How to teach listening through technology????

       How to teach listening through technology????

         Although listening has been a neglected skill in terms of research and how it is introduced to language learners, it is now beginning to receive more attention. There is now a greater awareness among teachers that we have to help learners develop their listening skills. The question of how to help learners develop effective listening skills brings attention to the methods we use and the type of materials we introduce our learners to. In the rest of this article the writer would like to suggest a process for helping learners develop their listening skills, and make suggestions as how this might be achieved with authentic materials.

        There are three stages for the developing of the listening language skills: Pre-listening, While-listening, Post-listening activities. The writer will use this established format of pre-, while-, and post-listening activities and make some suggestions as to how they can be used with authentic materials delivered through technological media.

        First of all radio one of the more easily accessible forms of authentic listening practice. Stations such as BBC World Service (BBC) and Voice of America (VOA) are constantly on-air. In order to use radio programs with learners, teachers need to select a program at a suitable time for their class and decide on some global listening tasks.

1: Pre-Listening Task Today we are going to listen to a travel program on the radio for ten minutes. radio guide tells us in that this program is about Egypt. What do you know about Egypt? What would you like to know about Egypt?
2: While-Listening Task While you listen to the program, try to listen for the main things the presenter recommends doing while in Egypt.
3: Post-Listening Task In groups of three have a short discussion about what you heard from the program.

        Using television or videos in the classroom allows the learners access to more information when listening. That is, the learners can now see what is happening as well as listen to the text, so learners can develop their listening skills in a richer language context. The writers applied the three stages on the TV/Video programs as follows:
1: Pre-Viewing Task This weekend there is an English movie on TV. Does anyone know what it is?
2: While-Viewing Task: Focus on listening to the movie instead of reading the subtitles. Try to collect the following information: kind of movie (comedy, romance, action, horror), names of the main characters
: Post-Viewing Task (the next lesson) the internet Who watched the movie last weekend? What can you tell us about it?

        The teacher can do the same stages with internet and computer devices. They are able to direct our learners to sites on the Internet where they can practice their listening as long as they have access to the appropriate computer hardware as follows:

1: Pre-Listening Task Tomorrow in class we will have to access at least two of the following websites: http://www.bbc.co.uk, http://www.avoa. gov or http://npr.org (National Public Radio) and listen to different versions of the main stories.
2: While-Listening Task Students may either work at home to collect the information they require.
3: Post-Listening Task (the next class) First I would like you to sit in groups according to one of the websites you visited. Discuss what the main news stories were. Only exchange information at this stage.

       

Listening and how to be enhanced by technology

The listening skill

        Listening is the first and the most important skill. To be a real listener , You should follow three steps ; hearing which means that you listen enough to catch what the speaker is saying, understanding or taking what you hear and understanding it in your own ways, and judging which can be simply expressed : Do you believe what you heard?

        I followed some sites which are very helpful for both the teachers and the students. So I would like to give some pieces of advice for my class mates to benefit from these sites. To be a good listener, give your full attention on the person who is speaking. You should make sure your mind is focused. The speaker should finish before you begin to talk. You should finish listening before you begin to speak. Then you have to listen to the main ideas. You can ask questions, if you are not sure you understand what the speaker has said. At last you should give your speaker a feedback to what's said.

I recommend some of our colleague's sites .

http://esl.about.com/
http://www.esl-lab.com/
http://www.englishclub.com/
http://www.talkenglish.com/

        Now lets speak about how to improve your listening skills through the web. Make sure you have the right software to take advantage of what is available on the world wide web. You can download players and find links to online radio stations at real.com , windowsmedia.com and winamp.com . You can try some of the English radio stations I will some recommend on my blog page. You can subscribe to broadcast and radio stations on iTunes too.

