A few of my favorite sites for (mostly) authentic English listening practice:
Audio Concentration is like the card game Concentration, or Memory. There are five games in the Similar Sounding Words section for discrimination of minimal pairs. One of the things I like about this site is that it is audio only. It relies totally on listening; there is no text. This is a good site for students to use during computer lab or outside of class. The fact that the games are timed encourages repetition for reinforcement of the phonemes presented. There are also games for vocabulary related to family members and months of the year, which I assign for a computer lab activity when we are studying those topics in the classroom.
ELLLO (English Listening Lesson Library Online) is an excellent site for intermediate/advanced listening (with or without text) to dialogs on various topics. Most dialogs have a Hide Conversation option, but users can also choose not to scroll down the script so the text is not revealed. The content is intended for college students, but there are many conversations on themes that older adults can relate to. Speakers are American, British, Australian, and non-native English speakers to provide experience listening to a variety of accents. Each conversation is accompanied by a short quiz so the listener can check comprehension. A very nice feature of the accompanying text is that idioms are highlighted and linked to explanations with examples. This is an ideal site for independent study, but some of the topics also lend themselves to reinforcement/expansion on classroom content. For example, topic #990 Next Step is a discussion of job options. Even though the conversation is between college students nearing graduation, it would be appropriate for anyone who is seeking employment.
English LingQ: This Canadian site provides a variety of listening options for intermediate/advanced English learners. Interviews, excerpts from audiobooks, and other authentic listening are presented with readalong text on a variety of topics with natural pace and intonation. English LingQ for beginners has a slower, less natural, pace. It is a serial story titled as "a simple story in 26 parts," about a woman looking for her brother. However, only the first 10 parts are posted, so by the end of Part 10, she still hasn't found her brother. There is also an option to subscribe to these audio files as podcasts. These audio files can be used for independent study or in the classroom as the basis for discussion or writing assignments. The beginner's serial story could be used in the classroom to reinforce ways to ask for information, narrative discussion, and predictions for next installment.
Street interviews with English speakers: This site is rich in authentic listening to actual interviews of people on the street. In each video, the interview question is repeated multiple times, with multiple demonstrations of ways to answer. In addition to its value for independent listening practice, various conversations can be used to reinforce classroom content, such as telling time or asking directions. The conversations represent both British and U.S. English, and the pace is appropriate for intermediate and advanced English learners.
Listen to any text: This is an incredibly useful text-to-sound site! Users are required to register to open an account, but it's free and the registration is not arduous or personally invasive. The user can enter or paste text or choose to convert from a file (.txt, .doc, .pdf, .html, .xml). Options include voice selection (M/F, British or U.S. English) and speed. There also controls for modifying pronunciation of selected words and for view text while you listen to the file. Files are saved in the user's account and can be downloaded as podcasts or mp3 format. The speech is somewhat robotic, but realistic enough to be useful, with a surprising range of stress, rhythm, and intonation. I am excited about the possibilities presented to me as a teacher. I can convert reading passages for students to hear, and students can open their own accounts and enter their own text for listening. Here's a sample of text converted from this blog post: voice, AT&T US Mike; speed, normal. It's not perfect, but I think it does surprisingly well overall.
Nancy,
ReplyDeleteI really like what you've done here with listening resources. While I am focusing on advanced learners for my teaching context, the fact is that I anticipate teaching adult learners at all stages of learning. Your resources seem to have an excellent range to meet listeners at a variety of levels. I checked out each one of your suggestions and listened to material from each one.
I liked the audible Concentration game because it was a fun way to improve perception of minimal pairs. Even knowing the language, I had a great time doing the game. It would definitely be challenging as a learner. I also thought ELLLO was very well done--with relevant, interesting topics. I like that it also gets a cultural element into the listening practice. LingQ was an interesting site, I'd be curious to see how learners find it. One itty bitty drawback is if the learners are here in the states they may pick up some Canadian ways of saying things that are not completely "normal" here. I'm curious what uses you forsee for Listen to Any Text--it is exciting, do you have specific ideas for it yet?
I'm glad you found the sites potentially useful. I think of Listen to Any Text(YakiToMe.com)as a site where students can copy or enter text to hear how it sounds in English. It would be used for phrases or extended text rather than isolated words. There are enough pronouncing dictionaries (e.g., dictionary.com)for words already, and they do a much better job than YakiToMe.
ReplyDeleteNice Post.
ReplyDeleteThe information in this blog helped me in preparing of the Audio Monitoring Kits. The kit will mainly depend on the internet resources which we are getting know a days.