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Date Posted: 17:34:47 03/14/11 Mon
Author: Ludmila
Subject: final task 5 - one file for the group

Task 5- Group 1

Choose three listening tasks out of them.
Write a position paper about their weaknesses and strengths. Would use them with your students? Why? Give reasons. Clearly identify the listening tasks you are writing about.

Author: Ludmila Ameno
The following listening tasks, were selected because they have excellent and relevant points about them, and they also have not so good aspects in them. They were extracted from the websites below and they are numbered just to keep them in order as this text is written.
1- http://www.esl-lab.com/
Episode listened: Family Relationship
I would definitely use the listening activities proposed by this website with my students, because it is an excellent source for all levels specially beginners and intermediate students. The stories being described are real, when comparing to real life situations, it has real speakers of the English language using the idiom naturally with a steady flow in their speech, the activities are brief and they are a lot fun too. Other good points would be that the site already comes with pre-listening topic discussion, which was intended to develop students’ critical point of view of the situation being listened, and it has after-listening activities.
When adopting the listening activities from this website, teachers can easily practice with students: top-down strategies in which the students’ background knowledge can be activated and students can also make predictions of what they are going to listen (pre-listening); and bottom-up strategies, when teachers can tell students to listen for specific information and students create meaning of what they have heard (while listening and after listening).
The listening activity exhibits perfect pronunciation and also a very good empathetic listening among the characters performing the speech.

2- http://top25.podcast.com/
topic: News from all over the world
This website I would adopt and recommend to my advanced students, because there they can develop even more their listening ability, by hearing real news and interviews reported by CNN spoke people and reporters from all over the world.
The bad side of this website is the speed and the way they speak the news, so that is why I think it is a better idea to leave this type of activity only for pre-advanced to advanced students of the language. Maybe it is a very hard task (if not impossible) for lower levels to accomplish and can be demotivating task too for those levels. Any human being in life, it is natural if you cannot get something done because one finds it too hard, than he or she will probably give up of trying. Besides that, in the Top 25 teachers and students have the option of choosing what section of CNN that they want to listen to, from Global News, 60 minute, money related reports, Radio news, etc. All real life situations that are informing and instructing students about what is happening In the world, on the same time that students benefit their listening ability, they can also develop their critical literacy. Students will need a lot of focus an attention to get the message.

3- http://www.eslpod.com/website/index_new.html
topic: types of sandwich episode #665
classified as: not a good source of listening material

Summarizing after reading and trying to build a point about the listening task, one can easily perceive that is not an ability which we tend to relevant as much as we do other human capacities. People are very eager to talk about their achievements and experiences than to listen to anybody’s point of view and suffering. Unfortunately not many people are good listeners, it does not matter the language being spoken. Although this skill is usually not done by many, it can be learned and improved if anyone desires to. In order to become a better listener one needs to practice to hear what is being said by the other, without interfering or trying to take control over the situation. In relation to the teaching of a foreign language, it is extremely important that teachers show and orientate students before, during and after the listening activity that is being played. By doing that, teachers can help students to comprehend better the listening input and can also contribute to the process of students creating metacogninitive strategies that will later make them strategic listener.









Author: Tatiana Miranda
Subject: Task 5

Site: www.esl-lab.com
The activity on the link http://www.esl-lab.com/intro2/intro2.htm is an excellent tool for begginer students who feel insecure about their listening skills. Another big advantage is that you can train yourself at home not only for the practice, but also because you have the opportunity to check your work without the teacher.
______________________________________________________________________
Site: http://www.rong-chang.com/listen.htm
The activity on the link http://www.rong-chang.com/children/mx/kid_mx01101.htm about word order in a sentence is a very nice activity you can provide your students. The proposed activity is very useful if you teach children. The chosen link is related not only to the teaching of English order sentence, but also refers to washing hands well done, when children learn at the school routine.
Site: http://www.eslpod.com/website/index_new.html

The activity on the link http://www.eslpod.com/website/show_podcast.php?issue_id=10022746# is a very good conversation for common situations using very common chuncks in English. It would be a great opportunity for our students to have contact with this day-to-day expressions because they can infer the meaning by the context.

