Lyrics training: Refreshing Practice on Listening Skills

Recently, I am evaluating the appropriateness of the language items and skills covered in one of the most popular textbooks in Hong Kong (i.e., Primary Elect Longman) (See Figure 1 below). It is quite astonishing when I realize only one or even zero task is specifically designed for listening. It seems that listening is prioritized as the least important skill in English language teaching. 

(Source: Google - Primary Longman Elect)

In the search of authentic listening materials for my primary year learner group, 💡 Lyrics Training💡 is a FUN and USEFUL website which comprises a wide variety of songs, artists and genres for ALL students to practice listening skills INSIDE or OUTSIDE the classroom.

How does Lyrics Training work?

Lyrics Training is a FREE learning tool which is not necessarily for you and your students to register. 

Step 1:       Select a song
Step 2:       'Select a Game Mode' (i.e., Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced or Expert)

Step 3:       Choose 'Write Mode' or 'Choice Mode' and press start

Step 4:       Listen and fill in the blanks within a limit of time

You may experience one of the suggested English songs 'London Bridges Is Falling Down' from Lyrics Training!

(Lyrics Training)

Link:

https://lyricstraining.com/play/hoopla-kidz/london-bridge-is-falling-down/H3ymUHg2U3#ibw

Enjoy!

Interesting Pedagogical Facts / Positive Comments of Lyrics Training

1.   Enhancement of learning motivation

According to my past teaching experience, video is a multisensory tool (e.g., Lyrics Training) which motivates students to practise listening skills. Meanwhile, the gap filling exercise also draws their attention to the spelling and meaning of the unknown words. In the notion of practice makes perfect, it is believed that students will be more confident in listening to different accents and speech speed in real-life English conversation.




2.     Learner autonomy

First, students can choose the genre, language and 'Game mode' according to their learning interests and abilities. Moreover, the auto-stop feature enables students to learn the English accent, pronunciation and vocabulary at their own pace. In case students have missed some words while listening, they can always rewind the song and listen to the missing word again and again.



3.     Advocate of self-assessment

Very often, students receive markings and feedback from teachers. Notwithstanding, it is noted that they will receive immediate feedback from Lyrics Training and conduct self-assessment after transcribing the song. McMillan and Hearn (2008:40) highlight the self-assessment can improve students' overall listening performance as they 'identify discrepancies between current and desired performance'.

Limitation

1.    Song appropriateness

The composers are likely to create the songs according to the rhythm and their feelings at a particular moment. You may easily spot spelling mistakes, casual structure, spoken English (e.g., 'wanna' and 'gonna') and slangs in the song. Indeed, the selection process may be quite challenging for teachers. However, it is crucial for us to pay extra attention to the (1) content meaning, (2) video presentation (3) language form and (4) level of difficulties in general.

2.      Learning opportunity

Normally, we have 27-33 students in a Hong Kong primary classroom. As we always hope to maximize the learning opportunity of EVERY student, it may be a constraint if there are not enough laptops or iPads in class. In that case, teachers are advised to (1) upload the link to the school intranet and let students practice the chosen song at home. OR (2) The teacher gives everyone the lyrics (with some empty blanks) and the whole class listens and fills in the blanks together.

3.      Improvement on task-based listening task
    
Obviously, the practice format of Lyrics Training is limited to multiple-choice answers and gap-filling exercise. In order to help students personalize the task with meaning and target audience, you can invite them to share their thoughts and feelings towards the lyrics. For example, 'Do you like the song? Why?', 'What is the message of this song?' and 'Have you noticed the structure/language form in this lyric?'.

(Source: Pinterest)

Remember ALL students can be ACTIVE listeners!

HEY! I hope YOU have gained some inspiration after BLOGGING my post!

💭  What are your instant thoughts and feelings towards 💡 Lyrics Training💡 ? 

Please feel free to 💬 / ✍  / 📧  below!

More updates will be available next week! Have an insightful Friday to all ELT teachers! 😄

Reference:

McMillan, J. H., & Hearn, J. (2008). Student self-assessment: The key to stronger student motivation and higher achievement. Educational Horizons, 87(1), 40-49.

Edmodo: An Authentic Social Media Platform Outside ELT classrooms

🤔    What was your first thought / impression when you see Figure 1 below?

