Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab as an ICT resource

Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab



I teach in grade three, but when I have conducted the National tests in English I always feel that the listening comprehensions is an exercise that the students aren't that familiar with. The exercises in our books are short and not at all composed in the same way as in the national tests. There are also a problem with a wide spread in level between the students in a class, so while some of the students have problems others finds the exercise to easy.

So, I have often looked for exercises for listening comprehension. When I found this site I browsed through it for a long time and tried listening quizzes in different levels of difficulty. The fun part was that after a listening comprehension there were grammatical practise too, or there could be a scrambled sentence.

There are questions to every exercise but the authors main objective isn't to test listening, but to help students how to learn to improve their listening.

I think this site is made for self learners and not very young ones either, but I think you can use it from 5:Th grade. There are great possibilities to individualise on this page and maybe this will be something I will use for those students who needs a bigger challenge in their listening comprehension.

For me as a teacher there is a site that describes how Randall suggests I can work with the different parts, and also there are handouts so you can give the students papers to fill in if we choose to do the practise together. In the self study guide both students and teachers can see the exercises divided into the different topics they're made in. For example; Introduction, Family Life and Relationships, Food and dining out and People.

To Use this site you need to have computers, if you want the students to listen and do the exercises themselves. When you introduce the site it's good to have a projector to show the site and give the students a walk through. A problem with the site is that there is a whole lot of commercial adds, so it's easy to get linked away. Be sure to show the students carefully where to go. When you give them tasks to do, be sure to give straight directions.

There are also worksheets on the handout pages were you can write which exercise you have done and the score. This site is in not a site that I would use every week, but maybe every other or third week to help students to learn how to improve their listening.



By Britt-Inger Robertsson