        Films in English are an excellent language resource.You can visit http://www.learnenglish.de/ImproveEnglish/films.htm . If you want to know how to use films to learn listening.Listening while reading is a good idea too. There are lots of audio books on the market, I mention some on my recommended books pages, there are also some fun listening movies and lessons on the http://www.fun-with-english.co.uk/ site and on the Interesting Facts site. You can also visit http://www.weteachenglish.info/ where there's a free lessons and you can contact the teacher through skype.

        Keep up to date with current events and watch an English-language news station, such as BBC World. Watch news reports on events you are already aware of.
Find out how to switch languages on your TV. If you have digital or satellite TV there are several channels that broadcast in multiple languages. Eurosport is one and Euro news is another, you should be able to set these to the English language.
- On this site:- Use the dictation to improve your listening skill. http://www.learnenglish.de/dictationpage.htm will help you test your understanding.
- Every Wednesday I run a http://www.learnenglish.de/englishchat.htm Sometimes it is very advanced, but there are no more excuses.
- You can try http://www.afactaday.co.uk/ pages. You can write some interesting facts and there are accompany sound files for the most interesting facts.
- You can have fun on the http://www.fun-with-english.co.uk/ page. There are new videos or listening files every month.
- Go to some TTS (text to speech) web sites and use their free services. Some of the results are surprisingly good. I particularly like http://www.acapela.tv/en/talking-cards/ for their talking cards.
If you want to improve your speaking skills you have to :
•Borrow or buy a book on public speaking and read 10 pages every day
•Watch at least one TED speaker video (www.ted.com) every week
•Subscribe to and read blogs on public speaking skills
•Say yes when given the opportunity to speak or present
•Ask for specific, constructive feedback every time you speak
•Find a mentor and ask for help and advice
•Practice every speech or presentation out loud at least once before doing it for real
•Keep a speaking journal and write down something you learned about speaking every day

Go to www.ted.com , Then you have to imitate the videos. This will help you improve your speaking skills

Mustafa

How to make an ABCD objectives ?????

These are my ABCD objectives. They are prepared for a grade 4 classes. The text book name is Backpack. This unit is speaking about helping hands. It also concerned with the present simple in both questions and answers. I tried to deal with reading and writing. It's my first time to write objectives in ABCD. So your feedback really will help me.

Thank you

Cognitive (comprehension level) -"C: Given a video showing different helping hands of different jobs, A: the student B: will be able to accurately identify the names of the jobs and what they do. D: in a table of 16 rows and 2 columns of people names and what do they do?"

Cognitive (application level) -"C: Given a paragraph written about one job, A: the student B: will be able to write a short paragraph of 4 sentences about 4 helping hands.  D: within 10 minutes. "

Cognitive (problem solving/synthesis level) -"C: Given a previously prepared and written report or a TV show about helping hands in the country, A: the student B: will be able to play the role of a TV reporter or a journalist and report what helping hands do in the country.  D: within 5 minutes  for the TV Show and an essay of 4 paragraphs for the journalistic report."

Psychomotor - "C: Given a sample of a miming game, A: the student C: (in two teams) B: will be able to mime the helping hand and his actions while the other teams negotiating the actions to say who he is miming.  D: within 60 seconds for miming , and 20 seconds for answering."

• Affective - "C: Given the opportunity to work in a team, A: the student B: will be able to describe the steps of planting the school garden, D: within 15 minutes."

Search engines unknown but very important

Discussion 2 Week 2

Many of my colleagues wrote about other search engines. It is a great chance for me to know more details. I was a great chance to know that the World Wide Web has this amount of the search engines. I decided to write about some other. I know that they may be known by some but others mayn't know them.

There are some search engines which I tried and provided me with a large amount pf specialized information related to different types of topics. When you want general information you can try :

1-      www.iseek.com . Because it's  an excellent targeted search engine, designed especially for students, teachers, administrators, and caregivers. Find authoritative, intelligent, and time-saving resources in a safe, editor-reviewed environment with seek.

