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!
Hello all,
I watched the video about Rio de Janeiro from YouTube (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZokxaE1jKZU). As the own name says, that listening was about a tour of Rio de Janeiro and it shows the main tourist places in the city like Sugarloaf, Concovado, downtown, Copacabana beach, etc.
I used the same strategy I had already used at the first week. I took same notes during the listening. I found this audio easy to understand. I lost some words, of course, but I got the idea without difficult. I think it’s because the images are helpful in making you understand what is being talking.
I found the video very intereting and I learned that 49% of the Rio’s population are write people, but I’m not sure about the accuracy of this information.
I’d like to visit Rio and enjoy the city, but I must confess to being afraid of doing it because of the violence.
About this topic, do you believe that the violence’s problem in Rio will be solved some day?
Dear Marcelo,
You’ve used some other strategies that you are not even aware of. First, the fact that you were listening about
Rio; means that you have already a vast background knowledge about it. So, retrieving the information you already know about the subject is certainly a way of “decoding” what is being said. The other aspect is the image. Even if you don’t understand every single word, the visual aspect of the listening helps you to make sense out of it. In a face-to-face situation, you’ll use, for example, the gestures and non-verbal cues of the speaker to understand what he/she is saying. Just some strategies information that might be useful!Like you, I’m not sure that the information the tour guide gives is accurate. I really don’t know…
As for Rio, oh, you should visit it! It’s an amazing city, lively, exhilarating, breathtaking! I love to visit Rio. Violence is an issue there, but nothing has ever happened to me there… I really don’t know if there’s a way out there for the organized crime, drug trafficking and all the bad consequences of them. Still, Rio is worth a visit!
I had a very interesting discussion with some Russians, a student of mine, a Slovene, about the film “Cidade de Deus”, and other cultural issues. You might want to check it. It’s so rich. Make sure you click on “comments” to see our discussion at
http://brazilandbrazilians.blogspot.com.Regards from Windy, windy Key West,
Carla
I chose two vídeos in order to discuss about. The first one is English Language Listening Library Online: Great Places , where Karen talks about some of the more interesting places she has been visiting in the world. The second one is a discussion about “mythus and stereotypes about your country” made in http://chinswing.com/pages/discussion.aspx?id=98c2b379-bd39-422a-9d65-408aa4f3c243, in wich I toke part recording my opinion as you can read here and hear there.
Karen went to Australy and spent half month there, she visisted a amazing place called “Oluru”, probabily this name is a aborigene’s name, wich is called also Ayers Rock. According her description, the place is incredible with a great rock, it land is very pale and very red, the sky is so blue and It place is so peaceful.
Besides She also spent a year in Peru where she went to “Machu Picchu” a age ruin, an old inca town it age is about seven or eight hundred years old and she think it isn’t so old really.
After south América, karen has spent a lot of time in Spain where, according her opinion the more interesting place is “granada” where is the old moorish capital of spain, with amazing old town, moorish palaces and many many palaces of diferents times.
She knews also part of asia as Japan, Malasya, Thailand and Singapore. The best asia place for her is Okaida in Japan where she spent a week on a farm and she thougth a instersting place, however, she thinks very difficult to choose only one place as the best place of asia.
I thought very intersting to hear a opinion from someone who is a native english speaker and I got very happy because I could understand her. My strategie was hear, hear once, twice and again if necessary. The most important for me in this exercise was that I hadn’t how to check in the text because there wasn’t one text on the vídeo. Pretty good.
About de second exercise, this was my opinion on site.
I’m enjoying this discussing and I heard with attention your opinions. I’m from Brazil and I agree that some stereotypes aren’t true, as Ronaldo, Mr. Oliver and others speechers has been talking. Each people have their habits as a carachteristic but usually it is unusual in their society. For exemplo, Brazil is a five times world cup champion but there are many brazilian people whoose have terrible performance with a soccer ball, in the same hand I can assure there are twenty-seven countries into of the brazil, each one with their own habits, but the media focus carnival, futball and samba only as carachteristics of all brazilians people.
