Fri 30 Mar 2007
“Little Lit” category provides short bits of English literature. There are poems set to music, tidbits of famous lit, recited poems, and (in the future), little fictions even. This way you can give students language practice while introducing them to literature.
As always, these audios are short–short enough to be done as dictations.
Thu 8 Mar 2007
Listen for the 15 missing vocabulary items in this text. They are all short, but even so, you may need to listen several times to be able to write them all.
Yeah, (1) ________ a little story about my first International Woman’s Day or (2) ________ Day–I’m not sure which (3) ________ it is—in Russia. It was a Thursday that (4) ________ , like it was in 2007, and I (5) ________ trying to get some teachers to (6) ________ and do some work—a class or workshops—on Friday. They said, “No, we (7) ________ do that because (8) ________ a holiday on Thursday.” “Yeah,” I said, “it’s International Woman’s Day. It’s (9) ________ one day, right?” And (10) ________ said, “Yes, but Friday (11) ________ also be a holiday. And (12) ________ I said, “Okay, (13) ________ . Well, what about Wednesday?” And they said, “No, that’s the day (14) ________ International Woman’s Day. And I said… “Okay.” So, really, International Woman’s Day is in Russia (15) ________ three days long. One day is three days long.
Sun 25 Feb 2007
Can music and melody aid our memory? Is it easier to learn L2 vocabulary from a song? I hope so, because I’ve got a lot of songs on this website.
But let’s try an experiment in class.
Below there are mp3 audios of a word list. The list has twenty words. The words have no relation to each other; they represent several different parts of speech.
In two of the audios the word list is spoken (one by a male, and one by a female).
In the third audio, the words are sung to piano accompaniment.
Directions
Split your class into two groups. One half of the class will listen to a spoken audio (doesn’t matter if you choose the male or female). The other group is going to listen to the musical rendition of the same words.
You will need two rooms, or one room and the hallway, and two music players. Members from one group should not hear what the other group hears.
No one is allowed to write anything down. No pens or pencils at all. They may play the audio over and over again for 3 minutes. (All the audios are about 30 seconds long). The goal is for each individual students to memorize, during these three minutes, as many of the words on the list as possible.
After the listening is done students should individually, without looking at each other’s work (remind them this is an experiment!), write down as many of the words as possible.
When that is done, and you have discussed all the words on the list, ask each student to report honestly how many he remembered. Calculate averages for each group: the spoken word group, and the song group.
Which group rememebered the most words?
This experiment is not good science and not good research, and it doesn’t really prove anything. But I still think it’s a good activity. Students will be curious about the results, and this might provoke their curiosity about language and vocabulary in general, and they may even follow up with some of their own investigations.
If nothing else, there’s bound to be some discussion afterwards. Here are some questions that might help stimulate that discussion:
What do you think of the results? (after tallying them up)
Do you think that music helps you learn English?
Do you think it could be harder to learn a list of words that was sung to music?
Did the singing of the words interfere with your initial understanding?
Were the words clear enough for you to understand?
Would it be easier if you saw the words as you heard them?
Did any of the words seem to go together—by sound?
Were you confused by the compound words (mousetrap, suitcase)?
The next day or two days later try again: ask students to write as many of the 20 words as possible.
Options
There are many ways to expand on this experiment. You might involve four groups instead of two. Groups 3 and 4 would have a list of the words, so they could read them while they were trying to memorize them. Take the lists away when the time is up, of course.
However formally or informally you set up the task, I would be grateful to hear about any results. Stats are great, but general reactions are appreciated too. I mean, for all I know, this is the dumbest activity in the world. Contact me.
Sun 25 Feb 2007
Here’s a short poem by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) which I’ve rendered into song: a ready-to-use listening, vocabulary, and literature lesson.
No materials necessary except the audio.
Talk and Write (before you listen)
Look at the following 9 words/expressions that have something to do with the poem. Some of them might even appear in the poem.
ache, bird, ease, fainted, help, hurt, in vain, life, robin
The first half of the first line is “If I can stop…”
With a partner discuss what you think the poem is about. What do you think the speaker will try to stop if she can.
Write down your speculation. Share with the class.
