Learning under the Banyan tree: What if the path to becoming a Banyan tree is shown?

 “What is the most neglected English language skill in your classroom/context?” Almost 90% of the Bangladeshi ESL/EFL teachers will mention ‘listening’ in this respect. The reasons behind ‘lack of listening’ refer back not only to infrastructural limitations and larger classrooms but also to reading and writing oriented curricula and a summative test-focused assessment system.

Let’s digress a little from the point of listening. Like some other South-Asian countries like India and Nepal, in Bangladesh, a teacher-figure is most commonly compared with that of a Banyan tree. A teacher is supposed to be the knower of everything and knowledge is transmitted from teacher to students and almost never vice versa. As an old Banyan tree provides shades and shelters and is considered as an ancient guardian for the community, the same are the expectations from a teacher! In most cases, a teacher is supposed to pour the knowledge hodge-podge into students’ brains and any kind of deviation to that tradition adds a demerit to teachers’ careers in many educational institutions. As a consequence, students’ creativity, autonomy and critical thinking are being sidelined with the expanse of spoon-feeding.

Regarding listening skill, in many situations, even if it is present in the syllabus and course outline, it is not practiced in the classroom either because of the unavailability of materials or lack of classroom practice resources. To overcome classroom-practice limitations, teachers can scaffold learners to practice certain skills of their own at home. But how? Yes, here I come with my magical toolkit full of tech tips and tools! Today I will be presenting English Listening Lesson Library Online or elllo which provides full listening support especially for students and also for teachers. In situations where graded materials are not available, a teacher can introduce elllo to the students, if possible can practice some of the activities in the class and keep the rest of it for the students to be accessed by themselves.

elllo website

Speakers of World Englishes

This website currently offers more than 1400 audio and over 700 video lessons followed by quizzes! All are downloadable and come with transcriptions! All free! Quite lucrative, huh! Side by side with listening skill, this site also creates an environment for peripheral learning as the lessons are designed on a huge range of diverse and interesting topics from every nook and corner of the world. Therefore, students' general knowledge will be broadened. Moreover, this site also promotes localized learning as the listening lessons incorporate English speakers from many different countries including Asian, Australian, African and European contexts which do not restrict the learners’ experiences to traditional American or British English only. An opportunity indeed, right? Not only that, users can choose from a range of talks starting from short descriptive/informative ones to a friendly conversations and even interviews. And not to mention the level-wise distribution of activities. And this is not the end. This online library also provides free courses not only for students but also for teachers. What else can we expect (for free!) from a learning website?  

Different levels

This website is supported by the constructivist theory of learning which states that each learner constructs knowledge individually and socially. Not only that, by using elllo learners will be able to select activities according to their own proficiency/CEFR levels, interests or even nationality. They will be able to select any mode like audio or video, listening with or without transcripts, listening directly from the website or downloading the files for more personalized use. Moreover, there are quizzes for every lesson by attempting which students will be able to self-assess their understanding regarding the activities. In a nutshell, with an initial scaffolding from the teacher, students will be able to choose appropriate listening materials for them, practice those on their own and self-monitor their progress in learning. 

As predicted, this website has its 'another' side. Initially, if a teacher does not guide students about how to utilize this site regarding their levels and lesson activities, they may not find the most effective ways to be engaged in those. Again, some topics may not be culturally appropriate for all students. Another thing, most of the activities are based on grammar and vocabulary exercises and higher level listening activities like informative and inferential listening are not covered. Again, the level of formality of the recordings may not always be supportive of academic listening.

So, what to do now? Here comes a teacher’s scaffolding. He/she can suggest which types of lessons can work for them but without any imposition. Regarding higher-level activities, teachers can provide a guideline about how to think critically after listening to any topic and how they can build up their analytic and synthetic power by agreeing or disagreeing with any issue with appropriate reasoning. You can watch the following video to learn more about how to use elllo:

   

 A teacher is obviously a knower and a giver of knowledge but at the same time, he/she can also act as an instructor or a facilitator. Instead of waiting to be spoon-fed by teachers, students can be introduced to the powerful treasure of online resources to be explored and utilized by themselves. In this way, they will be able to take charge of their own learning and also self-evaluate their own performance. Eventually, in the long run, learners will be able to locate their needs and decide which steps can be initiated further to address those. Sometimes we need to loosen the rope for grabbing something bigger. The Banyan tree was there and will be there. But don’t you think it would be really conducive for students if they are shown the paths to become a Banyan tree?

I want to close today with a famous parable: to give a man fish will feed him a day but to teach him how to fish will feed him for a lifetime. Sounds relatable?