Then, when you go to Peru for exemplo, don’t forget: Among the peru’s natives there are those that don’t play Andean flutes.
Best regards and see you
I tried to read in order to get the best record of the message and the result got awful and I don’t get change it now, please don’t consider my pronunciation.
Dear Celso,
First, let me tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed listening to you! Fantastic! Learning is about taking risks. I know how hard it is to record ourselves and listen to ourselves, but it’s an excellent practice. In the past, I hated to listen to myself and to speak up when I was online. Now, I have an online show once a month with some friends! Not that I like my voice, but we get used to it! Did you know that you got a reply? Go back to Chingswing to check it.
Chingswing Voicethread on Stereotypes.
I’m also happy to realize that you could understand the first listening without the transcript. Did you try the quiz there? It’s very nice!
http://elllo.org/english/0701/734-Keren-Places.html.
ello.org is a site that should be in your own bookmarks! There are tons of excellent listening activities there.
You did an amazing job describing the listenings you focused on!
Carla
Dear Carla,
Did you really hear my record? My god! I could do better but I didn’t get to record again and I feel crazy with it.
Thanks very much for your incentive but I know I need to improve so much more my english speech.
I came back on site to listen the reply. That site is very intersting, when you receive a reply automaticaly you are informed by e-mail.
I received the e-mail and imediatelly I went to the site.
I loved the message wich cames from a british lady. She told me that my contribution in the discussion made her laugh a lot. I don’t know exactly the meaning of it but I got happy because she understood me.
I’m very satisfied with our course and I think it will be useful for me, what a prity it is so short. I hope it have another course next year or maybe a continuos course all year long.
I’m going to site above wich you had idicated, next week, please,I think my week tasks is done, please confirm it for me, if I forgot something, I need to study French yet, tomorrow my “Professeur” will collect me the french tasks also.
thanks once more,
See you
Of course I listened to you, Celso! As I mentioned, the first step to go beyond is to take risks!
“To make someone laugh a lot”, it means that you said something funny! I guess that it was because of what you mentioned about the Peruvians.
Thanks for your positive feedback in relation to the course. I’ve been working hard to try to accommodate everybody’s interests, needs, and English level. Not an easy task! To know if you’re done with the tasks, check the goals for the week. If you answered “yes, I did”, you’re done! But I’ll post a short self-evaluation for everybody to check.
We plan to have other courses. Let’s see what happens!
Carla
Hi, people!
I decided to write about the video Untold Stories of Contemporary India, because I think it fits perfectly in the discussion of myths and stereotypes about countries that Celso brought up. We always complain about stereotypes how we are portrayed abroad, but what I found interesting in this video was to realize that we also have prejudices and make rash judgments about other countries’ way of life. And, sometimes, this is unavoidable, because, as the woman, Simone Ahuja, says in the beginning of the video, most of our perceptions came from the media, mainly if you have never been to a place. In the case of India, for example, the first image that came to my mind before watching the video was a chaotic scene of an overpopulated Indian city with lots of strange and poor people, cows and old cars sharing the streets.
This video try to break this kind of stereotypes about India and it shows, as the name suggests, things we have in India and are not mentioned by the media, from Rugby to India’s wine country. I agree with Celso and with the British lady reply: we have to look at each people individually, we have to personalize them, because they are not simply “others”. As Simone Ahuja emphasizes in the video, understanding the differences is really important for a larger picture of global understanding and a sense of community around the world. What do you think about this issue, people? Do you agree with my point pf view?
Now, about the strategies… Well, this was not an easy-to-understand video. After listening to it several times, I still cannot understand everything. However, this time there was something that helped, images, and then it was possible infer things from them and from the context. Also, I tried to do something new: paraphrase what was said. I think it helped.
That’s it!
See you!
PS: Sorry for the size of my message! People have already told me that I’m too prolix! =p
Dear João,
The video you watched about India (http://youtube.com/watch?v=UjK2bkWgmfg<) is one of my favorite because it shows us “an” India that most of us are not aware of. Yes, it’s really demystifying our own view of unknown places and cultures that are distinct from ours. I really believe that by learning about other cultures we can bring people together. They realize that although each culture has its own specificities, there’s always something we share.
