Elllo

What is Elllo?

Elllo or English Listening Lesson Library Online is a website which stores LOTS and LOTS of listening lessons that teachers can use. The materials are divided into Mixer, Videos, Views, Games, and News. Each of the materials focus on listening as well as Vocabulary Quiz, Speaking Quiz, Reading Comprehension, and Vocabulary focus.

How can teachers use Elllo?

This tool is suitable for students of all levels of English because each of the listening materials is labelled with the level in which the listening material is suitable for. Teachers may use this website to create variety to their lessons whereby teachers can download the audio and use it in the class. Teachers may also print the transcript to be given out to students at the end of the lesson for comprehension activities.

The materials also come with activities which involve vocabulary focus. Therefore, teachers may also use the listening materials to introduce specific vocabulary to students as the audio does not only pronounce the word, but also explain the meaning of the word. It will be a more interesting way to learn the meaning of words rather than flipping through dictionary. The vocabulary also may involve phrases and idioms.

The listening materials also involve the use of English using different accents from all over the world. This could be a good way to expose students to a variety of accents in using English rather than just the Received Pronunciation (RP). 


Elllo is also suitable for autonomous learning in which students can use this website during their own free time at home. Students may choose activities that suit their age and level and learn the language themselves. 


For students and teachers who are interested to use this website, you can check out this video by Russell Stannard.

What I like about Elllo...

1. Important to hear a variety of accents
2. Authentic materials - real English that we hear on the street
3. Topic varies which makes it culture rounded
4. Encourage personalisation because it gives people choice on what to hear, or from what culture
5. It provides variety for lessons in class
6. Promote autonomous learning as students may learn to improve listening skills on their own
7. Multiple skills (listening, spelling, writing, reading)
8. The comprehension activities create reasons/ purpose for listening 
9. Provides context in which language is learnt in context and not isolated from context.
10. Students can self assess and self evaluate their own performance 
11. CLIL - learn about technology and learn about English
12. Vocabulary enhancement - the audio of the vocabulary does not only pronounce the word but also explains the meaning of the vocabulary.

What I dislike about Elllo...

1. Some of the audio/videos cannot be downloaded.
2. Organisation of the topics - the labels on the left side of the website are only numbers, rather than having labels of the topics.
3. Technical issue. Users may experience 'error' on the website.
4. The language used in the videos may have grammar mistakes. Therefore, not suitable if the focus of our lesson is on accuracy.

Posted in: authentic, Autonomous learning, Listening, Videos, visual, vocabulary