8 Online Listening Websites

1. http://www.elllo.org/
2. http://esl.about.com/od/englishlistening/English_Listening_Skills_and_ActivitiesEffective_Listening_Practice.htm
3. http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Listening/
4. http://www.esl-lab.com/
5. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/multimedia/index.shtml
6. http://www.listeningexpress.com/
7. http://www.clet.ait.ac.th/sall.htm
8. http://www.pbs.org/

Evaluation of 8 Listening Websites

1. English Language Listening Lab Online

http://www.elllo.org/

ELLLO stands for English Language Listening Lab Online. It is a collection of over 1,000 listening activities that students can view free via the internet. Most listening activities come with a downloadable MP3 audio file, transcript and interactive quiz. ELLLO offers a variety of listening activities that each targets a specific listening skill, need or interest. It offers English by Region, which means language learners are empowered to choose English from different regions like Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, etc. By clicking different names of the country, a listener opens a window to experience its culture while listening. The listening activities include interviews, newscasts, surveys (Mixer), songs, presentations (Talking Points), and listening games.

Interviews are natural conversations with various speakers of English that offer multiple listening options. It offers a collection of audio recordings and listening activities featuring speakers of English from different countries. Students can listen to a variety of English that is harder to find in more traditionally scripted textbooks. Also, ELLLO Interviews contains rich images that help listeners follow the topic of the conversation. It covers topics including food, sports, traveling, life, places, and other topics of its culture.

Listening Games help students listen for gist. Students can listen to audio about a topic and choose the picture that matches the audio. The listening games are designed for beginning students and for students who want to listen for fun and enjoyment.

Mixer is a survey that features six different speakers answering the same question. Students can easily follow the topic and compare the various responses. Each speaker's segment comes with two questions that appear at the end of the audio segment to develop test taking skills.
English by Region is a collection of speakers from the same country or region. For students getting ready to study, live or visit one country, they can search through the large list of regional speakers. ELLLO also contains a large collection of non-native English speakers to prepare students for real international communication.

News Center is an animated newscast. Each Newscast has six stories. For each story, students can try to answer questions about each news story. News Center can help students learn academic English and develop test taking skills for standardized listening tests such as TOEFL, TOEIC and IELTS.

Songs are a great way to learn English. ELLLO contains some great songs by independent artists. As the students listen, the words are displayed on the screen so students can catch the lyrics. Listening and reading the lyrics is a great way to help students improve grammar, pronunciation, reading speed, reading by chunks and learn common slang and idioms.

ELLLO’s updates occur weekly on each Monday. On average there are at least five new listening activities each week. Activities are numbered for easy reference.


2. English listening skills and activities: About: English as 2nd Language

http://esl.about.com/od/englishlistening/English_Listening_Skills_and_ActivitiesEffective_Listening_Practice.htm

This is an American site. It is one of the best online listening websites that offers various rich resources that ESL and EFL learners and teachers need in order to practice and teach listening skills. Its great variety enables language teachers and learners to choose materials according to their special needs.

Listening activities in this site vary from beginner’s level to intermediate and to advanced levels. This site also offers Listening Lesson Plans for language teachers, with different difficulty levels and wide topics to choose from. Online Listening Quizzes are esp. good for language learners because they can get feedback immediately after they finish listening practice by giving their response through choosing and clicking the answers. It makes listening a private and individual activity and thus learners won’t worry about losing face or feeling embarrassed in front of others because of their incorrect choice.

All the listening materials in this site are authentic and accessible freely online. Besides, both teachers and students can find a lot of other English resources in this site, such as Grammar, Vocabulary, Pronunciation, Speaking, Writing skills, Reading skills, and even TOFEL and EILTS, etc. It offers links to other online listening resources as well.


3. ESL : Listening

http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Listening/

This is a sub-page of The Internet TESL Journal's TESL/TEFL/TESOL/ESL/EFL/ESOL Links. ESL: Listening is specially designed for teachers and students of English as a Second language. One of the advantages of this site is it has separate links for students and teachers, which save both teachers and students time and trouble in finding the suitable materials they want to seek. In addition, it has Downloadable MP3 Files, which is esp. good for students so that they can download and listen to the materials whenever they want to. This also makes it easier for language teachers to use them in their classrooms.

