed up the audio; however,teachers can only watch and grade student videos one at a time. This is a major
drawback to providing individual feedback, so it is also possible to grade themnot on the basis of a rubric, but on the basis of students having submitted videos
or not. The problem then becomes quality and length of video.
Lastly, if students are pronouncing words incorrectly, making grammaticalmistakes, using vocabulary incorrectly, or are exposed to incorrect L2 in other45

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ways there is no way to mediate and correct students while they are making
videos or edit the video afterwards. It is only possible to delete videos after they
have been completed, but if a student deletes and does not rerecord a video,
they will not be graded nor will it be seen by the teacher. Teachers can, however,provide direct feedback to students through the grading rubric or email, but
this will not change the content of the video. If a student watches a video thatuses incorrect L2, they might assume what their classmate said is correct, andthere is no way for the teacher to intervene. Because of this, student exposure toincorrect L2 might increase. These are some of the disadvantages that should beconsidered by teachers before implementing Flipgrid for speaking development.
Although not discussed here, there are other ways to use Flipgrid, whichmight not target spontaneous speaking practice. Other assignments for
spontaneous speaking might include activities such as posting an article andstudents discuss what they think about it, posting a link to a YouTube video andhaving students discuss if they think it is real or fake news, or each student tellsa scary or funny story and students vote for their number one. More planned
speaking practice (such as presentation practice, role plays, telling a riddle,
shadowing) might reduce anxiety in a way that spontaneous speaking cannot.
Also, allowing students to decide their own topics might reduce anxiety, as thelocus of control shifts to learners, and may increase interest.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are both advantages and disadvantages to using Flipgrid,and each teacher will have to decide if it is practical for their specific teachingsituation. Flipgrid has numerous potential benefits, such as opportunities forspeaking, hypothesis testing of language, repetition, and ease of use. It has thepossibility to become a powerful tool to give students the rare opportunity to
improve their spontaneous speaking skills outside of class.

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References

Kayi, H. (2012). Teaching speaking: Activities to promote speaking in a second
language. The Internet TESL Journal, 12(11). http://iteslj.org/Techniques/
Kayi-TeachingSpeaking.html
Kitano, K. (2001). Anxiety in the college Japanese language classroom.
The Modern Language Journal, 85(4), 549–566. https://doi.
org/10.1111/0026-7902.00125
Marzec-Stawiarska, M. (2015). Investigating foreign language speaking anxiety
among advanced learners of English. In Issues in teaching, learning andtesting speaking in a second language (pp.103–119). Springer. https://doi.
org/10.1007/978-3-642-38339-7_7
McLain, T. R. (2018). Integration of the video response app Flipgrid in thebusiness writing classroom. International Journal of Educational Technology
and Learning, 4(2), 68–75. https://doi.org/10.20448/2003.42.68.75
Nation, P. (2007). The four strands. Innovation in Language Learning andTeaching, 1(1), 2–13. https://doi.org/10.2167/illt039.0
Nation, P., & Newton, J. (2008). Teaching ESL/EFL listening and speaking.
Routledge.
Saito, K., Trofimovich, P., & Isaacs, T. (2016). Second language speech
production: Investigating linguistic correlates of comprehensibility andaccentedness for learners at different ability levels. Applied Psycholinguistics,
37(2), 217–240. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716414000502
Segalowitz, N. (2010). Cognitive bases of second language fluency. Routledge.
Spada, N., & Tomita, Y. (2010). Interactions between type of instruction andtype of language feature: A meta‐analysis. Language Learning, 60(2),263–308. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2010.00562.x
Swain, M. (2005). The output hypothesis: Theory and research. In E. Hinkel(Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp.
495–508). Routledge.

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Author bios

Nicole Moskowitz has been teaching EFL in various capacities for over 15 years inJapan, China, and Vietnam. Her research focuses on pragmatic activities whichdevelop students’ speaking CAF (complexity, accuracy, and fluency), autonomy
inside and outside the classroom through interaction, task-based learning, andCALL (computer-assisted language learning). <nicoleamoskowitz@gmail.com>
Brian Dubin has been teaching in Japan for over 10 years. His interests include
computer-assisted language learning and ways technology can assist students
learning a second language. He is also interested in learner development and how to
reduce learner anxiety. <dubinb@gmail.com>
Editor’s note: Nicole Moskowitz was an awardee of the CUE research grant,
which was shared equally with Brian Dubin. In line with publishing obligations,they have contributed this article.
Received: January 14, 2020
Accepted: May 5, 2020

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Appendix
Flipgrid Rubric
Each section is worth 5 points for a total of 15 points for the assignment:
Complexity:

Vocabulary usage, multi-word phrases, properly formed
sentences, used grammar/language from class, language
functions

Details:

Number of reasons given for an answer, adjectives,
conjunctions, related to the topic, specificTime:

5 points (Spoke up to 5 minutes; 1 minute = 1 point).

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