This is a presentation for the subject "Taller de técnicas informáticas aplicadas a la enseñanza de la lengua extranjera" at Buenos Aires' Teacher's Training College Joaquín V. González. It explores some websites that may help learners of English to develop/enhance their listening and speaking skills. The websites explored are: Learning English - Voice of America, Dave’s ESL Cafe, LibriVox, 6 Minutes English.
2. Learning English
Voice of America
Learning English is VOA's
multimedia source of daily
news and information for
millions of English learners
worldwide.
The structure of the webpage
is very user friendly:
it is well structured, divided into two levels, plus Audio, Video and Practice
sections.
VAO Learning English
3. The information is accurate and
based on fact, dated and up-to-
date, since it is a news website
run by the government of the
USA.
It is aimed at any learner of English.
However, as it is a news website,
the content may sometimes be
inappropriate for children.
4. Levels of difficulty
● The site divides VOA’s news
into two levels of difficulty:
intermediate and upper-
beginner level.
● Audio programs and captioned
videos are read one-third
slower than regular VOA
English news and make use of
vocabulary that suits the level
of difficulty.
5. Programs
The site divides its contents
into different programs that
range from daily issues to
music or history, among
others.
Programs
6. VOA’s
English in a Minute
These are short, effective
videos which deal with typical
American phrases (idioms)
and explain the context in
which people use those
phrases.
It is a quick, fun,
contextualized way of
learning new vocabulary.
7. Talk2Us
In Talk2Us, learners can
participate in
videoconferences (via
Skype) with a member of
VOA and discuss a topic.
Talk2Us
8. Confessions of an English Learner
In Confessions of an English Learner, people can practice their writing skills
while they share their experiences of learning the language with the rest of
the world. Each week VOA posts an article with a topic and people can write
their experiences in the comments (connected via Facebook).
Confessions of an English Learner
9. Dave’s ESL Cafe
● It started as a bare
bones site for finding
teaching jobs abroad
and discussing the life
lived there.
Forums:
discussion sites where
people can hold a
conversation on certain
topics in the form of posted
messages
10.
11. ● The activities are well
organized by skills, which
teachers would like to
improve on their students.
● There are plenty of ideas in
each section, for all levels.
● Some of the activities have
been tried out in a real
classroom and they did
work. This is good news!
13. ● Free, quick and
easy registration
● Not for listening
or speaking.
Write to
people from
different
countries!
14. This would have been
interesting if it weren’t
for the fact that its link
can’t be found.
Here you will find lots of
links to almost anything
that you can possibly be
looking for.
There is a huge problem
when it comes to
speaking and listening
links: MOST OF THEM
CANNOT BE FOUND.
15. 1. Randall's Lab
1. English Listening
3. http://iteslj.org/questions/
This is actually a webpage that
provides thousands questions
for several topics to enhance
English speaking in the
classroom.
16. ❏ Windows Media is
needed in some
cases.
❏ The listenings are
organized
according to the
level of the SS.
❏ The topics about
the listening are
also provided.
❏ There are post-
listening activities,
too.
Randall’s Lab English Listening
❏ It is divided into 3 sections:
Explore, Listening and
Understand.
❏ The listening practices are
leveled.
❏ In all the sections there are
post listening activities, but
they are all the same. The
activities are not differentiated
as for general understanding
or listening for detail, etc.
❏ For more access you need to
subscribe for a monthly paid
17. Acoustical liberation of books in the public domain
LibriVox online digital library
"to make all books in
the public domain
available, for free, in
audio format on the
internet"
18. Look for an audio book:
by author title genre
languageOver
6000
titles!
21. “All you need is your voice,
some free software, your
computer, and maybe an
inexpensive microphone.”
Volunteer for LibriVox
Work collaboratively and
play a character!
★ Why not record
a story among
all of your
students?
22. Check out the following links:
❖ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-cUv2yGzAs → a
Youtube video explaining a bit more how Librivox works
❖ http://www.edudemic.com/10-sites-to-download-free-audio-
books/ → nine additional sites from where you can download
free audio books
❖ http://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/Teachers_and_LibriVox → a
wiki to give you ideas on what type of students benefit from
Librivox such as students who don’t know who to read or who
are blind.
23. ● 6 Minute English is a radio program
developed by the BBC whose main
object is to provide sts with weekly
listening and reading practice.
● Each program lasts 6 minutes and
deals with an specific topic.
● Podcasts of each program are
available in the official website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learni
ngenglish/general/sixminute/
24. ● The main website of the program offers free of
charge podcasts that can be downloaded for listening
practice as well as their scripts.
● There is no need for the teacher to download the
podcasts since they can be played from the website
itself. Of course the teacher can also download the
material to his or her own computer without having to
pay any fee.
● There is no intrusive advertising in it.
25. ● They are weekly updated.
● Podcasts from previous years are also available.
● The content of each podcast is different from the previous one. This caters for
most of the students' interests as well as those of the teachers'.
● The sound quality is very good.
● You can play them online or download them for free.
● The online version plays reasonable quickly and the sound quality does not
change whether you have downloaded the file or not.
26. Scripts of each podcast are
available in pdf format allowing the
teacher to create different activities
with them.
There are already-made lesson plans
for each podcast which are usually
linked to newspaper articles for
further reading.
27. ● You can download the official 6 Minute English application for free in your
mobile.
● The only requirement needed is to have Android on your device or IOS.
● The application provides users
with the podcasts available in the
website. You can download the
audios and listen to them Offline.