(Figure 1 - Edmodo interface)

For me, I thought it was Facebook at first glance! Yet, 💡 Edmodo💡 is a SAFE and FREE SOCIAL MEDIA platform in the 21^st century, comprising Facebook-friendly interface for teachers and students to share everyday ELT-related issues INSIDE and OUTSIDE school.

 

How does Edmodo work?

Step 1.    Register a new account with your email address.

Step 2.    Create

After that, you can start writing notes, assigning homework tasks, creating quizzes and polls, as well as sharing files, photos and videos with students outside classroom.

Interesting Pedagogical Facts / Positive Comments of Edmodo

This video has suggested many great ideas on how to maximize the use of Edmodo in Hong Kong primary English as a second language classrooms! Enjoy! 😄

(Source: YouTube )

Friendly reminder: Press FULL SCREEN before watching the clip 😉

1.     Safe and healthy social media network

In Hong Kong, if primary school students want to engage in social media network, parents and teachers are advised to monitor and educate them about internet safety. Edmodo is a safe platform removing all advertisement and enabling you to keep track on students’ activity record. For example, the number of students logged in, interacted or submitted assignments. Also, no one can join the class unless they have the 6-digit access code.

2.     Latest updates to students

It is normal that some students are easily absent-minded or absent from school. In that case, Edmodo is a real-life and authentic platform for you to communicate with students outside classrooms. For example, you can post a short summary or recap of today’s English lesson in addition to a friendly reminder of the assigned homework. Meanwhile, students can respond with a “Like” or “Reply” after reading the posts.

3.     A bridge for better teacher-parent relationship

In a big class of 27-33 students, you may have difficulties in informing all parents about their children’s learning progress or academic performance. Meanwhile, it is believed that a strong and positive relationship between parents and teachers will maximize the interest of our students. In that case, Edmodo serves as a daily discussion forum for you to update homework checklist, inform assessment days, schedule parents’ meeting and respond to parents’ queries.

4.     Personalized ELT platform

As mentioned earlier, the interface of Edmodo is similar to Facebook and they are likely to learn engagingly in a familiar atmosphere. To personalize their account, students can upload profile pictures and write a description about themselves. In case some students encounter challenges in doing homework, they will not be afraid to initiate a discussion topic, inviting peer discussion, as well as receiving scaffolding and advice from the teacher.

Limitations 

1.     Communication platform

Edmodo allows students to communicate as a whole class. However, teachers may not be able to cater individual needs, interests and abilities right away when there is no private chat room available. In that case, you may ‘Create a group’ (See Figure 2 below) in accordance to students’ abilities.

(Figure 2 - Create a group for students with different levels of abilities)

2.     Inconvenient record tracing

Unlike Moodle and blogs, teachers and students can hardly trace each other’s posts in an organized and easy way. If your class has a lot of posts at the same time, you can filter them by authors or by types (See figure 3 below). Unfortunately, if you want to search a particular post at a specific date, then the only way is to keep scrolling down the page after filtering the posts.

 

(Figure 3 - Filter posts by authors or type)

HEY! I hope YOU have gained some inspiration after BLOGGING my new post!

💭  What are your instant thoughts and feelings towards💡 Edmodo💡 ? 

Please feel free to 💬 / ✍  / 📧  below!

More updates will be available next week! Have an insightful Friday to all ELT teachers! 😄

VoiceThread: a Student-paced Multimedia Tool for English Speaking and Listening Development

(Source: Google search)

Nobody is born to be a confident and competent communicator. Notwithstanding,💡 VoiceThread💡 is certainly a desirable multimedia tool providing multisensory environment for learners to develop English skills (especially speaking and listening) and master 4Cs (i.e., Creativity, Critical thinking, Communication and Collaboration). If you want to know more about its pedagogic value in an ESL/EFL classroom, a myriad of research studies can be found here.

How VoiceThread works?

(Source: YouTube )

Friendly reminder: Press FULL SCREEN before watching the clip 😉

Similar to blogs, VoiceThread is an innovative multimedia online tool which enables students to practice speaking and listening skills with ongoing and dynamic interaction functions. For example, recording comments with a microphone or mobile phone, videotaping, listening to audio files, leaving text comments, navigating presentation slides as well as sharing images, annotations and documents (Figure 1).