Also, this site is good for those who are interested in Literature. In this website, listeners can listen to a good many classic stories like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. To add, learners can watch and listen to Classic Movies as well as TV Comedies and many other types of scripts like speeches, etc.

Furthermore, there are some materials specially designed for language learners. Take Ellie Speaks Out for example. It makes learners learn English and laugh at the same time. On top of that, the whole text is provided, which enables language learners of different levels a lot of choices to choose from.

The website is well designed and easy to follow and read.


4. Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab

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

This ESL language Web site is created and hosted by Randall Davis who has worked at several colleges and universities in the United States. His areas of interest and specialty include CALL, video technology and language teaching, teacher training, and learner autonomy.

This site aims to help ESL/EFL students improve their listening comprehension skills through practice with self-grading.

The site is well designed for ESL students to practice and test their listening capability. It is recommendable because it serves all levels of English language learners and it offers free audio and video quizzes. It provides various listening practice materials, such as General Listening Quizzes (Learn everyday conversation with adult and children's voices), Listening Quizzes for Academic Purposes (Prepare for TOEFL/TOEIC), Language Learning and Life Tips (Life-skills tips with audio), and Long Conversations with Videos (Watch, listen and learn with interviews and conversations), etc.

The site is well-designed and distinguished by its appropriate use of fonts and colors. Therefore, it is easy to read and navigate.

5. BBC English: radio programs

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/multimedia/index.shtml

This is one of the best and the most popular Websites English teachers can turn to for searching authentic materials for listening class. There is a great variety for teachers to choose whatever they and their students need and are interested in. This is one of the sites that can be recommended to students because it not only offers good authentic listening materials but also is specially designed for language learners so that they can improve and practice their English with activities that involve listening and watching. Meanwhile, it opens a window for language learners to learn about the target culture.

Each section of the site has something to listen to, and some can be watched and listened to at the same time. There are lots of exercises designed to test listeners’ comprehension. In fact, teachers and English language learners can find almost everything they like in this website. For those who are interested in British English pronunciation and British culture and society, this is the best site to be visited. The site makes English language learning and listening practice more interesting and enjoyable.

The site is well designed and uses appropriate fonts and colors. Therefore, it is easy for readers to read and navigate.


6. Listening Express

http://www.listeningexpress.com/

This site is non-commercial and non-profit. It claims that all the materials available freely serve only for the purpose of English language learning.

The site offers free downloadable listening materials in the form of MP3, RM and WMV format. The sources include widely known and popular radio programs like VOA Special English, VOA News Now, CRI (Special) English, Talk to America, Talk of the Nation, Our world, BBC World News, Business Report, Sports Roundup, English Evening, Studio-Classroom On-the-air, and some TV programs such as CNN Student News and BBC London TV News, etc.

The site is designed to serve Language teaching and leaning purpose. No advertising, no disturbing picture, and no unnecessary information in the site. Considering the tight budget of many Chinese college/university students, this is an ideal online listening website where they can download all the materials free of charge and can visit it endlessly without any time limit. Besides radio programs of news, business and sports reports both in and out of China, there are talking programs as well, from which language learners can learn real life English and at the same time enjoy language learning.

All the programs are updated weekly. The regular maintenance always keeps the site up-to-date. In addition, the format of the webpage is well designed and easy to read.

7. Online Listening Resources: Language Center

http://www.clet.ait.ac.th/sall.htm

This Language Center online listening resources is among the good on-line listening language resources sites.

One great advantage of it is it has links to most of the famous and popular radio and TV stations in the world, such as BBC ENGLISH, CNN News, CTVNet TV, Discovery Channel Online, PBS Online, NPR Online, ect. Therefore, learners with different language pronunciation favor or with interest in different cultures are able to find what they like to watch and listen easily.

