Using internet sources for improving listening skill of B1 learners

Main body
1.1.Effective ways of using internet sources for improving
listening skill of B1 learners.
Busuu is a language learning app with English courses that teach speaking, writing, listening, grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary. Part of what makes Busuu stand out is that you can work on your listening comprehension by listening to English in various dialects. Additionally, it includes features that allow listeners to pause, rewind, and listen on repeat to master pronunciation.
Elllo is a free English listening library online. It includes over 2500 English language audio and video clips are broken down into simple lessons. Also, the website provides study plans and worksheets.²
Focusing on conversational English and daily speech, the English Listening and Speaking android app is a great choice for those wanting to learn how to communicate in English. For example, the app includes thousands of English conversations with audio and transcripts. Additionally, the app includes games and tests to help you become fluent quicker. Plus, the app is free!
This is a website that is specifically designed for ESL teachers and students. It includes over 500 passages at different levels. In addition to the various levels, passages can be filtered by accent. The listening passages also include a summary, transcript, and a test. Individual monthly subscriptions begin at $5.00.
English Listening Practice – World Talks
This Apple (IOS) product app is focused on teaching English through listening. With over 1100 interviews, listeners also have the option of listening to mixer lessons. These mixer lessons allow the listener to hear six different people respond to the same question, which lets the listener hear various dialects. Plus, it has comprehension quizzes to test what you have retained.³
The LearnEnglish Podcast is an app produced by the British Council. With interesting and engaging interviews with people talking about real-life things (celebrities, food, and more), the twenty hours of free podcasts will be ones that you will look forward to listening to and learning from. Additionally, the audio comes with a moving script and comprehension questions for each episode.
The Learn to Speak English app is a popular one for building your English skills. In addition to 900 lessons, as well as 8000 audio files. By listening to native English speakers, you will learn to speak English. On top of the giant library of audio files, there is also a recording tool for users to record their own words to hear their own pronunciation.Designed to help English learners through entertaining subtitled videos, the Listen Pal app allows Apple users to watch popular internet videos and read subtitles while listening. The app utilizes YouTube and its popular channels, such as TED, Mental Floss, Yoga with Adriene, Crash Course, and more.
The Speak English Fluently app is designed to help users learn how to speak English conversationally in an American accent. In addition to audio of conversations and common sayings, there is also a recording tool for users to record themselves and listen back to their pronunciation.⁴
For a completely different learning experience, there is the Tandem language learning exchange community. In this community, you are paired with a native speaker to practice listening and speaking to English. Users can choose to communicate with their language partner through text, audio, or video. However, we recommend audio or video to develop your English language skills over texting.
Other Ways to Improve Your English Listening Skills
Ultimately, the best way to develop your English listening skills is to spend time listening to others speak English. Again, this is why language schools in places like DC work exceptionally well. Students will be surrounded by native speakers and encouraged to listen in English. For instance, students at the Washington language institute, inlingua, spend most of their class time listening and speaking English rather than translating English in a textbook. The difference is huge!
Additionally, look for ways to listen to the things you already enjoy. For instance, if you love music, find English music radio stations and tune in to them regularly. If you are a sports fan, search for English speaking sports commentators on television. If you enjoy movies and television, make a point to watch them in English. Every little bit helps. Over time, you will strengthen your listening skills.For some, it is simply hard to listen – even in your native language! When it comes down to it, listening is an essential part of communication; you cannot communicate with others effectively if you do not listen to them.
Developing listening skills comes “naturally” for some students, but with great difficulty for others. Acquiring listening skills can even be frustrating for some students. For some time, listening was regarded as a “passive” or “receptive” skill and, consequently, not particularly crucial as a skill area to be taught. Researchers then began to recognize the importance of listening and its role in comprehensible input (Krashen, 1982), and attention to and adoption of newer comprehension-based methodologies brought the issue to the fore. Listening became a skill to be reckoned with and its key position in communication recognized (Feyten, 1991; Omaggio Hadley, 2001). ⁵In the communicative approach to language teaching, this means teachers modelling listening strategies and providing listening practice in authentic situations: those that learners are likely to encounter when they use the language outside the classroom. Given the importance of listening in language learning and teaching it is essential to give our learners opportunity to develop and improve their listening skills not only in the classroom, but outside the classroom as well.
We have now entered a digital era in which technology is no longer a novelty. Technological advancement has always occurred in the past, but never at this speed. Although “technology is not a panacea that can replace language teachers and face-to-face classrooms, it is something that can be used to enhance language learning” (Sharma & Barrett, 2007). Self-access learning centres promote the approach whereby students study independently choosing from among different resources that are available. Listening lends itself to self-access in the same way that reading does. Listening in the real world and listening to authentic texts, however, is obviously more complex. But how can we help our learners become effective listeners and to overcome difficulties in listening comprehension and other barriers to listening?⁶
Why not draw on technology? Learners can use ICT (Information Communication Technology) in developing and improving their language skills, in particular listening comprehension for the following good reasons:
1. Current university students have been characterised as the “Net Generation” (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005; Barnes, Marateo, & Ferris, 2007; Prensky, 2001) and “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games, and the Internet (Presnky, 2001). Learners today have high expectations when it comes to technology and they expect a language school or programme to offer opportunities to use technology in their courses, for example via a well-equipped self-access centre (Sharma & Barrett, 2007).
2. The use of technology outside the language classroom or in the self-access centre can make learners more autonomous. One key feature of using technology in learning is that it allows language practice and study away from the confines of the classroom at your own pace anywhere: a hotel room, the office, an Internet café, at home or, of course, in the self-access language centre.⁷
3. New ICT skills learnt in the classroom (e.g. Internet search skills) can be transferred to real life. Using a range of ICT tools and a web-based environment can give learners exposure to practicing listening regularly, and consequently, become a more effective listener.
4. The use of technology via web-based environment can be current, e.g. using a listening activity with today’s news from news websites can add a dimension of immediacy to listening practice.
5. While listening to digital audio or watching a video clip, learners have the opportunity to pause at will, and listen and read a transcript. Moreover, learners can get instant feedback on what they have done (e.g. you watch a video clip/listen to audio and check answers immediately after watching/listening).
6. Learners can access authentic websites, as well as websites for EFL/ESL learners. As learners become used to selecting and evaluating listening materials, they are able to plan out their own use of web-based materials in their own time. This helps them become effective listeners and independent learners.
In this review we will take a look at a number of online resources for developing listening skills (e.g. audio and video, podcasts, video clip tools), and suggest some strategies for improving listening ability.