Listening to something is not enough to enhance our abilities in the target language. You need to check what you understood from that listening and go beyond. There needs to be practice, interaction with others, use of the vocabulary and structure you’ve been exposed to in order to make sense out of the bits of information you received.
So, after accessing our online bookmarks at http://del.icio.us/listeningplus/places and performing the listening task, share as much information as you think it would be interesting for your classmates and instructor to know about.
• Make sure you mention the following aspects of the listening task as you write your blog comment: – What was the listening about? – What was the link for it? – Which listening strategy did you use to get the most out of it? – Was it interesting? What did you learn that you didn’t know before? – Is there anything you still want to investigate about this place?
• Finish your post with a question for the others to reply to you. This is a great strategy to keep the dialog flowing!
The link I hear to was this one: http://elllo.org/english/0701/734-Keren-Places.html that talks about many places in the world that karen had pessed. She talked about Australia that she spend four months and a half tere. Then she talked about Peru and Machu Pichu a city on Peru that was from Incas nation. Tere was Spain to where she visit Granada and it’s old, beautiful buildings.Finally on Asia that she was:Thailand, Malaysia, Singapura but the place tha she liked the most was Japan. She spend one week on a farm.
I had no problems to understand the listening. It was very interesting.
kisses Athamy
The listening I’ve heard was about a trip to Rio de Janeiro.The link is in youtube,www.toursvideo.com.The video is very interesting because it shows another side or the city ,”for tourists”. People were sightseeing famous pLaces as Sugarloaf moutain,Corcovado and Copacabana beach.They went to downtown to buy souvenirs and to know a mix o history preservation and modern buildings, to the Crist ,a great simbol of Rio,they’ve listened Samba in shows to enjoy the music and dance,they had “the best meal” in Brazil(in churrascarias) an they went to Copacabana beach.The strategy I’ve used was the same
close my eyes and avoid interference,try to get the Key words and catch the context.I was surprised with the information about the population.Just 49% is white and I relly want to investigate more about the city.
Sorry my typing mistakes!
I listened about Rio and I liked very much because show a city in the diferent form that we see. but I listened too about Dubai and I put this city in the list of the place that I want to go
Athamy, Maria Angélica and João,
Thanks for your feedback on the listening activities. My great passion is traveling and meeting people from other cultures, and there are still a million places I would love to visit.
Athamy, the activity you chose is a great one. There is a lot of information about different places in only one video. Hope one day I visit so many different places like Karen did.
Maria Angélica, it is interesting to look at Rio from a different perspective. There is always something new to learn about Rio.
João, Dubai is certainly in my list of places to visit.
My listening was about Dubai and the link for it is http://www.themedialine.org. In fact, even isolating myself from all noise and outer interferences, I had to listen to it several times to understand the details and some I couldn’t realize. I was curious about this city because I read at a newspaper that Madonna will earn 20 million dollars to sing there (only one show). The reporter said that Dubai is one of the world’s turism hot spots. Tourism accounts for about 40 per cent of gross domestic product. Contrary to other arabic regions, the revenues from oil are small. It is interesting that the majority of people who live there are foreigns and come mainly from the Indian Subcontinent and Europe. Only 20 per cent are locals. Dubai is a muslim state (Dubai is either an Emirate or that Emirate’s main city), but in terms of the restrictions it is fairly free. You can drink alcohol in the hotels, for example. However, you can not walk on the streets wearing bikinis. In generally, it’s a peaceful place. You may see women walking alone on the streets at 3 o’clock in the morning without problems. What I would like to know about this country is whether the women rights are ignored there as in other arabic regions?
Actually, I listened all of them, to practice. I felt some difficult to understand the one’s about South Beach and India, for example. But about Great Places,Rio and Dubai I could get the message, not all words. I really did not use a specific listening strategie. Erica, could talk more about these strategies to us?
Sure Euvaldo! We all have to select what strategies work best for us. The ones I am going to mention below are just some:
Identify the purpose for listening before trying to understand details.
Observe and interpret non-verbal clues such as tone of voice, gestures and facial expressions.
Try to guess vocabulary from context.
Pay attention to audio-visual aids (if you have them, e.g. a movie)
Focus on key words or phrases.
Take notes.
Write down a summary of what you listened to.
Ask yourself questions.
Let me know what works best for you!
Thank you Erica, I’ll try to use all of them.
Usually, identify the main idea works best for me. Could you explain more about the third one “try to guess vocabulary from context”? Is it try to don’t translate literally? I guess this is a habit that we need to avoid.
The link Ihaer to was the ello.org (Karen and Tod Talking about great places). Ihave to listen many times to get understand some detalis, some words (an ancient ruin, barren) but I was able to reply the slide quiz. I get focus on key words and pay attention to audio.
Hello Antoinette, I’m happy you could get key words from the listening. One of the strategies I use when listening is to take note of key words. When I look at keywords written down, everything that was said comes to my mind and I can build all the listening again.
Besides have listened all of them and have thought one’s very easy, others I’ve listened many times, specially those were difficult to understand. I took notes and noticed when we had already been to the place or even know a lot about it, it’s easier to listen and catch the context and also, the meaning of the words.
Among all of these places, I choose Dubai, one of the world tourism hot spots. A place that is incredible popular in Europe and Asia, but to achieve the preference of the North American and Australian tourists, they need to work more with marketing and 5 stars hotels to receive them. Nowadays, tourism is responsible for 40% of the economy there.
Talking about population, the majority people who live there are foreigners. Many of them come from Indian. Since Dubai is party of the United Arabic Emirates and a Muslim country, the restrictions aren’t as the same as in the others Arabic States, but the tourist have to respect the local values.
Personally, I don’t like places like Dubai, where the amount of richness is amazing but it sounds there is no feeling, no history, no love. Everything there looks so fake and extremely cold. What does it look for you?
On the other hand, I really admire they ablility to construct a paradise, which it’s fantastic, specially on a desert.
We’re talking big bucks here…Can you imagine how much are invested there?
Hello Solange
I share the same feeling about Dubai. It’s such an expensive place that things do look fake. I would like to see it with my own eyes and meet people who live there and also learn more about them. When I see photos of Dubai, I only see amazing buildings and beautiful landscapes, but I never see people and I miss that!
I have chosen something very national, I mean that I’ve heard about Rio de Janeiro, this fantastic city that I haven’t had the opportunity to know yet. He comments about the origin of people. The speaker talks about wounderful attractions as suggar loaf, Ipanema beach, opera house, historical places in the financial center of Rio de Janeiro, Corcovado, the hippie market, a funny and busy outdoor activity that allows people to buy authentic goods made by people who are selling them, suveniers. Nevertheles, he talks about the beaches, where we can have a great time listening to original Brazilian music, samba. He mentions people playing voleyball. He shows us where we can have some exquisite food and see Brazilian culture. If you are interested to listen to the original video, you can watch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZokxaE1jKZU.