[W8] Ello : Online Listening Library

Hello English language teachers!

Have you ever thought about expanding your recording and listening activity collections for English class? If you have, then you can easily log on to Ello and be surprised that you can find more than 1000 listening activities with multimedia, mp3 files, vocabulary task, language notes and many more that you can choose to be carried out in just a click. 

Ello Website Link

How to Use Ello:

Ello promises 5 active sections which can be explored by teachers such as Views, Mixer,Games, Videos, Scenes, and News. It is so well-organised that teachers can easily look up for the activities according to the number of task set and topics. So let us explore some of the section and see what it offers...

Picture 1: VIEWS section

1. VIEWS

• VIEWS provides a downloadable recording conversation based on the topics with transcription for teacher use. 
• The quizzes provided are vary according to the focus for example- Quiz 1: Vocabulary Focus and Quiz 2: Comprehension Questions. 
• There is also an embedded video response with subtitles available that is shared by a respondent and learners can enhance their knowledge about related topics while listening to other people's opinions. 
• VIEWS section also provides learners with Audio Notes which focuses on the elaboration of the vocabulary items that are introduced in the conversation.  

2. MIXER 

• In MIXER, there is a combination of speakers from different regions with different accents.

3.GAMES

• GAMES provides merely the same tools and functions of what VIEWS has, but the only difference is on the task. GAMES provides 3 tasks which are believed to be more focusing on the language skills involving vocabulary, reading and speaking quizzes. 

4. NEWS

• In NEWS, learners may choose to listen to more than 20available news broadcastings before answering some vocabulary and listening questions. However, there is a slight drawbacks in this section, which attempts when we start to play the video. When we have played a news video, we cannot pause it until you answer the question. However we can still replay the video.   

Picture 2: VIDEOS section

Advantages:

• One of the good thing about Ello is that it offers tutorials for new users to explore this website. 
• It involves speakers from various regions and this may expose learners to variety of accents and  may as well enhance their intercultural competence. 

Disadvantages:

• Ello can sometimes be confusing since there is no clear instruction for each sections, regarding how to carry out the task and how to use the audio notes (especially!).
• Since anybody may send a video response, we may want to know about the background or perhaps the reliability of language and ideas being presented (but not really a limitation, because the world of internet is a free place for all!).