Listen and write
Play the song 2 to 4 times–depending on student level–and ask students to write down ALL the words. Listening several times is no big deal because the song is just 0:45 seconds long.Â
Hint: “unto” means “into”
Follow up writing
1. Summarize the main point of the poem in one or two sentences.
2. Is the song hopeful and positive or does it hint at sadness? Explain why, okay?
3. What would you need to do in life to have not lived in vain?
Text of Poem
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainted* robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
*Note to literary purists: the original poem has the word “fainting,” not “fainted,” which I mistakenly sung and, after working on the song for many hours, said, “The heck with it, I’m not re-singing.”
Fri 23 Feb 2007
An easy question.
All of them. It is just a matter of the teacher’s intuition and ability to adjust.
Take The Counting Songs. 10 seconds long. The singer counts from one to seven, and then back. It seems like a beginning level activity. Can be. But I have used it at all levels. I have used it with teachers of English and teacher trainers of English. They think it’s easy the first time when they sing “1-2-3-4-5-6-7-7-6-5-4-3-2-1.” But what the heck? The song’s 10 seconds long. It’s not as if you are wasting time. Then they are usually suprised to find that the “2-4-6-8-10-and-12″ version is not so easy, especially counting backwards.
Next, I ask them to write their own number patterns to the karaoke version. We put these on the board and the entire group has to sing/speak them–again at fairly high speed. It’s not just counting anymore. This is tongue training. And because we do the song many times–each one different–there is a high amount of repetition, and repetition is key to language practice.
So a seemingly easy task becomes rich in practice for even advanced levels.
This is why Recycle Songs work for almost any level of learner. When they compose their own words, they are writing to their own level and the level of their peers. Beginners write simple patterns; Ph.ds write complex patterns.
Not all audios are beneficial to basic learners, of course. We don’t want to frustrate them with a lot of language they do not understand. That’s why most of the audio on the site is VERY short. If the teacher presents a short audio task carefully, most students are going to succeed after a few repetitions. And isn’t that what we want–our students to succeed?
Fri 23 Feb 2007
I received a letter from H in Sheffield, UK, and H has graciously allowed me to post it here. (I hope that H will do an audio version too–because that’s what ETsEverywhere is all about).
Dear Kevin,
I applaud your efforts to create a new website of ESL audio materials, but in most respects your “site” is glaringly lacking.
May I point out that, unlike yours, most respectable ESL websites–UsingEnglish, Dave’s ESL cafe, etc.– include borders or flash banners devoted to advertisements. Thus, while we are browsing for material it is quite easy to look for ways to spend our money, or to pleasantly distract ourselves with thoughts thereof. This wasn’t possible at your “site.”
I also find your content bizarre. ESL material should be sober for adults, cute and cloying for the young learners. Not plain mad.
And I cannot suss out any reason for texts intended to appeal to Tajiks and such. Students should learn about the UK mostly, and some about America, and perhaps a little about Australia–maybe one text about a koala or something.
My ESL students prefer texts like “At the Tobbaconist’s” or “Mr. Brown on High Street,” and they prefer recordings made NOT by so-called genuine people but by actors—professionals, to wit—whose language is clearer and more practiced than the man on the street.
2) And while we are at it, English students want, deserve, and need to hear native English speakers, and nothing but. Your “Other Voices” section provides recordings of non-native English speakers, from places as far afield as Taiwan, Mexico, and Arizona. If a speaker’s English is not clean, better that students don’t understand it all; otherwise they will learn bad habits.
3) Songs, songs, songs. Really, now. I believe songs should be used in the classroom only as often as we listen to them in real life. I, like most people listen to one song a month (usually something by Gary Numan or In Sync).And Movement Songs? Students don’t learn a language by prancing about. Students learn by sitting at their desks and keeping their noses in the book. Oh, perhaps it’s not glamorous, perhaps it’s not fun, but it works.
Decades of research have not uncovered any method better than the “Three RE-’s Approach.”
A. Read – read a text
B. Recite – (recite the text aloud)
C. Redo – (redo steps A and B).
It is not easy to learn a language, nor is it fun; and the teacher is shirking responsibility if he doesn’t let on to his students. Study is how we learn. Study and hard work. Coupled with the motivational menace of frequent and weighty examinations.
Yours,
H
Sheffield, UK
Tue 20 Feb 2007
Here’s a little story about listening comprehension. But first, what do I mean by the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) environment? This would be classrooms generally made up of students who share a common native tongue. Like, for instance, an English class in Japan taught by a Japanese instructor.
