Listening Activities and Listening Resources

While teaching your students listening put in mind pre-, during, and post listening activities.

Pre listening
Pre-listening activity is a warm up. It activates students’ previous knowledge and engages them in the topic. For a pre-listening activity, I would ask some general questions related to the topic of the story. Later, I would play the audio once and ask students what they understood from the context and what the main idea is.

While-listening
It includes exercises students do while listening like fill in the gaps or true and false. I would hand out a "fill in the gaps" worksheet to work with while listening to the audio. Next, I would invite my students to access the listening resource like ESL lab web so that they can work on other exercises on their own.

Post listening
As a post listening activity, I would ask my students more specific questions and details about the story to engage them in speaking. Also I would tell them to engage in conversations with their peers.



A detailed example on TED ED lecture

TED Ed lectures (https://ed.ted.com/). This site helps to develop both top-down and bottom-up listening skills and provides not only authentic audio material but also compelling visual cues. TED Education videos offer teachers the opportunity to develop interesting and engaging class content for students. I have always used them in my classes to inspire my students and allow them to develop effective communication skills and behaviors. Authentic material and visual cues have a positive impact on our class delivery and allow us to meet the needs of our students. Without these videos, I do not think it would be possible for a teacher to find appropriate teaching materials. This resource is useful in my educational context especially with the undergraduate Graphic Design students who are mostly visual learners.

 Video lecture “Who decides what art really means?” (https://ed.ted.com/lessons/who-decides-what-art-means-hayley-levitt#watch)  discusses major art criticism theories. I chose to use this video to introduce the approaches to art interpretation. This video corresponds to students’ interests since they not only analyse famous artworks but also create their own paintings and provide peer feedback and interpretation.

Pre-watching: First, I would introduce the topic through a short warm-up activity asking students to reflect on their experience of visiting museums. Students will think about the role and importance of preparation before they examine artworks. They will reflect on their personal ways of engaging with works of art (whether they research the type of artwork that is on display before they go to the exhibition, whether they read the labels in the museum, the strategy they use to select the exhibits that are of interest to them). All students have the visited museums and art galleries (including virtual museum tours) as part of their Art History curriculum.

Then I would show two mages on the board: a painting by the established artist (for example, Henri Rousseau The Sleeping Gypsy (https://www.moma.org/collection/works/80172). The students will answer the questions: 1) What do you see when you look at this work? 2) What is the artist saying to you? What mood, feelings, ideas are expressed? Then I would introduce the students to the interpretation provided by art critics. Students will reflect on the questions: a) Is your interpretation of the painting similar or different from the critics’ thoughts? b) Now you know what art critics think about the painting, is your attitude to the painting different? After that I would play the video once and ask the students about the answer to the main question of the video: Who decides what artwork means? The video discusses two viewpoints on the problem but does not give a definitive answer. In order to understand the arguments for and against each approach to art interpretation students will have to listen for specific details. So the next step would be moving from top-down to bottom-up listening strategy.  

While-watching: In order to understand the content of the video which might be in line with their own reasoning discovered during warm-up activity students will watch the video again and complete the tasks in the handout. I will pause the video after each logical part. The students will watch the video again and do ‘fill in the gaps’ task and restore the logical sequence of sentences and arguments.

Post-watching: As a post-watching activity students will decide if the statements based on the content of the video are true or false (they will watch the video or its parts again if it is necessary) and answer comprehension questions. Students once again revisit the question: Who decides what art really means? and try to provide the answer using the arguments from the video.

As a class activity we would hold a conversation on the relevance of art in peoples’ lives.

Home assignment: I would ask the students to find the examples of a lesser known established work of art and come up with its interpretation. Then students will research the art critics’ views on the artwork and compare their findings.      

Listening Resources

Voice of America: http://www.voanews.com

American English: Sing Out Loud

Children's songs: https://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/sing-out-loud-childrens-songs

Traditional songs: https://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/sing-out-loud-traditional-songs

EFL listening websites:

ESL Lab: http://www.esl-lab.com

ESL Lounge: http://www.esl-lounge.com

Many Things: http://www.manythings.org

TED Ed: https://www.ted.com/watch/ted-ed

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com

Additional Websites:

NBC: http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news

ABC: http://abcnews.go.com/Video

CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com

PBS Kids: http://pbskids.org/video

National Geographic: http://www.nationalgeographic.com

Academic Earth: http://academicearth.org/electives

Teaching Vocabulary Resources

Acquiring vocabulary is a relevant aspect of language learning. Learning vocabulary can be incidental or intentional. There are specific websites or tools for teaching vocabulary must be accurately chosen while planning a lesson. It depends on your aims, goals, and outcomes, what do we expect of our students or which specific skills or habits do I expect of my students to develop? Explore, inquire or just acquire research skills? All these variables should be worked on first. Besides, technology is supposed to be integrated into the teaching/learning process smoothly.

As for the way I teach vocabulary, I depend on the idea of exposure so I assign a lot of readings as I believe that exposure and repeated exposure not only support students and prepare them for summative assessment but also enhance students guessing skills, and makes vocabulary stick in their minds. I send students links to articles from Wikipedia, WikiHOW, and English Test Store, a website that includes a lot of vocabulary exercises and hundreds of comprehension exercises.