Also, I love Simone’s narration!
By the way, my sister is an account manager in the US and she works with a team in India. A while ago, she gave me an interview about the cultural differences and she mentioned a funny story. Maybe you’d like to listen to it.
A Brazilian Leading a Team in India
As for the strategy you used, paraphrasing, wonderful job! When you paraphrase you’re using what you listened to in a meaningful way, which can really help you remember new words and enhance your communicative abilities. Also, as I mentioned in Marcelo’s comment, the images give us important cues of the context. And we don’t have to understand every single word to get the idea. Do you think I can understand every single word people say to me here? Not at all! I hear many different “Englishes” everyday, so it’s just a matter of contextualizing what somebody is telling you. Today, for example, I went to a French bakery. The woman talking to me was a French lady with strong accent speaking English. I couldn’t really understand all, but I knew she was asking me a question and I understood she was talking about bread, so my guess was that she was asking me what kind of bread I wanted with my salad! Right guess. I told her what I wanted without really understanding every word coming out of her mouth. These are the strategies that really matter when you’re dealing with a foreign language. What do you think?
I just LOVED your comprehensive comment! Can’t wait to talk to you all soon!
Carla
I listened the English Language Listening Library on line: Great Places.
In the video Todd interviews Keren about the great places that she has visited. She talks about four places. First, she mentions Australia and detaches Oluru ( Ayres Rock): a very pale and red land. After, she talks about Machu Picchu in South America, Peru. She explains to Todd that it is an Inca town. She comments that Machu Picchu is 7000 years old. In third place, Keren comments about Spain and describes Granada as “that’s amazing”. Lastly , when Todd asks her about Asia, she detaches Japan, Thailand, Malasia and Singapura. Todd wants to know what’s her favorite place in Asia and in spite of Karen considers a difficult question, she chooses Hok Kaido(?).
I had a general idea about the video, but I didn`t understand several details. The listening strategy did I use to get the most out of it was to listen several times. While I was listening, I wrote the main words for understanding. After I searched at the Google the characteristics of some cities with the objective to improve my comprehension.
I consider very interesting this listening because Places is a theme very attractive then it becomes less difficult.
I searched about the function of Machu Picchu and I read that one theory maintains that it was an Incan “LLacta”, a settlement built up to control the economy of the conquered regions and with the purpose of protecting the most select of the Incan aristocracy in the event of the attack.
I would like to know your opinion about this theory. Do you believe another theory? What?
Lastly, I consider the strategy listening and writing about some theme very interesting. Isn`t easy because needs time and solicits the search at the grammar and dictionary, but I sure that it makes us better.
Dear Maria do Carmo,
Check what Celso wrote. He listened to the same girl as you did.
You did a great job summarizing what you heard. Another strategy you used was taking notes of the key words and looking for further explanation on the topic. Excellent. You used many strategies to have a full understanding of the listening practice. I’m glad you liked the topic. Everybody has a special place to share, right? I’m still not sure about Machu Picchu. If the theory you mentioned is the real one, but all about it is speculation. Only the ones that were there at that time would know what it was all about…
Last but not least, you mentioned that the fact that we write about what we listen, helps. That’s my intention. I know it takes some time, and you’re all busy people, but it’s worth it, for it’s a way to reinforce what you’ve learned and make you want to go beyond.
Excellent job.
The same question I asked Élcio goes for you. If you could listen to it only once, how would you try to understand the main idea? Which strategies would you use?
Carla
Hi everybody,
The most of interesting videos that I listened were: Great Places (Todd interviewing Keren about the great places that she had visited), Rio de Janeiro (from YouTube), Untold Stories of Contemporary India and The Magic of Dubai (from YouTube). However, I’d like to make some comments about the last. The video is a reportage about Dubai, made by Media Line, that is available in: http://youtube.com/watch?v=_IoKXngXVRU.
