Module 1: Teach Listening

Welcome to Module 1: Teach Listening. In this first module, we're going to look at some free tools you can use to teach listening and create your own listening materials. Listening is nearest and dearest to my heart, and the good news is that you don't need expensive software to create really useful listening activities.

We'll start with Audacity, a free audio editor that you can download to your computer. You can use it to record, play, and edit audio. From there, we'll look at different ways to host your audio, create worksheets, turn audio into video, make interactive listening activities, and track what your students are doing.

Here are the main tools we'll look at:

1. Audacity and Audio.com. Record and edit your own listening material with Audacity and then upload it to Audio.com to create your own listening channel.
2. Bitly. Create simple links that students can remember and use them to share a class homepage or other lesson materials.
3. Canva and CapCut. Create listening worksheets and images with Canva, and then combine your images and audio in CapCut to make simple video or audio slideshows.
4. Google Docs and Dropbox. Repurpose your audio into different listening activities, share audio online, and create activities such as echo conversations.
5. Edge and Edpuzzle. Use Edge's split-screen and PDF annotation tools for listening activities, or use Edpuzzle to put questions directly inside a video.
6. Google Forms. Create reusable listening quizzes and keep track of student participation and answers.

One of the main ideas in this module is repurposing. You don't have to create something completely new every time. You might record one audio file and then use it with a Canva worksheet, turn it into a video with CapCut, create another activity in Google Docs, put questions inside the video with Edpuzzle, and create a quiz with Google Forms. One piece of audio can become many different listening activities.

We'll also use templates whenever possible. Once you have a good worksheet, quiz, or activity format, you can reuse it again and again. You can even create the worksheet first and use it as a prompt for recording your audio. This makes it possible to create a large number of listening lessons without spending hours preparing each one.

This is also the beginning of our A to Z of Free Software series. Module 1 covers the letters A to F, and by the end of all five modules, we'll have looked at free software tools from A all the way to Z.

That's Module 1: Teach Listening. The tutorials are right below, so you can start creating your own listening lessons now. I hope these tools help make your listening lessons more fun and productive for your students.