Listening Comprehension Samples with Audio-Pal

Another really nice way to use the Audio-Pal tool is to create sample blog pages where reading comprehension activities can be easily posted for students to practice their language skills.

These can be done within a few minutes of finding a text to work with or creating sample practice with images you can easily pick up from the net. I add below some suggestions and ideas as well as one complete example for listening comprehensions uses.
Remember:

• Audio-Pal records your voice up to one minute. Much can be said in one minute. 
• Using images helps learners who prefer visual support and it add colour to the pages.
• You can create simple fill in the blanks activities or more complex selections like multiple choice questions. You can also create spaces for students to write on (provided they download the blog post and print it out for themselves, or you attach a word document they can use on their own machines.

The possibilities are practically infinite. Just use your imagination.

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Using Maps

• Search a place on a Google map. Save the link of the place (remember to use the real life picture mode, to actually be bale to see where one would be standing at the exact location of your map.
• Look at the place around you on the map and create a simple audio recording that describes where you are.
• Repeat the same actions for at least six different locations. You will end up with six audio files and six links.
• Create a simple matching exercise where you ask students to listen to all 6 audio files and match them with the link provided. Use letters and numbers to make the page look neat and easy to navigate.
• Ask students to send you their responses for personalized feedback or create an answer page in a different blog post they can visit to review their responses.
• Invite students to do the same and create their own matching activities and challenge each other.
• Use the good activity examples your students create to set up a listening comprehension bank set.
• Check the link to this page to actually see a version of this activity done as a multiple choice instead of a matching exercise. Google Maps and Audio-Pal

Extension

Map A - Question and Live Link

• Using maps, create audio files from a map at a specific link in Google maps.
• Decide the starting point and the end point where you want your students to go from and to.
• Make sure you give your students clear ideas of where they begin from. Use the point of reference that students can refer to on your map.
• I suggest making a picture of the map as well as giving your students the link. This way if something goes wrong you can always count on the image.
• Record an audio file that tells students where they have to go, using relative directions based on the information on the map.
• In tis case, it is easy for you to also simply select where you want to go and let Google Maps find the best way for you. Save the image of that map as well - you can use that as your answer key (check the two images in this post).
• Post the code of the Audio-Pal widget for students to listen to.
• Then either ask them to send you their guesses or post the answer key for them to view.

Question File in English  

Question File in Italian

Question A - Answer Key

• Ask students to listen and guess exactly where you have taken them on this virtual tour.
• This activity can be done also to make students guess not only where you are going but what you are going to do there (add actions to everyday activities, to thrown in a bit of a review of tenses in your second language). 

Where did you go?

Select the one destination below:
A - Fontana di Trevi                                 
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B - Colosseo                              

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C - Vaticano

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