To understand the video, I watched it more than two times and stop a lot to take notes.
According to the reporter, Dubai is a small country in Medle East, which population is just 1,3 million people, but only 20% are locals. The majority is foreigners who came from some parts of the Asia, specially from India and Pakistan. Tourism is very important to Dubai’s economy and represents about 40% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Most of the tourist comes from Europe and Asia. In spite of Dubai hasn’t been so popular to the Americans tourists yet, the country has received big amount of investments from the USA, especially to built five stars hotels. He hopes that in 2010 about 15 million people will visit Dubai every year.
In term of restrictions, Dubai is considered an Arabian Muslin country where people have more freedom. You can dink alcohol in the Hotels and wear bikini on the beaches. But the report alert that is very important to respect local values. In summary, in Dubai is possible to have a very peaceful holiday without some problems associated to some destinations, particularly in around European Mediterranean, especially about drunk people.
Hugs.
Dear Élcio,
Lots of listening practice! That’s great! And I saw that you even took your time to reply to me about my special place at the moment, Key West! http://voicethread.com/#home.b11608 Great job! I’d love to visit Cuba, but it’s not easy to go to Cuba from Key West. First, I’d need to go to Mexico. We cannot go straight from Cuba because they don’t have any diplomatic relationship.
You’ve made a thorough description of Dubai. The other day I watched a special report on the country showing how they built a kind of Island in the shape of a palm tree in the middle of nowhere. Crazy! And also about a famous 6-star hotel there. Impressive!
They are investing a lot of money on tourism knowing that one day their oil reserves will finish.
Now, if you could listen to it only once how would your strategy change to try to understand what you were listening to?
Keep up the excellent work!
Carla
Hello Carla, I’m sad that I can’t to study very well this week. I’m having the appartment remodelled and it was very difficult. I have to work and to live with a big confusion in house. Well, I listened about Key West. I was there in 1991. I was just married. I think it’s a beautiful city, very charming with beautiful people too. In That time we don1t have a lot of money e I had the impression that everything was very expensive like all the beautiful touristic cities. I didn’t understand very well, but when we were walking in the marina (?), a cop told us that we couldn’t be there. In that ocasion I thought it was because of drugs. But I never have understand at all.
We went to the beach because people say We could see Cuba from there. But We dindn’t see anything. We couldn’t known very well your beautiful city because we leaved at the afternoon.
I heard in the comments that a friend of us liked to know Cuba. I think now it can be better. but when I was there everything was sad. The people was very poor e they did everything for some money. They lost weight because they didn’t have money to eat. They didn’t have anoything: pencils, pen, paper to write, books, clothes, everythig. The most serius, I think it was they couldn’t say what they thought about the government, fidel Castro etc. When we arrive in Brazil, mey husband said it was very difficult to eat without think in the friends that we did there. And he loves to eat!
thank uyou for your attention.
goodbye
vania
Dear Vânia,
Don’t worry! Practice whenever it’s possible. This course is very flexible in terms of time frame. As I mentioned many times, it’s up to you to determine your own pace, and I know how hard it is to be in the middle of remodeling a house. It can be kind of insane!
I’m glad you still could listen to my special place voicethread!
Cuba still suffers from a harsh reality and sometimes there are Cuban boats that get to Key West.
Dear Carla,
Thank you for your reply. I really forgot about the lack of diplomatic relationship between Cuba and the USA. But I think it’s worth to visit there by Mexico.
About Dubai, I totally agre with you. It’s am amazing country that has built wonderful hotels, including a building which shape is a sail boat. It´s really crazy.
You asked me am important question about my listening´s strategy. Actually, I don’t have one. Whem I have to listem something in English only once, I try to pay attention a lot and take note of some key words. Of course, is not so easy and sometimes I have listened lots of things and understanding only few parts.
