Elllo: The best website to find thousands of different listening activities.

What is Elllo?

Elllo is a website that provides free reading, listening and vocabulary activities made by native and non-native speakers of English. These audio or audiovisual recordings present real English with diverse accents, and also activities related to these recordings. Teachers can use this tool for different levels from pre-intermediate to advanced. It provides thousands of listening material which can be downloaded and saved into your computer. The recordings are also in the form of monologues, dialogues (between two or more people from various countries), games, videos or news.

You can find Elllo by following this link:

elllo.org

How to use Elllo? 

First, you will find a list with the latest and previous contributions to this site. You can either choose one of them and explore or you can also look for some specific features by selecting one from the list named as 'sort by' in the left side of the home page.

Second, it gives you the possibility to make your search even more accurate and easier by selecting any of the features displayed such as, topic, country, media and level in the right side of your screen.

Then, for example, if you want to raise awareness on  different accents of people from a certain country you would have all the listening recordings which have been done for speakers from that country, after, you can choose the topic and level of the listening you want to use.  

Third, the audiovisual recording (http://www.elllo.org/video/M101/M120English.htm)  that you have chosen will display as follows:

In the picture above you can see the video ready to be played and in the right side you have the possibility to see the 'transcript' of the audio or you can hide it if you want and also there is a 'video quiz' to answer after listening to the recording.

There are many ways you can use Elllo, you just need some time to explore it and find out what best suits your needs.

Why is Elllo relevant to language learning?

• Elllo gives teachers the possibility to use it in class and also they can encourage their students to use and practice their listening and reading skills. 

• Students can practice their reading comprehension sub-skill, too.

• Students can have access and benefit by the use of authentic materials. For instance, they can listen to how a language is actually spoken, with hesitations, pauses, repairs, etc. which may be difficult at first but they can be exposed to it, face these real challenges be aware of, and finally, cope with them.

• Students also get more engaged and motivated with the use of authentic materials. Mainly because these materials can link students with the world, beyond the classroom.

• It trains students' listening skill because they can be exposed to different accents of native and non-native speakers of English.

What limitations can you see with the use of Elllo?

• The website is selective. It is not designed for all learners' levels.

• Some of the recordings are not as authentic as others. It seems that some of them are adapted.

• It might be time consuming to look for what you really want. You have to take some time and investigate it.

Vocaroo: A free voice recorder

What is Vocaroo?

Vocaroo is a free online audio recorder. It is a great tool for students to practice the English speaking skill and assess it. It is easy to use because it does not require to download a special software to use it. Once the recordings are ready, they can be shared, embedded and e mailed easily.


You can find Vocaroo in the following link:

vocaroo.com

How to use Vocaroo?

You can watch this video to learn how to use Vocaroo:

Why is Vocaroo relevant to language learning?

• It gives the oportunity to practice and assess speaking, specifically aspects such as, pronunciation, fluency, intonation, stress, grammar and vocabulary use, as well.

• Students can record their voices and in order to access them teachers can have access to the recordings more than once, because it gives you the opportunity to save them.

• Speaking is recognised as the most difficult skill to develop in the English Language because it requires more complex cognitive processes. Therefore, Vocaroo can give the chance to students to practice it by their own in a familiar context, at home, and get more confidence while trying it. In this way, it also lows the affective filter in students who are more anxious than others.

• It is a solution for shy students who are reluctant to talk in class.

• Teachers have the opportunity to listen to every student and provide him/her some feedback of their speaking performances.

• It is also a tool that promotes the idea of the 'connected classroom' because students can be asked to practice the language in and then outside the classroom.

• It is a perfect way to practice speaking because students can record themselves as many times as they want to, before the final version of the recording.

• It also promotes learner's autonomy, and learner - learner interaction.

• It is useful to assess students in the speaking skill individually, it gives you a better view of their levels and progresses.

 How might you use Vocaroo in class/outside the class?

1. Within the classroom

• Students can use this tool in different ways, for instance, to create an audio recording describing their favorite summer vacation.

• It encourages independent students, however, teachers have to guide them so they can be able to build up their autonomy. First, teachers have to prepare the class by recording themselves describing their own favorite summer vacation, students listen to it,  take notes of what they listen to, discuss about it in pairs or groups, and share ideas. Then, teachers have to teach them how to use Vocaroo and they also have to establish the different aspects the students have to talk about in their recordings. Then, students can start thinking about their description, they can decide about the different aspects, make an outline and describe it. During the lesson, teachers can check their progresses,  assess them formatively and give them feedback.

2.  Outside the classroom

• To continue with the idea of a connected classroom, in the first activity teachers ask their students to use this tool at home and create their own descriptions, try it several times until they are pleased with their performances, record the final version and send it to the teacher. Then the teacher can use this task to give the students feedback about their perfromances and also use it as summative assessment of the speaking skill.

• Teachers can also ask students to record their opinions about a piece of news, topic or article they saw during the class.

What limitations can you see with the use of Vocaroo? 

• It gives you  the possibility to record only five minutes.

• You need a microphone.

• It is not practical for teachers who have more than 36 students in a class, it would be time consuming to assess every student's activity. 

This is an example on how your students can describe their last summer holidays using this fabulous and easy tool.

Record audio or upload mp3 >>