Developing Listening Comprehension
While your English as a foreign language learners may only get to hear perhaps two or three, there are, in fact, more than a dozen distinctive varieties of spoken English. When you are working with developing listening comprehension skills it is frequently useful to demonstrate several varieties and variations in spoken English to your English language learners.
Six Useful Sources
Considering the vast differences which can exist among English language schools and institutions world wide in regards to available facilities, most will still have some access to one or more of these resources.
• YouTube and online videos
A virtual treasure trove of resources resides online at YouTube and a host of other online video websites. You can hear and see a throng of historic figures and famous personalities to sample their speech and mannerisms.
• Audio cassettes
There are literally millions of audio archives stored online for your listening pleasure or to aid in developing your listening comprehension skills. Personally, I like the Old Time radio broadcast websites which allow you to listen to news, programs of all types from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and on to our present day. They even have the original commercials included with many old time radio program broadcasts.
• Popular Movie clips
Whether CDs, DVDs or VHS format, short three to eight minute clips from popular movies are an excellent way to illustrate some varieties of spoken English.
• Video clips
Documentaries, interviews, educational narratives and even newscasts can be a welcomed source for many difficult-to-find spoken English varieties.
• Online Radio
Like a giant octopus gone wild, the reach of the internet is constantly expanding, spreading and growing as if alive. Now more than ever before, you can listen to live feed radio stations from around the world.
• Online Television
With broadband internet access, web surfers are no longer limited to world wide radio audio broadcasts. Televised station programming, both pre-recorded and live, are now also widely available. Stations from the U.K., Canada, the USA, India, Africa and even Australia and New Zealand, among others, are available for free online around the clock.
Online or off, you can use any or all of these six highly useful resource suggestions to demonstrate several distinctive varieties and variations of spoken English. These can prove to be invaluable in developing the listening comprehension skills of your English as a foreign language learners. And they don’t have to travel abroad to do it.
Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an EFL Teacher Trainer, Intellectual Development Specialist, author and speaker. He has written ESP, foreign language learning, English language teaching texts and hundreds of articles used in more than 80 countries. Get your FREE E-books,"If you Want to Teach English Abroad, Here's What You Need to Know" or "7 Techniques to Motivate Your English Language Learners and Make Your Classes More Dynamic" by requesting the title you want at: lynchlarrym@gmail.com
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1 comment:
In fact I heard several classes of English language pronunciation in the aforementioned sources as the Internet and in commercials before "Boom" of television and multimedia in which the use of emphasis on the pronunciation was the resource for draw the attention of the public and this is in channels of satellite TV old programs and historic reviews of old broadcasting programs.
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