Using TED Talks for Extensive Listening

Extensive listening (EL) is an approach to teaching listening which can help students develop their listening fluency in a more enjoyable way. However, unlike extensive reading which has now enjoyed widespread recognition, EL has received relatively little attention, partly because of the limited availability of suitable listening materials. Given the popularity of TED Talks which are freely available online, we were interested in exploring this online resource as a source of EL materials for our college EFL students. Two questions guided our research: (1) what factors are considered important by EFL students when choosing TED Talks as their extensive listening practice? (2) What benefits do they get from viewing TED Talks? The data from this case study was collected from questionnaires which were distributed to 28 sophomore students, EL journal and in-depth interviews with three students. The results showed that a number of factors influenced their selection of TED videos. Speakers’ accent, speech rate, vocabulary complexity and length of the talks were among the most frequently mentioned factors. The majority of the students reported that TED videos could help them improve their vocabulary, develop their academic skills and gain new information and knowledge.