What is it?
Listen and Write is a dictation tool which is a very interesting online application that enables you to listen to audio clips and dictate them at the same time. The audio clips provided are taken from radio and news website such as BBC, and they are always updated around the clock, around the country and around the globe. In other words, the audio clips are always about current events. Furthermore, there are also short clips from a movie, or YouTube videos hence making the tool more interesting to use. Therefore, Listen and Write can be very useful to be used either in the classroom or as a homework, or both, since it could promote the students' listening and writing skills, as well as helping them with the correct pronunciation of the words they might not know.
Suitable for:
This tool is suitable for all learners of all levels and ages since there are different levels that can be chosen according to the students' language proficiency. However, the teachers might have to think twice if they were planning to use this tool for primary school students as the easiest level might be too difficult for them, thus making the teaching and learning process unproductive.
Activity Suggestion:
Listen and Write could be a substitute for a homework. By doing this, the students will be trained to learn on their own.
Listen and Write is a dictation tool which is a very interesting online application that enables you to listen to audio clips and dictate them at the same time. The audio clips provided are taken from radio and news website such as BBC, and they are always updated around the clock, around the country and around the globe. In other words, the audio clips are always about current events. Furthermore, there are also short clips from a movie, or YouTube videos hence making the tool more interesting to use. Therefore, Listen and Write can be very useful to be used either in the classroom or as a homework, or both, since it could promote the students' listening and writing skills, as well as helping them with the correct pronunciation of the words they might not know.
Suitable for:
This tool is suitable for all learners of all levels and ages since there are different levels that can be chosen according to the students' language proficiency. However, the teachers might have to think twice if they were planning to use this tool for primary school students as the easiest level might be too difficult for them, thus making the teaching and learning process unproductive.
Activity Suggestion:
Listen and Write could be a substitute for a homework. By doing this, the students will be trained to learn on their own.
The Link:
Advantages:
1) New vocabulary. This tool will be very helpful to the students in introducing new vocabulary that they are exposed to, while doing the listening activity. Not only that, as they engage in the activity, they will be able to know and learn the correct pronunciation of the words they listen to. Therefore, using Listen and Write as a tool for listening activity not only enhance students' listening skills, but also give opportunity for them to practice on pronunciation and spelling.
2) Interactive and fun. The students might not enjoy doing the normal type of listening activity since it can be dull and boring sometimes. Thus, I believe that Listen and Write could make the students become excited to do listening activity because it is interactive and they would enjoy the task and have so much fun doing something new. And it comes with a bonus as well - it's free!
3) Autonomy. This tool is useful to be used as a method to train and increase the students' autonomy. The teachers have to encourage them to use this tool in their free time. This is because the students will be able to learn on their own at home, and slowly, it will help them to be autonomous.
Disadvantages:
1) Sources. This tool enables the subscribers to upload their own audio and/or video clips. Therefore, some of the audio/video clips comes from invalid, unauthentic sources. Thus, this is not a good thing for the students since they might possibly exposed to audio/video clips that are not good, hence affecting the learning process.
2) Limited access. Schools in rural areas seldom provide facilities such as computers and internet access, thus making learning through technology impossible.
3) Facebook. This tool somehow can be a distraction for students since it has a Facebook application stamped on the website. Facebook seems to be an addiction to youth these days. Thus, this application can distract the learning process since it is clearly visible to the students.
Although there are some disadvantages about Listen and Write, I still believe that with some control, this tool could benefit the students a lot. Therefore, if you would want to have more details regarding this cool tool, feel free to visit Russell Stannard's website:
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