Author: Viviane
Subject: task 5

Learning a second language has been more and more required nowadays. Almost all the companies are requiring specially English for many positions. In Many businesses made with foreign companies English is needed. To make a good deal in company and even to acquire a language well, listening is very necessary. To have a satisfactory communication in a second language and even in a first language listening is mandatory.
The ability to listen well is not easy to be accomplished; it demands too much training and dedication. It is the role of educators to provide learners good tools to improve their listening skills. A good way to do so is giving students listening activities guided by some strategies that will lead them to a better comprehension. Those websites below are really helpful to practice listening.
http://www.rong-chang.com/listen.htm
This website brings some situation where a presenter presents some relevant issues based on real life. There is a pre- reading where the listener can predict what is going to be presented and then there is a small questionnaire to check the comprehension.

http://www.esl-lab.com
This website brings many other websites containing listening based on dialogues. Those listening are separated by levels of knowledge and by subjects. There is no pre- reading and no activity proposed after the listening.

http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Listening/Podcasts/
This website is quite similar to the one above. In both websites the strategies to develop listening skills must be proposed by the educator.

Author: Tânia
Subject: Task 5 done

Hi guys.
Finally here is my task 5 to share with you.

1_ From: http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Listening/Podcasts/ http://englishdesk.blogspot.com/

Improve Your English Quickly and Easily!

I would adopt this site to improve my classes and also suggest my colleagues to do that because the exercises proposed can improve the students ability to do the listening activities affectively. The activities are compound by texts that are read one by one and the listener is supposed to do the tasks. Its weaknesses are that you cannot apply this kind of activity to any level. So you have to know your students really well. Another one is that you have to use the Top-down strategies in which the listener is supposed to use his/her background knowledge to activate a set of expectations that can help him/her to interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next. In case of not having such background the student can fail. However I would give this activity to my students because there are more strengths than weaknesses. For instance the students are more likely to have a good background while doing this kind of tasks because real data are often chosen and they are well informed about news. The students are allowed to listen many times in hope of getting the main idea, predicting, drawing inferences and summarizing using their own words. They love it.

2_ From: http://www.rong-chang.com/listen.htm
http://www.esl-lab.com/phone/phonerd1.htm

This site is completely different from the other I chose. It is plenty of texts to be used in listening exercises from the easy to difficult levels. Before each activity there is an exercise called “Pre-listening exercise” in which the students discuss what will be heard in hope of preparing them to do the exercise and even build knowledge about the subject proposed. Throughout the activities the listeners have to rely on the language in the message, that is, the combination of sounds, words, and grammar that creates meaning. It is possible to notice that the students listen for getting the specific details and recognizing word-order patterns. In my opinion the activities in this site are very well prepared because they give the students the chance of building knowledge. It is also possible to check the student’s comprehension while listening and when the listening tasks are over as shown in the “Post listening exercise” proposed in every listening from this site.

3_ http://top25.podcast.com/login.php?feedId=759
Play: CNN News Update (3-13-2011 6 PM EDT)

I have never heard about this site before and because of it I lost a lot and consequently my students. It is an amazing site where everybody can get the news, learn English and as teachers we improve our classes. I will adopt it and also recommend it. Despite of being amazing I would like to say that in my opinion its weakness is that the teachers who want to use this site have to be expert on preparing activities and Know listening strategies really well because there are none exercises proposed. The strength I can notice clearly is that you can use the listening from this site to prepare activities to any level. What is there are only real data, so students can not only improve their listening but also be aware about what is happening around the world. If the listening is used in a regular school the English teacher can work with the other subject teachers in a multidisciplinary way according to what is proposed. In this case it is a good idea to use the top-down strategy and do some pre-listening exercises in hope of letting them know what they will hear about. This way it is possible to activate a set of expectations that can help them to interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next. The students are more likely to have a good background while doing task that involve real data because nowadays they are well informed about news around the world.

Tânia da Consolação Martins Pereira

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