Hi everyone!
Welcome to the listening section of the blog. Over the coming months I will be sharing with you as many interesting video and audio links as possible, as well as many useful tips on how to develop your listening comprehension skills. If you spend just 15 minutes per day focussing on listening skills development, in just one month you will already see (or hear!) a big difference.
Let’s begin with a great resource from the ABC. It is called Behind The News and is an entertaining news show produced especially for young people so that they become more interested in watching and listening to the news and can better develop their knowledge about what is happening around the world. Although it is aimed at teenagers and young adults, I believe that this is a great resource for English language learners as well.
As you will see when you visit the website, Behind The News is really user friendly. For example, when you choose a story, you are immediately taken to a video link – this is a simple entertaining broadcast which will explain everything in detail and will allow you to much better understand the main issues of the story. The language used is also a lot more simple than that used in a normal news presentation – this will give you a lot of confidence and may even make watching/listening to the news more enjoyable.
Here is an example of a video from Behind The News – just click on the image below to start watching. If you have any problems watching this, please go directly to this page of the BTN website: http://www.abc.net.au/btn/story/s4230574.htm
If you visit the actual page on the BTN website, you will also see that there is a short summary about the story below it “Did you know that there’s a type of pollution being released from every city around the world, every single night. But it’s not what you’d expect. It’s light pollution. And researchers say it’s causing problems for some of the creatures that live near us. Amelia found out what issues light can cause and what we can do to help.” – this allows you to have an overview of the story before watching/listening to it and gives you the chance to better understand the details presented.
Underneath the summary, you have the option to see the full transcript – this is every single word that you hear on the video shown in written form. Transcripts are wonderful ways to test your understanding of what you hear.
How should you use them? First, listen to the story as a whole to get the general idea, then listen and take as many notes as you can, repeat this step as often as you like until you feel confident that you have understood a lot of the details. Then, read through the transcript to check your understanding, checking with your notes to see whether you have written the same or something similar. If you feel that you missed a lot of the details or did not understand the story fully, listen again and add to your notes. Finally, read through the transcript while listening to the video at the same time. What a fun and easy activity!
If you look at the links on the above page, you will see additional activities and links connected to this story. It is a good idea to extend your knowledge of the topic by visiting these recommended links and by completing the recommended activities – this will especially build your knowledge of the topic and will help you build your related vocabulary.
So, that’s it! It’s that easy! Save the following link to Behind The News (BTN) to your favourites on your computer and visit often: www.abc.net.au/btn/
If you find BTN a little too simple, I promise to share with you some more complicated news websites and listening activities over the coming months and to keep you busy practising! However, Behind The News is a great start – and it’s a great boost to your confidence if you understand almost everything!
Have a wonderful day and happy listening!
:) Nicole
© Nicole Sammer, Sydney English Teacher, 2015.
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