SOUNDS

Sound Transit is a really wonderful formulation of an idea. It's not just a huge collection of Mp3 sound files from all over the world, but the sounds have been tagged by country and described and a visitor to the site can take a sound journey around the world.





You can search the database of individual files by country, keyword or creator and just download the sounds you want. All the sounds are licensed under creative commons 2.0 so you can save and reuse them according to the limitations defined by that license.You can hace access to the database of sounds go by clicking Search for sounds.

How to use this with students

• You can use the sounds for visualisations. Get the students to listen with closed eyes then write about what they heard. Or they can create a story from what they heard.
• You could collect four or five clips for students to listen to and then get them to create a chapter / episode of a story around each one.
• You could use them for grammar practice ( e.g. present continuous "Someone is speaking." etc.)
• You could get the students to use the site to plan a holiday with four or five destinations then use the descriptions in the itinerary to say what they 'will / are going to' do at each place. They can then choose the best holiday. For past tense practice they can tell other students what the did on their holiday while the students listen to the sounds.
• For vocabulary practice they could just listen and say the things they hear. This will probably involve a lot of guessing, so you could extend this for practice of modals of probability (e.g. It might be someone eating, It can't be in Argentina. That must be a car door etc.)
• You could use this site to give students inspiration to collect their own sounds and to tell the rest of the class about them. They could even upload them to the site and share them.
• They could create their own sound journeys ( e.g. Going to school, what they did at the weekend etc.)
• You could play 'Guess the sound' as a warmer with student and award points to each student or team.
• You could ask students to find their favourite sounds or talk about what the sounds remind them of. (e.g. This is one of my favourites. It's the call to prayer. This one was recorded in Delhi, but it reminds me of when I lived in Cairo. I went out to Giza one evening and listened as thousands of mosques from all over Cairo erupted in to a grand symphony of sound.)
• You can use the sounds to create atmosphere for story telling activities or student plays.