2-      http://www.virtuallrc.com/ . This search engines indexes thousands of the best academic information websites, selected by teachers and library professionals worldwide, in order to provide to students and teachers current, valid information for school and university academic projects.

When you want books or references from any library, you can use these coming search engines to find out which libraries have the books you need, and maybe even find them available online:

3-      http://www.worldcat.org/ . The WorldCat connects you to the collections and services of more than 10,000 libraries worldwide.

4-      http://books.google.com/ . In this search engine you'll supercharge your research by searching this index of the world’s books. You’ll find millions for free and others you can preview to find out if they’re what you’re looking for.

5-      http://openlibrary.org/ . Here you can find the world’s classic literature, open e-books, and other excellent open and free resources in the Open Library. You can even contribute to the library with information, and  corrections to the catalog.

There are many people who want to make searches for scientific topics . For those I recommend the coming sites.

6-      http://www.sciseek.com/ In this science search engine and directory, you’ll find the best of what the science web has to offer. Browse by category, search by keyword, and even add new sites to the listings.

7-      http://worldwidescience.org/ . You can use WorldWideScience.org as a global science gateway, offering excellent search results in the sciences, and even the option to select specific databases and find resources in your own language.  

8-      http://www.science.gov/ In this government science portal, you can search more than 50 databases and 2,100 selected websites from 12 federal agencies. This is an incredible resource for millions of pages of U.S. government science information.

History is very important for everyone. The historical studies are really important to justify the life nowadays and help to give solutions to modern problems from earlier life. So people who have interest in history can access these search engines:

9-      http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/genesis/ . In this his historical search engine you can find excellent sources for women’s history with the Genesis dataset and extensive list of web resources.

10-  http://historyengine.richmond.edu/ . In The History Engine is an educational tool that gives students the opportunity to learn history by doing the work—researching, writing, and publishing—of a historian. The result is an ever-growing collection of historical articles or "episodes" that paints a wide-ranging portrait of life in the United States throughout its history and that is available to scholars, teachers, and the general public in our online database.

For me these are some of the search engines. I hope that my colleagues can access and benefit from . But I still stick to Google as it can provide the majority of these search services easily and smoothly. I think also that many people got used to the usage of Google and how easy it is.

 The reference is :

http://edudemic.com/2012/07/best-search-engines/

Search engines priority (Google Vs Bing)

Search engines priority (Google Vs Bing)

        The search engines give the best help in the field of the academic search. But each one gives search results according to what the search engine was previously intended to do. I used Bing search engine. I decided to search for "multiple intelligences". I applied the essential guidelines for creating better searches as they are offered in the web searching tech tip. First of all I wrote "multiple intelligences" between quotes. The site gives me more than million results of sites' links with a simple and clear description that speaks about all what relates "multiple intelligences". The site also gives other related searching processes such as Multiple Intelligence Test, Multiple Intelligence Quiz, Multiple Intelligence Survey, Howard Gardner Multiple Intelligences, Existential Intelligence. These extra related search processes saved my time and I reached what I wanted without much usage of the guidelines for creating better searches as in the web searching tech tip. This will be better for the unprofessional searcher. Perhaps, the site doesn't help with the spelling mistakes as it doesn't provide alternatives for mistakes.

          On the other hand, when I tried Google, the site also gave me more than million results of sites' links of academic articles about the topic and some related search processes but the related search processes were less than that of Bing. The site gives also others services such as pictures, video, book, translation, and a list of other related services. This provides the searcher with a flood of information and ideas of all types related to his search topic. In my opinion the best service in Google is the "Do you mean ….?" service which helps much with the spelling mistakes. Google gives a preview to the site page which may save the searcher's time of search.

        For me I recommend Google. As it provides many services which helps me find whatsoever I want in different shapes. When I make a project for my class, I may need academic articles, pictures, videos and sounds. All are available in Google.

For further information about Bing versus Google, you can visit http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/224639