What Role Does Technology Play in the Teaching of Listening?
Universal Design for Learning is a concept that supports learning for all students. Universal design addresses different learning styles and the differences that each student comes into the classroom with. Universal Design for Learning has three basic principles:
- Multiple means of representation, which gives learners various ways of acquiring information and knowledge
- Multiple means of expression, which provides learners alternatives for demonstrating what they know
- Multiple means of engagement, which taps into learners' interests, offers appropriate challenges, and increase motivation
Audiobooks provide students an alternative way to acquire knowledge and an opportunity to add a dimension to reading through listening.
Examples:
Digital technology allows interactive learning to take place both at the level of basic skill development and at the level of content learning. Digital text can shift back and forth between languages.
David Rose of the Center for Applied Special Technology (www.cast.org) explains in the book The Universally Designed Classroom how digital text can support what learners know already and what they need to know. This includes listening, reading, looking at graphics and videos and any other combination of activities. One example that Rose gives is “the listening coach” which actually would cue a student to listen for volume, intensity and other important features of digital information. Rose makes the case for students learning new languages to be able to use digital material to make their learning more effective. He gives the example of a “bilingual agent” that can provide information in the first language.
Read more about how technology can affect learning in the article, “Assistive Technology, Universal Design, Universal Design for Learning: Improved Learning Opportunites” by Chuck Hitchcock and Skip Stahl.