English Listening Lesson Library Online (ELLLO): Minimum Wage

Details

Activity Description

Use this audio dialog of two speakers discussing and debating the minimum wage and quizzes with advanced students when teaching about jobs and American workplaces. See the More Ways section below for many other topics found at this site which could be used in a similar manner.

Preparation

1. Make sure that the site is not blocked at your school and that the computer you will use to play the Flash video has the appropriate plug-ins..
2. Practice using the site yourself before having students use it.
3. Set speaker volume to an appropriate level.

How-To

1. Visit the Example Web Site (above).
2. Select the play button on the video player. Listen once to get the main ideas of the dialog.
3. Listen again with or without one of the three options (below the audio player): with the audio script (which can be hidden by selecting the minus (-) next to the Audio Script on the Transcript tab), in sections with captions (select the Slide Show tab and select a numbered section; choose to turn on or off captions); or select the Audio Notes tab to see text that explains key vocabulary and phrases from the dialog, with the audio segments isolated for focused listening.
4. In the right pane, select Vocabulary Quiz (six questions). Type in answers and select Check Answers.
5. Below the Vocabulary Quiz, select Comprehension Quiz and choose the answers to the six multiple choice questions. Select Check Answers.

Teacher Tips

• Many sites, like this one, have advertising. Teach your students what ads look like and how to avoid selecting them since sometimes they contain malware that they will not want on their computers, at school or at home. It is a very important and necessary skill for them to know.
• The MP3 audio file can be downloaded for playing offline. Right-click on Download this MP3 on the page below the questions, and save to the computer's Desktop. Related content on Salary Caps is linked on the page (below the Comprehension Quiz).
• This site contains Flash. Adobe is finally planning to kill off Flash once and for all. Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Safari have all been blocking Flash over the past year, but Adobe is now planning to remove support for it fully by the end of 2020.

More Ways

• The site contains more than 2,000 free listening lessons with many different accents in English from speakers around the world. See the site map for all site content.
• The site content is also searchable by Level (levels 2- 7), Topic (appearance, culture, economics, education, environment, family, food, health, holidays, leisure, movies, music, nature, places, relationships, routines, shopping, sports, technology, travel, or work), Country of speakers, or Media (Audio, Video, Games, Scenes, News, Mixers).
• Users can listen online or download and print lessons for offline and in-class use. Teachers can use it as a source for supplementary, authentic material in lessons.
• Nearly all the audio is downloadable so teachers can either download the MP3 files for in class listening (you can burn them to a CD or play them from a mobile device) or if your classroom has a computer AV system, you can play the audio straight from the Web site. (To download any audio, just right click any blue audio link on the Web page and save it to your computer).
• The lessons can also be printed. Most activities have print-friendly CSS, so the transcripts (with a quiz) can be printed and photocopied for in-class use.
• A simple use of the audio transcripts is to have students read the dialogues in pairs, then answer the questions on the right, and then discuss the topic themselves.
• Students can access the lessons from any computer connected to the Internet. Teachers can direct students to one particular activity, assign a particular lesson for homework, or let students choose a lesson of interest.

Program Areas

• ESL: English as a Second Language

Levels

• Advanced

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