There are a lot of specific and potential CALL resources available, some of which may be useful for your specific teaching situation. However, determining whether or not a particular resource could be effective is not necessarily easy, as many specific CALL resources highlight only their strengths while many potential CALL resources don't publicize uses for language learning. Given the importance of careful selection of a CALL resource, a teacher should evaluate potential resources with some sort of principled criteria. To that end, a few of us in 568 came up with the following criteria for CALL listening resources:
-Content Appropriateness
-Authenticity
-Representation
-Accessibility
-Adaptability
-Engagement
Keeping those criteria in mind, this week I'll be taking a look at www.elllo.org, an ESL listening site with over 1200 passages available for free.
URL: www.elllo.org
Content Appropriateness:
Elllo has a very large library of listening passages, so finding suitable content for just about any student demographic shouldn't be too hard. In general, though, the passages seem to be aimed at learners above the age of 14 (high school and adult learners, but some passages may be suitable for middle school learners). Some topics available, such as relationships, may not be appropriate for all learners, but even in that topic, the passages are quite tame.
Authenticity:
Overall, the passages available on Elllo feel quite authentic. There is quite a variety of genres represented, including news-style reports, interviews, conversations between two or more people, and, in the manner of a television show or documentary, several people offering a brief opinion on a topic. It appears that Elllo keeps some of the speakers on retainer to produce their passages, but even though some topics or interactions might not arise in spontaneous conversation, the manner of delivery is representative of authentic speech- standard rate of speech, intonation, pauses, fillers, and occasional disfluency/repair are all present in the Elllo passage. Variations in passage difficulty (indicated on Elllo) seem mostly according to topic complexity and the depth of discussion rather than overly artificial reductions in rate of speech or extremely careful pronunciation.
Representation:
Representation, in our criteria, refers to the inclusion of various varieties of English, as we believe that restricting students to any one variety for input does no favors. Even for ESL students in say, America, there is a very high likelihood that they would encounter more than one variety of English, and the same holds true for EFL learners as well. In this respect, Elllo really shines: they include speakers from a variety of Inner Circle, Outer Circle, and Expanding Circle countries. In one passage, I found speakers from Croatia, England, Germany, Canada, and the US. Across the site, I found Asian, African, and Latin/South American speakers.
Accessibility:
Elllo has some things going for it in terms of accessibility. First of all, the site is free and doesn't require any sign-ups or logins to access the material. This reduces a considerable burden that many CALL resources demand. Also, the search and categories are quite sensible and make it easy to find desired materials. However, Elllo does have some design issues that make it hard to notice some really great features it has. For example, vocabulary and comprehension quizzes are nestled between ads on the right hand side of listening passages, making them easy to miss. Some of the ad placements, coupled with a lack of borders, could make navigation difficult for students and teachers, wasting time or simply missing out on useful features.
Adaptability:
This is a somewhat fuzzy criteria, but we wanted to take a look at how a CALL resource could be adapted for a variety of purposes. Elllo, due to it's accessibility and large library of passages across topics and proficiency levels, along with features like vocabulary explanations and quizzes for both comprehension and vocab, would seem to have strong adaptability. Since teachers can simply use Elllo passages in their own activities, there is a great deal of possibility for classroom applications as long as you have a computer and speakers in the room. Passages could be used for whole-class activities or assessments, but also, since there are so many passages, a teacher could reasonable find (or let students/groups find) multiple passages that could be utilized in information gap activities or for having a variety of student presentations/summary writings/etc. With the vocabulary building info and quizzes, the site is also suitable for students to work on independently, such as in listening labs or for homework. One problem, though, is that the passage pages also include transcripts, which could deter students from using their listening skills and fall back on reading skills if they run into difficulty when working alone.
Engagement:
Engagement is one area where Elllo may struggle, depending on the group of students. The audio is of middling quality, and for the most part, passages lack video. For the relatively small portion of passages that have video, the video is generally low quality and no-frills in terms of production values. If the topic itself isn't engaging for learners, then there's really nothing else that Elllo offers to make up for it. The exception here is the "Games" category. These passages feature matching questions (i.e. choose the picture that matches what the speaker is describing) throughout that must be answered to continue, and I think this level of interactivity could be engaging for students working independently.
Overall, I find Elllo to be valuable for it's expansive library and ease of use for teachers and learners. From experience, I can say that Elllo is successful in classroom activities and can provide useful material for classroom assessments.
No comments:
Post a Comment