ESL Listening Lab Randall's

Randall’s ESL Listening Lab:   

         
One of the most common problems and complaints you would hear more often is the lack of
listening materials for practice in class or even for testing. Another one I
have heard repeatedly is that all recordings are not authentic. Although it
seems that there is a large number of resources online, Randall’s ESL seems to
be the most reliable and diverse one amongst them.

What is this and why to use it?

This is a very rich source of listening materials that can be used in class extremely
diversely and it gives teachers a wide range of levels and a variety of topics
to choose from. It divides its exercises into pre, while, and post listening in
addition to offering the choice of choosing from general listening materials,
for academic, life tips, quizzes and vocabulary learning as you can see in the
image below:

How to use it?

After spending a long time looking carefully into the listening materials, I would
suggest the following:

·    Use materials for general purposes for different levels and only use the ones for academic purposes for higher levels.

·      Download the recording transcripts using the player that is compatible with your computer, namely Windows Media Player, or Real Player.

·    After that, you can print out the exercises and choose
the ones that you’re interested in and that respond to your students’ needs and
level of proficient.

·     That’s it then! Just play the recording and do the
exercises with your students.

·      Theirs is a special part focused on the use of the new
idioms used in the recording which teaches informal American idioms like the
ones used below:

Limitations:

There are quite a few:

·    Due to the not-so-sophisticated interface of the
website, it is not appealing for students. Thus, it’s better for teachers to do
them using pen and paper rather than computers.

·   Some of the recordings are fabricated and unnatural
which activates the teacher’s role of choosing the most appropriate among
these.

·  The most part of the video recording are of a poor
quality and not natural too. However, picking from these is the most
appropriate solution.