Engaging ears, eyes, brains and minds: Authentic listening at every level

Lewis Lansford, co-author of Keynote, winner of the 2016 British Council ELTon award for Excellence in Course Innovation, looks at how teachers can help students at every level to engage with authentic input. Using TED Talks, he’ll look at brain science related to listening and offer practical tips for creating success-oriented lessons at any level.

About the webinar

Lewis Lansford looks at how teachers can help students at every level to engage with authentic input. Using TED Talks as examples, Lewis looks at the brain science related to listening and offers practical tips for how to create success-oriented lessons for the classroom at any level.

Accents, fast speech, idioms and slang – these features of spoken English make listening one of the biggest challenges learners face. But low-level learners don’t want to wait to learn real English – they want to understand it now. And even at higher levels real-world listening continues to be challenging. How can teachers help learners at every level engage with authentic input? 

About the speaker

Lewis Lansford got his first taste of teaching English in Barcelona in the late 1980s. The experience inspired him to get a Master’s in TESOL, after which he taught at a university language centre in Arizona and then a manufacturing company in Japan. In 1995, he took an editorial job with a major publisher in Hong Kong developing materials for Asia, and in 1997 became a UK-based freelance editor, project manager, and writer – writing full time since 2010. He has worked on books, videos, tests, audio materials, worksheets, apps and online materials for English learners of all ages across the world. He currently lives in York, UK. His most recent project is Cengage Learning’s Keynote, featuring TED Talks.

Read a related blog post by Lewis Lansford: 'Five tips for using authentic video in the classroom '.

Watch the webinar recording below

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