by Kaylene Powell
While building and revising curriculum for an updated ESL program at Bellevue University, I’ve faced this challenge: how do I design and run courses in a way that will help students improve their daily fluency and confidence while also preparing them with EAP knowledge/skills they will need in other university courses down the road? Going back to the TESOL basics, I knew a key answer would be found in the use of authentic supplementary materials wherever possible.
I wanted to find one or more sources of materials that would allow students to learn about a variety of topics and be exposed to more authentic listening material—without being overwhelmed. To this point, most of our enrolled or interested students have come from situations where they use their L1 completely at home and also primarily at work. Initial exposure to long, fast-paced, or highly-technical listening segments was initially overwhelming for students in our first groups, yet those were the types of listening situations they would be in far more frequently just a few months down the road. How could I better prepare them for that while still keeping their affective filters low?
I would like to highlight two free resources (one here and one in the Part 2 post) which I have included in our language labs that are helping me meet my goals to some degree. While these resources, from an ESL point of view, are probably best suited for those helping college/adult students in EAP and IEP settings, I also see them as worthwhile supplements for those working with adult, high school, and younger (advanced) learners who need to continue to build vocabulary, fluency, and confidence in their English listening, reading, and thinking skills
In this part, I would like to highlight the short video modules at TEDed. (I find them to be much less intimidating for my students than full-length TED talks have been.) Many instructors may already be familiar with TEDEd, but I wasn’t until a couple of years ago. Check out an interesting sample lesson.
Here are several reasons why I like using TEDEd lessons with ESL students. First, videos include English subtitles (and often some in other languages if those are really needed) that can easily be turned on/off. Second, the visuals accompanying the short lecture scripts are attractive and complementary, reinforcing what the learner is hearing so that both audio and visual learning styles are engaged. Third, the length of these videos is reasonably challenging without being too long or overwhelming for most learners. Fourth, current lessons are offered on many topics, and instructors have the option of helping to create lessons about topics/subjects of their own choosing as well. Fifth, narrators of various lessons represent accent and gender diversity. Finally, the connected comprehension exercises and discussion starters can be good starting points for further application after students are finished listening.
Editor’s Note: Part 2 will highlight another resource for authentic listening materials.
Kaylene Powell is an assistant professor of ESL/English at Bellevue University and the director of Bellevue’s ESL Program. She is passionate about helping learners feel empowered to meet their own individual learning goals and overcome their unique communication challenges, and she enjoys mentoring other teachers.