Hugs
Hi guys,
I listened the podcast about Trento at Italia (http://sethdickens.blogspot.com/2007/06/bella-italia.html). The speaker said that he had chosen to live at Trento because he can practice snowboard in the local mountains there. One specifically mountain he quoted it was about a mountain called, i think, Pandano. Another interesting point is that the snow had comes only in middle of december that made him to stay very huge when it had come.
The strategy that i have used it was to listen three times the podcast and tried to memorize it and now here i am …
Nowadays, i am very interested about Italy and at the same time i want to go to a place to ski at snow and i could see everything there. Today i was talking to my mother that i am finishing my english course and that i was thinking about to begin to learn another language, spanish, or … italian !!!! I love Pizza, i love Laura Pausini, Pepino de Capri, Coliseum, Roma, so, with snow, it´s awsome. I will decide it nest year …
This december i will go to Europe and maybe i will go to Rome. Let´s see …
That´s it …
Carla, hi!
I sent you my extra Listening Practice.Until now, I can’t read it, here. I don’t know, but something wrong had happened.Please, Could you check! Thanks,Mônica Gill
Hi, Carla!
I also watched the Media Line video about Dubai from Youtube, called The magic of Dubai: http://youtube.com/watch?v=_IoKXngXVRU.
About the listening strategies I used to understand Media Line’s video, I kept trying to:
• review mentally what I already know about the subject (previous lectures, TV programs, newspaper articles, web sites, prior real life experience, etc.);
• be other-directed; focus on the person communicating;
• be aware: non-verbally acknowledge points in the speech;
• restate;
• summarize; and
• interpret.
I understood that:
People
1.3 million of whom only 20 % are locals
Come from across the globe: Europe and others
Workers from: India, Pakistan, Asia destination
Economy
40% of the Gross Domestic Product comes from tourism
It is lacking in oil
Its climate is difficulty
There is an 11th of Winter Annual Shopping Festival
USA
It has marketed itself in Muslim world, in Europe and in Asia
It became very popular in Asia and in Europe
For attracting North Americans and Australians: it will triple the 5 stars range hotels for them
It expects 15 million people visiting it every year in 2010
There are 6 million visit per year now
Westerns
May drink alcoholic in the hotels and find it to buy
May walk in bikinis on the streets, in the beach
Must respect the local values
Dressing code should be respected by the Muslims only
Crime is Limited: without drunks and other problems, we can walk on the streets in the morning and have a very peaceful holiday
As Élcio has already written a summary about this video, I chose to wrote about:
1. the external factors.
The subject matter was important to me because it was a new information. Dubai is a more liberal Muslim country, like Marocco, but I have never read anything about it. It was difficulty to understand some parts of the narrator’s speech, including some names, but I could understand most part of the information.
The speaker was experienced and intelligent. His frame of mind is positive, but I could understand him better because the video showed us some images from Dubai, too.
The message was illustrated with visuals, and the technology of the video was good enough to help us hearing the reporters and understanding the concepts mentioned (GDP etc).
The space was conducive to listening, the reporter suggested Dubai as a peaceful place to spend a holiday and the images has shown it without any avoidable distractions.
2. the center, the listener
Every time I hear any news about a Muslim country I expect to hear about terrorism.
I always have to set aside my prejudices and opinions about their culture, and try to know that there are still nice Muslim countries to visit etc.
I would like to share this information about Dubai with you all:
“The property boom is driven by mega-projects, whether off-shore such as The Palm and The World or inland such as Dubai Marina, the Burj Dubai Complex, Business Bay and Dubailand.
The government’s decision to diversify from a trade-based but oil-reliant economy to one that is service- and tourism-oriented has made real estate more valuable, resulting in the property boom from 2004-2006. Construction on a large scale has turned Dubai into one of the fastest growing cities in the world, equalled only by the large Chinese cities.”
http://www.dubai.com/s/dubaicity/index4.html
Its comparison with China cities growth really impressed me, didn’t it?
Hi Carla,
I listened the podcast about Italy. I dont’t know italy yet, but is in my planes go there as soon as possible! I chose Italy because of this: my desire for know this fantastic and beutiful country.
