Looking for something innovative but practical to try in your classroom? What about some great public radio stories that grab students’ attention?
They can give a modern spin on a historical event or illustrate a real world application of a scientific concept. They can be a new mode of delivery for informational “texts”. They can be a great example of spoken academic language.
Listen Current gives your students something interesting to listen to. Listen Current curates the best of public radio to keep teaching connected to the real world and build student listening skills at the same time. Non-fiction storytelling works for science, social students and ELA. We also know from research “If you want people to listen to you, tell a good story” that the easiest way to improve listening is to give students something interesting to listen to. That’s why Listen Current carefully chooses the public radio stories for relevance to your curriculum and relevance to your students.
Listen Current understands you don’t have time to build standards based lesson plans yourself, so they offer robust lesson plans that are Common Core from the ground up. Planning great lessons takes a lot of work. The in-depth lesson plans include a listening guide, vocabulary, class activities and additional resources. And did we say, this is all FREE? A quick and easy sign up gives you full access to hundreds of public radio stories and lesson plans.
If you want to assign students logins and create custom online assignments for your class, then consider getting a Listen Current PREMIUM account for your school. You get your choice of active listening supports for students: you can use one of their online graphic organizers, or provide enhanced language support with their interactive audio transcripts. You can also differentiate assignments for individual students. And you’ll receive class reports on student progress. These features are perfect for 1:1 schools or blended or flipped learning. Contact Listen Current if you are interesting in having your school try out the Premium features.
A few of our favorite stories to explore:
ELA – Dust Bowl Poetry; pairs nicely with Grapes of Wrath
Social Studies – Citizenship in Athens; getting voted “off the island” in ancient times
Science – Mystery of the Moving Rocks ; fun science mystery explained
