;
What is this?
This site
(you can access it here) has a range of classic literature, that is available in audio form. Either the site can be used to simply download the stories onto an mp3, or you can listen to them on the computer, whist simltaneously reading the text. There is a range of material here - classic novels such as Huckleberry Finn, poetry, children's stories such as The Little Matchgirl, short stories and even a couple of historical American documents such as the Declararation of Independence.
Why is the content good for language learning?
In terms of the relevance to language learning, there is a wealth of material here, and it has the advantage of it being possible to use the dual coding of reading and listening at the same time to aid comprehension. Dual Coding was originally proposed by Allan Paivio in 1971 as an explanation of memory of words and pictures, but has been subsequently developed in the sphere of multi-media teachnlogy by Richard Mayer and Roxana Moreno (2005)
A Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning: Implications for Design Principles. You can read this paper here. Put simply, it helps to processing new information aurally and visually at the same time helps.
How might you use it in a language teaching context?
You could use this in class to practise either reading or listening - it would be possible to do a small amount of the listening as a dictogloss, for example, possibly after reading and listening independently, as the level of text is very high. I think it is most useful to promote extensive reading outside class. Learners can read the text free of charge and can be encouraged to download the mp3 file for extensive listening practice whilst they are tavelling to school/ college etc.
Limitations
I was initially very impressed with this tool, and had planned to use some of the content with my upper intermediate learners in class. The idea was to read/ listen to the first couple of pages of a short story in class, and follow this up with them reading/ listening to more for homework.
When I looked more closely, however, I decided that this wasn't going to work. The difficulty lies in the cannonical nature of the texts available. They are, without doubt great literature and great stories, and were certainly chosen for this reason as well as the fact that they are old enough to avoid copyright infringements and royalty payments. But herein lies the difficulty. The level of language is high, much of the vocabulary used is poetic, literary and in some cases a little archaic and on reflection, I felt that, even for the upper intermediate group that I have, this would be too difficult to be motivating.
As an example, I had hoped to use the short story 'The Gift of the Magi' but looking at the first page disuaded me....(I've underlined all of the vocabulary that I felt they might not know)
'There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.'
Not to be overcome without some resistance, I looked at teh children's stories, hoping that this may be easier. This is from 'The Little Matchgirl'.
'One slipper was nowhere to be found; the other had been laid hold of by an urchin, and off he ran with it; he thought it would do capitally for a cradle when he some day or other should have children himself. So the little maiden walked on with her tiny naked feet, that were quite red and blue from cold. She carried a quantity of matches in an old apron, and she held a bundle of them in her hand. Nobody had bought anything of her the whole livelong day; no one had given her a single farthing.
At this point I decided that 'urchin, to do capitally, maiden, the whole lifelong day' and 'farthing' were just too much to expect, and gave up!