I think Italy is a place that i need discovery… the culture, the arts, the churchs, trere are so many things to do, to know, it’s increrible!
Italy is a “modern-old-city”. It’s great, it isn’t?
About the cities: i think Roma and Veneza are the most insteresting. The first because of your history, and the last because of your difference… But it’s difficult to choice, i’d like to know all the cities!!!
That’s all! Bye, bye!
Hi Carla, sorry I’m doing week 2’s activities only now. Anyway, I’ve just listened to that guy who talks about Trento, in Italy, and I’ve choosen Trento because I’m very interested in European cultures and because I have Italian blood into my veins. I liked this “sports” face of Europe (we normally think that ‘turism in Europe can only be cultural’). I’ve never seen snow and I’d like to see it someday, and even practice some snowboard if I can. But, sincerily, what most attracted me at first, when I just saw “Trento” written in our bookmarking page, was the perspective of finding some beautiful landscapes and good food there. Well, I did find a beautiful landscape and I also discovered, like I’ve already said, this “other face” Europe has, which I found very interesting.
Dear Luciana, Balduíno and Guilherme,
I can see we’ll have to meet in Italy! I have double citizenship, Brazilian and Italian. I’ve lived for some time in a city 10 minutes from Venice called Mestre. Italy is pure magic! I’m trying to travel to Italy next year. Let’s see what happens. Did I ever tell you my whole family is Italian, including my father? The listening you chose is from an English teacher, and I liked the fact that it was simple, to the point, and it makes us dream of visiting Trento. Great job, you three! So, when are we meeting in Italy?
Thaís,
As always, your listening descriptions are so comprehensive and interesting! Not only did you talk about the strategies you used, the information you understood, but you also added new details to it. That’s the way we go beyond, enhancing our learning! Keep up the excellent job!
The video that I saw it was of Rio de Janeiro.
I used I used a strategy of previous knowledge…I already visited Rio, then it was easy to understand the information about it.
However, I thought got to absorb most of the information about this video.
Also, I found a video with beautiful landscapes.
I usually say “I would like to be rich not to get fancy cars, houses or jewels…I would like to visit many, many places”. I think I can live my life traveling around the world. That’s the reason I do like languages. When we learn a language we have the opportunity to know a little about the countries which speak that language (it’s a kind of a trip!). That’s a really nice topic to discuss and I’ve learned many interesting things about places I hope visit them some day.
I got so amazed listening about Dubai. Actually, I didn’t know many things about it. In my opinion, the most impressive thing I’ve learned about Dubai is how a Muslim country can live with harmony with the others. They live together with other cultures, in fact, great part of its population come from other countries such as India, Pakistan and even from Europe. Tourism is very important for its economy. It has many beautiful places to visit and the best thing – you can have a nice trip and not worry about crimes, thieves, violence…
About my listening strategies: Different from week 1, week 2 it was possible to listen to many people speaking English, people who are from many countries. This is very important for us, learners, because we must practice the listening skill but we must take into account the accent in other to understand what people say. We must be familiar with other accents, especially in English (it’s one language with many, many accents). So, at that time, I listened to the videos more than twice, made some notes, paid very attention in the accent and to make sure I understood the tasks I listened to them again with no stop, no notes, no help… and it worked!!!
So, do you think it possible for other Muslim countries take the example of Dubai? I mean living with harmony with other cultures and religions at the same place?
Just now I’m having time to listen and work in this on line class.
So I’ve listened about Dubai. Tehe is some place that I’d love to know more abot this excepitional City.
Something I thik is very interesting is that this city are in the middle of the desert and even so, they have almost the best economy in the world.
They used the restric capital that they have to improve thir hotels, touristic points etc. With this posture the atract mor people and withe this more money.
The estrategi thei use to get better the ity Dubai and also the Emirates is very interesting and coul be copied by our governants.
The strategy that I used in this work was similar to Diana. I’ve listened it many times, more than twice.
late as usual. i wont write to much, i’ll just say that i love this country i live in( Brazil) so , the place wich inspired me was Rio de Janerio, for sure!!!