Second Critical Review of Technology

Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab


This ESL language Web is one of the largest ESL listening practice basis on the Web with diverse interesting topics for three different levels. Listeners can choose from a variety of conversations, sorted as easy, medium or difficult .It was created by Randall Davis that helps ESL/EFL students improve their listening understandability through listening practice with self-evaluating quiz links, audio and video materials, which learners of all levels can use to listen to English, view how to write it in accordance with the script and answer comprehension questions. The lesson consists, first, of listening to a dialogue and answering multiple-choice questions. Then, the student listens again while in accordance with the script. Finally, the student listens to the conversation and fills the blanks with the words on a test. There are also before and after activities as an introduction to a conversation activity, and boxes explaining figures of speech.
The opening page of the Listening Lab includes several alternatives, but these are the most useful for learners listed under the four main groups: Short Listening Exercises, General Listening Quizzes with RealAudio, Listening. The themes included are quite sorted. The section of Short Listening Exercises, for example, touches on basic pronunciation topics, grammar points and vocabulary items. The General Listening Quizzes with RealAudio is like chapters in a book, with conversations appropriate for several situations and contexts. The Listening Quizzes for Academic Purposes touches on more serious themes. Randall tries to respond to the needs of all learners, whether they are at the elementary or at the advanced level.
The site’s basic approach is to help learners listen to a context and to let them do some activity based on what they have listened to. As an example, if you click on "Directions 2" in the Difficult section of the Short Exercises, you'll get a screen with a top frame and a bottom frame. In the bottom frame, you'll see a street map in colors with buildings and street names. In the top frame, you'll get instructions as to how to go on, and a set of comprehension questions regarding the information given at the bottom frame. These are the instructions you get:

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Each question covers a PLAY link and four choices. Following the instructions, first you have to go through the map and then click on the PLAY link at the top frame. Then, a recorded script is played; after listening, you have to choose the correct answer. You may play the recorded script how many times you want. Also, if you find it too hard to make out even one or two words, you may click on the link Quiz Script. This link presents the script as it is spoken. However, since the script and questions are on different pages, you can answer the questions only while hearing the script, not while viewing it. It is a disadvantage of it. You may input your response by selecting it from the box, which shows the message, "Choose one number here." When you click on this box, you'll be able to see the four choices.


You can solve all the questions without looking up the correct answers, and then have your result evaluated. Or, if you prefer, you may also look up the answer to each question any time, by clicking on "Answer." Thus Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab makes it possible for learners to determine their own strategy. There's no tension or time pressure while answering the questions.
Randall’s site is the most interesting and useful website I've ever seen on the web. It's devoted to listening skills, from elementary to academic level; it's well organized. It’s site clearly superior in many ways. First, his pages are free from confusion. Randall offers clean, quick-loading pages which every visitor will appreciate. Second, as listening sites go, Randall's site is quite comprehensive. It has many listening exercises with audio and video clips. Third, it’s friendly and very easy to use. Furthermore, it's accompanied by useful exercises. Try it! You'll improve your listening skills.

Vocabulay Teaching
It is a language learning network for free that provides a variety kind of source to practice the language you learn. By entering the website you can use the already prepared ones to practice vocabulary or else you can create flashcards. A good feature of the website is its Web Reader. It allows you to read foreign language websites and texts. You just select a website or text to read and it provides you with the definitions of the vocabulary you do not know. Also, with this flashcards is that they can be recorded as MP3 music files and you can listen to them whenever and wherever you want I think this tool is the best tool of WordChamp. Also you can chat with other language learners and tutors all over the world online. Absolute Recall is another source offered by the website. It records the vocabulary you practiced with flashcards or Web Reader, so you can keep a list of words you are learning. Both teachers and learners can log in the web site. For teachers, it offers a Course Management system. They can create online classes for their students. They can prepare online assignments, activities such as fill-in-the-blanks and multiple choice exercises and give feedback to their learners. WordChamp is really a useful and easy-to-use tool for both teachers and learners.


Gerry’s Vocabulary Teacher : This software includes vocabulary items and sample sentences for students and teachers. It covers more than 2.500 words and 35.000 sentences. A language learner can learn new words with their use in sentences. S/he can also add new sentences or edit/delete the existing ones. To test her/his vocabulary s/he can create random word gap exercise. A language teacher can also make use of this vocabulary database. S/he can design web-based and paper-based vocabulary exercises by selecting sentences from the list of the software. The limitation of the software is that it is not free and its trial version does not provide its all features for users.


Text-to-speech technology: With the help of this software, you just type the word or sentence and then the program reads it aloud for you. It has the voices of different people and you can select whichever you want to listen. The negative side of this technology is that it can not add any intonation or emotion. But you can learn how the words pronounced correctly at all. By using this technology, a teacher can improve the pronunciation skills of her/his students. They can compare their pronunciations with the correct ones and improve themselves. Another good side of the program is that it has different accents of English and you can listen to them to differentiate them.