(Figure 1 - VoiceThread Commenting Features)

Interesting Pedagogical Facts / Positive Comments of VoiceThread

1.     Asynchronous learning promotes competent second language (L2) learners   

  

Given one of the learning aims is to boost students’ confidence in using English genuinely or reduce their long-term language anxiety, VoiceThread provides a platform for your class to practice speaking and listening skills at their own time, place and pace outside the classroom. 

Individually, they can always re-record or self-correct their responses BEFORE delivering to peers and teachers. 

Collaboratively, students are given adequate thought time to brainstorm ideas, negotiate meaning and respond to each other’s comment.

2.     Greater sense of motivation and responsibility in L2 learning

A recent research study (Pancansky-Brock, 2010) reveals 80% of students ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ that VoiceThread contributes to creating a greater sense of class community. As mentioned earlier, they constantly give oral and written feedback in the peer discussion. Perceivably, this learning process enables them to develop interpersonal relationship and a sense of responsibility for both individual and peer responses. Despite having student-driven or student-centred discussion, your role is to monitor, assess and support their ongoing learning.

3.     Time-saving

In Hong Kong, primary school students normally have 8 English lessons per week and each lesson is 35 minutes. Yet, most teachers have a tight teaching schedule which we are required to teach one unit within two weeks (including four skills, grammar, vocabulary, dictation, quizzes and assignments).

In teachers’ perspective, the aforementioned VoiceThread functions (see above ‘How VoiceThread works?’) enable teachers to give further instructions, detailed explanation or feedback on a particular English aspect based on students’ actual learning needs and interests.

In students’ perspective, they can be more familiar with the learning materials in advance, raising any queries with one of those commenting functions and referring to the contents at any time.

4.     Innovative L2 learning

In order to optimize the use of VoiceThread in L2 teaching and learning, its website offers FREE WORKSHOPS covering a wide variety of topics, such as language instruction, assessment, game-based learning, storytelling and so forth. More information can be found here.

Moreover, here is another link about ‘26 Interesting Ways to Use VoiceThread in the Classroom’. Enjoy!

Limitations

1.     Network requirement

Since students may have asymmetric network connection at home, simultaneous commentary recording can strain the local bandwidth resources.

Moreover, some low socio-economic families may not have computers, iPads or other devices at home. In this case, you may (i) occasionally give students 10-15 minutes responding the comments before the lesson ends or (ii) implement 1-2 lesson(s) especially for practicing speaking and listening skills with VoiceThread or (iii) book a computer room for students to use VoiceThread during recess time or after school.

  

2.     User account

a.     Unfortunately, the free VoiceThread only enables the whole class to login and comment on each other’s work with a single account (i.e., Teacher’s account). This implies that you may need to bear risks of students changing or deleting others’ work unconsciously and accidentally. In this case, you can give students a brief workshop and introduce the use of VoiceThread features.

b.     The free account only offers you 5 free VoiceThread. Meanwhile, embedded features such as 50 student account threaded commenting, file security and so on are not included. In addition to 2a, you may consider purchasing a monthly or annual K-12 License (Figure 2).

(Figure 2 - K-12 License V.S. Free Account)

3.     Commenting guidelines

VoiceThread enables students to discuss the topics freely and authentically. Yet, students in primary context may find it difficulty in understanding or realizing the proper ways of commenting. Perhaps you can give guidelines suggesting a time frame, language use, tone of language (e.g., register) and visuals of using the commenting features.

4.     Research samples

Indeed, many research have sought to determine that VoiceThread is an ideal tool for educational contexts. However, it seems that most sample size were quite small and not primary English context in particular. Perhaps it is high time for you to do action research for your unique class!

HEY! I hope YOU have gained some inspiration after BLOGGING my third post!

💭  What are your instant thoughts and feelings towards 💡 VoiceThread💡 ? 

Please feel free to 💬 / ✍  / 📧  below!

More updates will be available next week! Have an insightful Friday to all ELT teachers! 😄

Reference

Pacansky-Brock, M.  (2010).  VoiceThread: Enhanced Community, Increased Social Presence and Improved Visual Learning.  The Sloan Consortium.  Retrieved from