Listening exercises are essential for learning a new language. They help improve pronunciation, word stress, vocabulary, syntax among many other things. If we can’t understand what people are saying to us, we can’t really improve. In addition, when we communicate, we gain 45% of language competence when listening, and 55% from speaking, reading, and writing.
Learners perceive listening as the most difficult language skill. This is because you have to receive, understand, remember, evaluate, and respond to the message. In recent decades teaching listening has started to receive more attention. However, there’s still much to be done on that front.
That is why we want to recommend the use of text-to-speech tools for listening exercises. Firstly, you can create your own content so it matches the themes and grammatical skills that you’re currently going over. Secondly, because you can choose from several accents, so it isn’t the same one always. Thirdly, because the voice is as close to a native speaker as you can get without actually hiring anyone.
We recommend Woord since, in our opinion, it’s the best-suited tool for this task.
Why Woord?
We recommend using Woord since it supports over 50 languages, including several versions of English (US, UK, Australia, India), Spanish (Spain, Mexico) Portuguese (Portugal, Brazil), and French (France, French Canada).
Besides that, Woord has several interesting perks, including:
- The ability to import from PDF, images, documents, websites, and many more formats.
- An SSML editor that allows for speed, tone, loudness, and pacing changes.
- The possibility to export the document to MP3
- Premium, natural-sounding voices in every plan (even the free one)
- It includes 20.000 characters per month in the free plan
How To Use Woord
1- First, search for something or upload a file using the platform’s search box.
2- Decide on an acceptable speaking rate for you.
3- Select a starting point for your reading.
4- Listen to your audio right online or save it as an MP3 file.
Also published on Medium.