Tips for Teaching Listening Lessons Online
Show Notes
Last week, I shared my top tips for teaching reading lessons online, so this week we're talking about online listening lessons! Once again, I'll go through my five best tips for making your lesson work - this time, when there's an audio track involved.
In this Episode…
Tip #1: Embed the audio into your slide
so much easier than clicking from window to window and having multiple things to share
saves time - all you have to do is push play!
don't forget to "share computer sound" when you screen share and play audio
Tip #2: Show pictures of the person/ people speaking in the audio
doesn’t have to be the actual speakers - you can use stock photos (pexels.com, pixabay.com)
you can also find stock photos or create your own graphics on canva.com
insert your images right into the same slide that has the audio
this helps set context and makes the lesson more personalized/ engaging
Tip #3: Make the task / comprehension questions visible as students listen
Ss should be able to see the questions and try to answer these as the audio is playing
you can display your task on the same slide as the audio, or use a Google doc, Google form, etc.
Tip #4: Allow students to check answers to the listening tasks in pairs
this is how you get a sense of how Ss did on the listening task(s)
this is how you determine if you need to play the audio again
Ss can help each other by comparing what they heard and giving indications of what else to listen fo
Tip #5: Make feedback visual, and prep with time stamps
type up or reveal answers as you elicit them
be ready to play clips or chunks of the audio again as needed (you’ll want to note the time stamp of where each answer can be found in the audio during your prep)
(Bonus!) Tip #6: Build in lots of flexibility with timing
plan an extra time task just in case you have time left at the end
plan two versions of your productive task for the end of your lesson and use whichever one you have time for - having a shortened/ simplified version really helps if you need to play the audio again and have less time than you anticipated at the end!
keep lead-in and vocabulary pre-teach stages short