Listen and Read Along, and Beyond

In this day and age, when the Internet is everything, we can easily find some free audio stories to enjoy online. The latest example is the Harper Lee's just-released second novel Go Set a Watchman. UK's The Guardian did a wonderful job of capturing the first chapter in sight and sound for us. Click here to see for yourself.

The easy access to such resources can have important implications when a larger, holistic perspective is adopted by teachers. We don't have to limit our content to just our artificial textbooks any longer. In addition, with the readily available authentic materials online, we can design and/or assign course work that engages multiple modalities simultaneously. Besides "listen and read along," we can focus on the shadowing technique for our students to build pronunciation success. We can address students' critical thinking challenges and their reading comprehension as well as their vocabulary and grammatical development. Talk about technology that unlocks potential!

Here are links to a few websites that offer a "listen and read along" feature ideal for ESL instruction from the intermediate level on up.

• The House on Mango Street
• Dozens more stories: http://esl-bits.net/ESL.English.Learning.Audiobooks/ESL.English.Learning.Audiobooks.html
• Dozens of classic stories a la Voice of America: http://www.manythings.org/voa/stories/