TED TALKS FOR ENHANCING LISTENING COMPREHENSION SKILLS AT UNIVERSITY LEVEL

This work analyzes implementation of TED talks as a part of ESP blended learning training for fostering students' listening comprehension skills. We present a case study of 12 lower proficiency non-linguistic students who were assigned listening to a designated TED talk each week and performing listening comprehension tasks that were later checked in the classroom. TED lectures were offered as a part of academic and specific English course for undergraduate students of the Ecological faculty and were aimed at enhancing learner autonomy, enriching academic vocabulary, developing listening comprehension skills and promoting scholarly journal writing in a long-term perspective. The results were formally assessed by pre-test and post-test as well as by individual anonymous surveying of the students upon completion of the course. We looked into the results of the survey and overviewed pros and cons of implementation of TED talks into ESP curriculum.