Why do GCSE students need German listening practice?
My
GCSE German students are fantastic at writing, they get on very well with reading and do well on speaking when they have plenty of vocabulary on a topic. The GCSE skill that many of them struggle the most with, however, is German listening. Due to limited time in lessons, it is vital for students to have the opportunity to practise their German listening outside of the classroom to tune their ears to the speed native Germans speak, since “what pupils reportedly find most problematic about listening is the pace of recorded material.” Barton (2006).In addition, this practice will allow learners to hear the different accents they could potentially encounter in a listening exam, as well as to help them develop their general aural fluency.
I had a parents’ evening last week and many students asked me what they could use to help them to develop their German listening skills. I actually couldn’t give them a specific resource that would help them so, as a result, I put together this list after a bit of research. There are probably others that could be added so if you think of any others, please do let me know!
How Can The List of 8 German Listening Websites To Improve GCSE Be Used?
The list of 8 German Listening Websites for GCSE include news websites, music, current affairs and GCSE related topic sites with short clips. I have suggested to my students to spend maybe 20 minutes just twice per week on listening, transcribing what they hear, making notes on vocabulary, verbs or other useful structures and especially advise them to use them in their written and spoken work too.
8 Listening Websites for German GCSE
NEWS/CURRENT AFFAIRS
- Slow German – Podcasts about different topics by Annik Rubens with transcript in German – use the search bar to browse different topics (i.e. Essen, soziale Netzwerke…)
TIER: HIGHER
https://slowgerman.com/inhaltsverzeichnis/
- News in Slow German– Short News and Current Affairs interview clips with the transcript and vocab support
TIER: FOUNDATION/HIGHER
https://www.newsinslowgerman.com/
- Das Erste – Tagesschau – 20 minute news programme focusing on the main news story from last 24 hours
TIER: HIGHER
http://www.daserste.de/
- Audio Lingua – topic and level related clips, A1 = beginner / B1 = intermediate / B2 = higher
TIER: FOUNDATION/HIGHER
https://www.audio-lingua.eu/spip.php?rubrique3&lang=en
GCSE RELATED CLIPS
- Easy German – short videos on many GCSE related topics. Use the search bar to GCSE topics (i.e. Musik, Filme…) They also have the subtitles in English
TIER: FOUNDATION/HIGHER
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbxb2fqe9oNgglAoYqsYOtQ/featured
- Pearson AQA MFL 9-1 Audio Samples – loads of short clips for GCSE which is topic related
TIER: FOUNDATION/HIGHER
http://www.pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk/secondary/GlobalPages/mfl-91-revision-audio-samples/aqa-gcse-9-1-german-revision-audio.aspx
- GermanPod101 – Loads of short video clips related to GCSE themes plus an activity to do at the end, go through the playlist 15 minutes at a time.
TIER: FOUNDATION/HIGHER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPk1YqYOHig&t=0s&list=PLsoAwWtvF3L0rEBLC33J2jIlNjwfsXg88&index=2
SONGS/MUSIC
- Lyrics Training – German songs with interactive gap filling activities with different levels of difficulty. Browse songs by Genre and click ‘Play’
TIER: FOUNDATION/HIGHER
https://lyricstraining.com/de/
Here’s a link to the Word doc so you can give the list of 8 German Listening Websites for GCSE to your students.
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p.s. Are you a language teacher and looking for more ways to develop listening in the language classroom? Consider having a look at this book of listening ideas and theory.
References
Barton, A (2006) Getting the Buggers Into Languages 2nd Edition, Continuum, London.
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