Listening Listening Listening!!

Online resources

1. Elllo      http://www.elllo.org/

The name of this website is “Elllo” and the target group can be university students who study English as a foreign language in Japan. This website provides learners with some listening contents such as daily conversation and lessons. However, it offers not only lessons but also activities such as game. It can be useful to teach English in a classroom because the script is appended in each conversation and lesson. Even if some students cannot follow the contents used in the classroom, teachers can allow them to see the script and adjust level differences in students. In addition, learners do not probably give up listening due to the script and teachers can conduct a class effectively. Also, there are many varieties of listening contents such as news and daily life in this website. Therefore, teachers enable students to have interest in the class if they choose appropriate contents.

       

         

Screenshot taken by <http://www.elllo.org/> 

Reference

http://www.elllo.org/

2.  Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab  http://www.esl-lab.com/

This website is “Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab”. The target group can be university students who would like to study English in foreign countries such as Australia and America in the future. There are varieties of contents such as news, lectures and conversations in this website. It has 2 implications for teaching English in a classroom. Firstly, it provides some activities such as dictation and quiz. Teachers can use these activities for checking the degree of students’ understanding without preparing for “in-reading” questions, so their responsibilities of making questions can be reduced. In other words, teachers can focus on making “post-reading” questions if they do not need to prepare for “pre-reading” questions. Secondly, this site offers practical questions for IELTS. Students can have motivation to study English with IELTS listening practices because they would like to study abroad. Moreover, teachers can make teaching ways based on IELTS, so it enables them to conduct a class readily.

              

               

Screenshot taken from< http://www.esl-lab.com/ > and < http://www.esl-lab.com/credit/creditcardrd1.htm >

References

http://www.esl-lab.com/
http://www.esl-lab.com/credit/creditcardrd1.htm

３．English as a Second language
http://www.eslpod.com/website/index_new.html

The name of this website is “English as a Second language” and the target learners can be university students who study English in Japan. It offers a large number of listening practices through MP 3. For example, students can listen to news, short story, music, lecture and dairy conversation. The strength of this website is convenient for students. They cannot see the images that speakers talk about topic since all listening practices do not come from video. However, all of listening practices use MP 3, so they can down load whatever they need. In Japan, most university students have I-phone or smart phone. Therefore, it is easy for them to download listening practices through their mobile phones. It is so useful for homework because students can practice listening whenever and wherever they need. Accordingly, this website may be effective for outside of a classroom.
 

Screenshot  http://www.eslpod.com/website/index_new.html

Screenshot <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsu2A7gcMBQ >


References
http://www.eslpod.com/website/index_new.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsu2A7gcMBQ

4. TED                       http://www.ted.com/

This website is “TED”. The target group can be university students who study English in Japan. In this website, learners can listen to short stories or speeches by famous people in the world. It has two strengths to teach English. Firstly, students can touch many varieties of English through TED. There are a large number of native-English teachers in Japan, but there are not a sufficient number of non-native English teachers. Therefore, teachers can use TED to focus on not only native-English pronunciation but also non-native pronunciation. From the aspect of EIL, it can be considered as positive way of teaching “world Englishes”. Secondly, most speakers in TED are famous in the world. Accordingly, students may be interested in the speakers and have motivation to listen to the story or speech. In addition, it is easy for teachers to provide students with schema and background knowledge if speakers are famous.

Screenshot taken from <http://www.ted.com/>

Screenshot <http://www.ted.com/playlists/171/the_most_popular_talks_of_all >

References
http://www.ted.com/
http://www.ted.com/playlists/171/the_most_popular_talks_of_all