The Story
I was training to be an interviewer for Cambridge exams in Samara, Russia. The trainer was British. We trainees were Americans and Russians. We had to evaluate the speaking abilities of several people from different countries. The goal was for all of us pretty much to agree on the level of the speaker. We watched video tapes of interviews and gave our ratings. Most of our evaluations were close, with one exception. One guy on the video–probably from Russia–scored pretty well with the Russian evaluators. We Americans rated a certain Chinese guy higher. The Russians were surprised. They felt that the Chinese guy was hardly comprehensible.
We Americans thought the Chinese guy was understandable, and spoke a little more fluently. Were we Americans right?
Conclusions
Not really. The Russians weren’t being biased, weren’t just favoring a fellow countryman. No, for them the Russian WAS more understandable, because Russian English teachers were accustomed to Russians speaking English. They had far less experience–perhaps none–listening to a Chinese speaker of English.
In a non English-speaking country, like Russia or China, students and teachers often speak beautiful English. They write beautifully. They read easily and prolifically.
But when it comes to listening, we native speakers might have to adjust (or accommodate) our language to be understood. The listening skills have received less attention. It is unlikely that the students–and the teachers–have not engaged in focused listen tasks on a daily basis. This was born out in my TOEFL preparation classes, where students scored lowest on the Listening portion of the exam.
Increase Listening Tasks: Native and World Englishes
So we see the is importance of increasing listening practice of American, Brit and Aussie English in the EFL environment.
Likewise, it’s necessary to give students listening tasks involving the speech those who speak English as a second or foreign language–Indians, Chinese, Malays, Egyptians, Mexicans, or Vietnamese. Is it not good practice for Russians to understand Chinese speaking English and visa versa?
In our increasingly linked worldwide community, L2 English interactions are becoming more and more common.
In the past, teachers had an excuse not to do so many listening activities. They did not have access to a broad range of audio to do listening activities every day.
But with all the authentic audio available on the Internet, it’s time to dig in and pump up the number of listening activities in your classes. Heck, with English Teachers Everywhere alone you could do a new listening thingy every day of the term.
Tue 20 Feb 2007
Why lists? Well, lists are a natural form of thematic grouping. And the mind learns better when it groups things together and makes associations.
Besides, lists are so natural. Everyone makes them now and again. I make a dozen everyday.
And finally, it’s so easy to get more out of List Songs. If the list song is Foods, ask students to make a list of foods before the listening. Give them a time limit. Say, 2 minutes. See if they can predit which foods will appear in the song.
After the listening, create discussion questions about the elements in the list. Or have students create the questions.
Best of all, List Songs involve Listening Skills in the the introducing and/or practicing of vocabulary themes.
Sun 18 Feb 2007
Here’s what you do with this song. You’ll hear a list of 16 adjectives that describe a person’s personality or behavior. The activity is a kind of race.
Play the whole song all the way through (1:12), and let students, alone or in pairs, try to write all 16 adjectives. The singer repeats the adjectives several times. It is not necessarry that students write the adjectives in the correct order.
The winner of the challenge is the student who gets the most correct adjectives after one listening.
There are tons of easy follow ups. One is to brainstorm personal questions from the students and write them on the board. For example, “When do you get uptight?” “Do you consider yourself talkative? Under what circumstances are you most talktative?” “Who is the most sensitive person you know?”
Once the questions are on the board, students in pairs or groups will ask each other. What a simple and effective speaking activity!
Tue 6 Feb 2007
Here’s a mini C-test you can write on the board. It’s the words to a song called “Valentine’s Day Pie.”
In a C-test the second half of every other word is missing. If the word has an odd number of letters, the larger half is taken away. An apostrophe is counted as a letter. One-letter words are skipped, and the first sentence is untouched.
The C-Test was developed by Christine Klein-Braley and Ulrich Raatz, and it is an accurate way of testing language proficiency.
Students should complete the text below by filling in the missing letters. Try this before listening to the song
I’ve got a sweetheart.
Sometimes I do___ know h__ to sh__
that I lo__ her.
S_ I ga__ her a gi__,
a le___ pie,
ba___ it mys___
on Valen______ Day.
Ye__, a le___ pie
o_ Valentine’s D__
but I for___,
she doe____ like p__
or lemons eit___.
Or if you prefer a straight listening activity, play the song below and ask students to write down ALL the words. You can play the song several times; it’s only 46 seconds long.
