Breaking News English

Listening is one of the core skills in learning English language. If the activities are designed properly, listening somehow can be connected to some other fundamental skills of language such as reading, speaking and writing. Thus, designing interesting yet meaningful listening activities is significant in order to encourage the students to take interest and get engaged in the listening activities. Thus, Breaking News English can be one of the practical yet interesting tools in teaching listening. 

Breaking News English is a tool that gives practices to students to learning English through listening. Students can listen to current events and affairs topic around the world such as sports, business, entertainment, technology and science.  By using this tool, teacher can choose the level of exercise to suits the students’ level as it consists of easy to hard level of lessons. 

How it can be used in classroom?

Pre listening

Teacher activates students’ background knowledge about the topic such as “Earthquake”.Teacher let the students listen to the tape recording about the news once.

While listening

Teacher asks students to work in pairs to work on the exercise which requires students to fill in the blanks with appropriate answers. There are some other ways to do while listening activities:

Post listening

Teacher replays the recording and let the students listen once again. Students then can add up their undiscovered words.

Pros 

1. This lesson is free!

2. While learning English, students can also increase their general knowledge of world current issues. 

3. Improve listening skill. Listening to the tape prior to actual task requires students’ full concentration so that they could answer the questions in the following tasks.

4. Not only the students can enhance their listening skills, they can also increase their vocabulary banks and improve grammar aspects. 

5. It gives students training on how to get the gist of a text which through looking at keywords .It contains “Sentence jumble” where students are exposed to a wide range of vocabulary and different kind of word order. It gives students practices in the future when they encounter new text.

Cons

1. Lessons using Breaking News English are somehow website-dependant and undoubtedly, they need internet connection to make them happen. Without computer and internet access, the lessons will not come true!

2. Cheating. Students may directly answer the questions while listening to the recording.

3.If the task requires students to work in pairs, there may be some possibility for the students to speak in their mother tongue. Working in pairs and a lack of teacher’s monitoring could resort the students to use mother tongue.

In conclusion, intervention in the middle of the lesson is essential in order to check language usage in terms of grammar, spelling and pronunciation.

Let's try Lyrics Training!

What is Lyrics Training?

Lyrics Training is a fun and easy way of learning foreign language which in this case, English Language. It is designed to enhance students' listening skills and semantic competence. While listening to the songs, students may guess the missing words. If they have difficulties of getting the words correct, they will try to make some effort to make sense of the sentences. It has three level of difficulties- beginner, intermediate and expert, thus suits all level of students. The students with low capacity would try the beginner part while the advanced students would try the expert part.

How can it be used in language teaching?

Teachers can simply ask students to play their preferred songs and ask them to listen and guess the missing words without 'skipping'. At the end of the lesson, teachers may ask the students to exchange their vocabulary with one another. Watch this video! It might help!




Advantages

• The most plus point for Lyrics Training is that it is FREE! So, students can make full use of it anytime and anywhere where the internet connection is accessible.

• It offers a number of either new or old songs that suit all students interests and preferences.

• It is fun and motivating for learning English Language which decreases the students affective filters. 

• It records the scores that challenge students to listen carefully and guess the words correctly.

• It has the ability to provide students with a wide range of vocabulary and at the same time train the students to spell right and pronounce appropriately.

• Teachers can always monitor the students' usage of Lyrics Training as it have "Skip" counts to see the students' listening skills.

Disadvantages 

• Some songs and video may not be appropriate for students to play. For example, the lyrics may contain inappropriate words and the video clips may show negative values.

• No internet access no Lyrics Training! Not all students can get to access to Lyrics Training if there is limited internet access.

 I would suggest Lyrics Training for English Language Teaching. However, teachers' guidance is important in order to prevent the students from getting useless inputs.

Let's try and have fun!