The site is well-designed and uses appropriate fonts and colors. Therefore, it is easy for readers to read and navigate.

8. PBS online

http://www.pbs.org/

This is an American site, which enriches lives of Americans. It offers authentic language listening materials. The site includes different categories that can satisfy language teachers and learners with different interests. It has History section, Arts and Drama section, News and Views section, and Life & culture section, and so on. This site can be recommended to language learners of intermediate and advanced levels and those who are interested in exploring American culture.

The site is well-designed and distinguished by its appropriate use of fonts and colors. Therefore, it is easy to read and navigate. In addition, it is updated frequently.

My doubt

Our country, in my opinion, enjoys making big and pleasing-to-ear policies. All the aims set in IT education sound fantastic. But I really doubt its practicality and possibility. What do you think?

Week 3 Assignment: IT Educational Policy In China

The Chinese government believes that modernization of education
by applying information technology is essential in order to produce
students who can be competitive in the information era. The process
of introducing and integrating information and communication
technology (ICT) application into the education system is referred
to as educational “informationization” – something the Chinese
government is giving a great deal of attention to.

The actions being undertaken by the government and
schools include the following:
1. Constructing infrastructure needed for an information environment;
2. Developing educational resources;
3. Encouraging computer education;
4. Supporting teacher professional development; Integrating ICT into traditional classrooms;
5. Delivering good educational resources into rural areas using ICT-assisted distance education methods;
6. Changing administration systems through ICT applications.

Long-term Goals for Chinese Educational Informationisation
The aim is to meet the following goals by 2010:
1. ICT-based infrastructure which covers the whole country will be set up;
2. ICT education will be popularised in the most places;
3. The competence of ICT application for all Chinese citizens will be improved;
4. There will be enough ICT specialists to meet social development needs;
5. A lifelong education system will be in place; Software producing centres and ICT corporations will be operational;
6. The general level of infrastructure development and ICT application in education will rank at the top level among developing countries;
7. For universities, and for 85 per cent of the technical/vocational schools and primary and secondary schools in the developed area of China, the level of infrastructure development and ICT application will match that of developed countries.


Main Tasks and Relative Policies
To realise these goals, the Chinese government has developed policies and plans as follows:
1. Increase the bandwidth of the main lines of China Education and Research Network (CERNET),
extend coverage towards the West and include small cities;
2. Enhance the province and city networks of CERNET in order to supply good quality service to all kinds of education institutes with 2.5 Gbps bandwidth;
3. Construct a wide band satellite-based network (CEBsat) and combine that with Internet (CERNET) in order to supply multiple information transmission services for the entire country, particularly remote and rural areas;
3. Enhance university campus network construction, particularly in the western part of China, and develop a digital information platform to support an e-library, an information management system and a distance education system;
4. Enhance campus network construction in primary and secondary schools, particularly in village areas, launch the course ICT Education in most of schools and integrate ICT into the curriculum of middle technical/vocational schools;
5. Improve education administration informationisation by constructing platforms for officials, resources and public information;
6. Increase the number and quality of ICT specialists to spread ICT education in primary and secondary schools, to train teachers in information literacy and to provide inservice training about information literacy for adult and vocational students;
7. Facilitate sharing of teaching resources in order to improve the quality of education by developing a distributed education resource platform;
8. Launch research on second generation networks and conduct trials in selected central cities;
9. Develop policies regarding education enterprises that will encourage more financial investment and support development of ICT corporations;
10. Develop quality standards for education informationisation and use them to develop evaluation systems.

Reference:
Ms Chen li Ph.D. Policy goals and Implementations.

To know more about education in China, please click the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_Peoples_Republic_of_China

To know more about IT or ICT (information and communication technology) policy and the recent development of CATE (computer and advanced technology in education) in China, please follow the link:
http://www.iasted.org/conferences/cfp-570.html

Join in the discussion

Hello! Could I invite you to have a discussion about how we can emply IT effectively in our listening class? I am very interested in how we, as English teachers, can make listening class both interesting and productive.