I asked the question to my 30+ English listening and notetaking (ELN) students which they preferred, being taught out of a textbook and listening to taped lectures or having guest lecturers instead. The following were their responses:
“I think that listening to a “live” speaker is better cause we can ask questions. As for me, I understand better than listening to a tape.”
“While listening to a real lecturer you can ask your questions, have a real discussion. You also listen to real people with their specific accent…”
“No, I would prefer guest lecturers because you could improve your listening skills better. I think all courses of ELN should have these kind of speaking guests.”
“Of course I prefer guest lecturers because it is much more interesting than textbooks. And it is interesting you try to memorize more information, so it is much more useful. When I tell my friends that we have guest lecture every week, they just tell me how lucky you are. So it is just obvious that guest lecturers not only interesting but also very helpful, you really get a lot of new information, and at the same time your listening improves!”
“I think when we have guest lecturers it’s better and I prefer this. Because when we are listen taped lectures, its boring. When we have a guest lecturer it’s interesting and we can listen real English language by that we improve skills.”
“It is apparent that I’d choose guest lecturer. Live presentation are the most memorable. You listen to real speaker, you catch all gestures. Because 60% of the speech consists of gestures and really makes sense. Besides, I always struggle with my brain which wants to sleep when I listen to a tape.”
“It’s better to have guest speakers to talk with because for many students it’s laziness to listen to tape or read it. It’s original to invite guests who can directly answer your question and maybe learn how can you behave yourself or present something correctly.”
“I am really appreciated that our class had a chance to listen to native speakers. Listen to tape and listen to live speech it is two different things. I have ability to listen to tape 24 hours a day but don’t have many chances to listen to the person who thinks in English and speaks that language all his or her life.”
“This is my first course with foreigner guests. Personally I enjoy them and thank you my teacher for giving me opportunity to listen and communicate with them. It is really practice for me and one of the ways to improve my English skills.”
“I think that it more understandable when you see the speaker by your own eyes. It is great to see real speaker because students can ask questions also.”
“I liked a lot having guest speakers and their lectures because it was very interesting to see how they love what they are doing, how passionate they are about their topic!”
“I prefer handouts and real lectures from foreigners, not a textbook or taped lectures (it’s boring, not interesting and that means not effective!) I think I got a lot of knowledges, real knowledges that I will be needing in the future.”
“I like more guest speakers because I think it is easier to listen to a real person than the taped lecture and I think it is more interesting you see people’s feelings, you understand them better.”
“I certainly would be negative towards such, in my opinion, “old” types of lectures; because when lecture is live, you are not even trying to sleep because people who makes them are really skilled about it and will not have you fall asleep.” 
Yes, our dear, Kazakh students write about sleep a lot because those who are NOT lazy and work really hard suffer from sleep deprivation. Weekends are the time when they try to catch up on sleep but the main point of all these responses is that students have enjoyed having LIVE speakers to listen to. Tomorrow I will write about what they said about some of our guest lecturers.