Lots of resources and apps might be listed here but I really advocate for the teaching/learning purpose or goal. I guess our choice in technology should be principled as well or we are to combine incidental and intentional teaching aspects. I consider using learning apps or websites as a great motivator for 21st-century students. Technology must be used wisely and not as a teacher’ substitute or replacement but as a learning tool which expands and develops our competencies.

Lingro.com

Lingro.com is a website that give meaning to words just by clinking on the words. You only have to connect the article to the website by pasting the link.  Explore Lingro.com and use it twice or trice to make students familiar with the use of the website. I teach my students to connect the articles I send the link to with Lingro. This like the site as it provides different possible meaning for the same word.

Vocabulary Logs via keep notes on google application

I let students choose the book they like to read themselves and they need to send the vocabulary log weekly. They share the note (vocabulary log) with me via the share option

Voice of America

In VOA, the vocabulary is related to current events. For example, I browsed the website yesterday and I found audios with vocabulary for events that took place yesterday an aspect that students will definitely like. Another aspect is the idea of the integration of the skills and this is really effective as they will listen to and see vocabulary in a context which will be really helpful as it will increase students’ vocabulary range and make them use the new vocabulary range. In addition, there are related news for those who want to listen to more material related to the topic. There is  the News Words at VOA which is an interesting way of teaching vocabulary in context. 

Corpus of Contemporary America English 

COCA

Corpus is also a rich and great resource for words and how every word can be used in different context. I believe it is an important aspect of vocabulary learning for teachers and students as well. Both parties should be aware that every word can have a different meaning depending on the context where it has been used. Too, collocation are another challenging aspect of the teaching of vocabulary. Not all languages have the same collocations. 

Google search

 Use google search for word definitions and recommend i++ t for your students. It is handy and easy to use.

Oxford online dictionary https://www.oed.com/

 Oxford online dictionary is a source of vocabulary I refer as an authentic and explanatory resource. It is easy to use but students have to be oriented on using it.

The Internet includes a substantial compilation of information and vocabulary teaching materials and tools, which raises the issue of quality and appropriateness and calls for the use of adequate and appropriate methodologies. Teachers should always adapt the use of these tools to meet the objectives of their teaching as well as the needs and expectations of their learners. Technology is not here to substitute teachers. It should be used as an effective teaching tool. The use of technology without appropriate planning does not bring much to the language classroom. “The key to successful use of technology in language teaching lies not in hardware or software, but in ‘humanware’” (Warschauer & Meskill, 2000: 316). The way teachers use technology is what makes a difference in the language classroom.

Finally, Lingro.com, vocabulary logs, Voice of America, and Corpus of Contemporary American, Google Search, and Oxford online dictionary, can broaden vocabulary-learning opportunities in the language classroom and improve students’ learning experience. I am sure they can allow teachers to optimize class time, ensure an active participation of students and enable them to take charge of their own learning.

Using WhatsApp in the ESL Classroom

Social networking websites enhance the teaching and learning process, foster collaborative learning, facilitate networking, and promote the knowledge sharing. WhatsApp is social networking site that allows all this and increases rapport between students and teachers.

WhatsApp is a basic social networking website that contains the features of chatting, voice noting,  sending links, sharing links, and an ability to send messages to groups or individuals.  As an instructor, you can send notifications, create assignments, build quizzes , poll audiences, via sending the links to the WhatsApp group. With WhatsApp students and instructors can network in an environment that keeps the focus solely on teaching and learning without the risk of inadvertently glimpsing into each other’s private lives as in the case of Facebook.

WhatsApp is perfect for:

1. information sharing. WhatsApp enables students to easily communicate with their classmates and instructors. When communicating with classmates, WhatsApp allows students to ask each other questions as well as view and respond to each other’s questions; they also can share and view information. In my experience, students are quick to respond to one another. For more difficult questions, instructors can choose to respond directly or privately on WhatsApp, which allows all students to view and benefit from these messages. This information sharing ability is also useful for courses in which students need to share links with one another.

2. group work.  WhatsApp allows for the easy creation of small student work groups. Each group has the ability to create a team name and work within an individualized space where they can share ideas, articles, news, and resources with each other. This feature is especially relevant in courses with group projects such as a research methods course in which students may need to share empirical articles, post measures, talk about stimuli, or coordinate group face-to-face meetings.

2. mobile notifications. Receiving mobile notifications enhances the idea of alterness.

 For example, instructors can use this feature in the case of having to cancel class.

3.  control and visibility. Instructors can maintain a degree of supervision by being admins to the WhatsApp group. You can determine if your students are sharing information, if they are uploading materials to share with one another, and if they are responding to each other’s posts or if they are starying away from the main purpose of the class. You can delete inappropriate posts as needed and monitor any issues that arise.

WhatsApp is a great tool that helped me in the time of the coronavirus spread as though we were using Microsoft teams, the inconvenience of the internet made students lost. Students began to support each other through the WhatsApp groups, answer questions, send material, links, and explain to each other hard or vague material. Whenever students felt they had to contact me directly, they sent me privately. It was an enlighting experience in which I understood that WhatsApp is highly supportive and should be used in coordination with other educational platforms as students master using it and they feel more connected.