Ms. Thu Ngân – 8.0 IELTS Listening

Hi Ngân, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Hello everyone, I'm Thu Ngan. I'm teaching at the Busy Bees English Center in Hoa Long, Ba Ria City, Ba Ria - Vung Tau province. As of 2024, I've been teaching for 7 years, having gone through every level from kids, to middle school, high school, and adults. And then I realized I work most effectively and connect best with students in their teens.

I found out about WELE when I was still in university, prepping for the IELTS exam. Thanks to 50 straight weeks of dictation listening practice, I scored 8.0 for listening. The program helped me pick up the ending sounds that English learners often miss or overlook, and also boosted my ability to recognize words and phrases when the speaker links sounds together.

In what situations have you used WELE's teacher features? Can you share your thoughts on WELE's tools for teachers?

In the early days, the fledgling program that Mr. Hieu started back in 2014 had members listen and type into Word, then send their listening work in by email. In recent years, WELE has kept developing non-stop alongside the digital and AI era, and I'm really glad that there's now a website and an app that make listening much more convenient, along with a bunch of other great features (rankings, streaks, challenges, etc.).

As for my area, teaching, I'm really pleased with the following four features:

+1 Class management: WELE helps me track how much effort students have put in and what they've learned from class. WELE gives me info on the amount of time as well as the number of words each student has learned. In particular, when I hit the detailed report button, I can see exactly which lessons a student listened to and how they did right/wrong, and from there discuss the student's strengths and weaknesses with them.

+2 Teachers can create their own podcast just for their class: customize the listening content to suit certain special classes. For example, KET, PET, or IELTS listening exercises for students who are in exam prep mode and need to practice with material in the exact format they'll face in the real test. I love the feature that integrates with ChatGPT, which lets teachers actively decide which blanks should be filled with words at a given level (for example A2, B1, B2, etc.)

+3 the two features Review Words Being Learned and Weekly Leaderboard

The "Review Words Being Learned" mode lists out every word a student got wrong while listening, and has them listen again and type the correct word. Each round is just 1 sentence, so it's really convenient and doesn't get discouraging.

As for the "Leaderboard", it gives listeners extra motivation to race for the top spot with everyone else. Each time you hit a certain milestone, you get a different title tied to WELE's mascot, the Wallaby — I find that fun and meaningful. Everyone starts out as a little Wallaby setting off from Vietnam. As your dictation-listening experience grows, it gradually travels through Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and finally reunites with its family once you've racked up 150 points with the program.

+4 NOT JUST FOR TEACHERS BUT FOR EVERY USER: WELE has support groups on Messenger and Zalo to answer technical glitches or how-to questions for anyone not yet familiar with using the web/app. Super dedicated! Plus, people in the group also help answer each other's questions. So I find it really handy — like one time, I just asked a quick question on Zalo and the tech folks sorted it out for me super enthusiastically.

Do you have any message for other teachers who are considering using WELE?

WELE is a program built with real heart, started and run by Vietnamese people ourselves — why would we skip it instead of supporting it right away, right everyone? As a teacher, I'm satisfied with the features WELE offers, and I also hope that in the future the web interface will become even more user-friendly, with even more surprises and interesting things in store. I highly recommend it to you all!

You can read more about the teacher features here.

https://wele-learn.com/blog/vi/wele-la-nguoi-ban-tuyet-voi-cua-giao-vien