Great websites for practicing listening skills:
Students often ask the question: ‘How can I practise listening outside class?’ There are so many resources available for English learners on the internet. Here are three useful websites you can try.
- British Council Learn English – this has some great audio and video listening lessons that each take about 15-20 minutes to complete. There is a range of topics from stories to everyday life to many different aspects of British culture. Each listening comes with a preparation activity to help you with vocabulary you need to understand the text and further activities to check your comprehension.
You can access it here: http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/listening-skills-practice
- ‘LingoHack’ from the BBC helps you understand current news stories in the media. Each episode uses authentic news reports from the BBC and comes with a transcript so you can read along if you want to. There is a glossary for each episode to help you with difficult vocabulary too.
You can access it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/lingohack
- ‘The Listening Project’ – this is another resource from the BBC. It’s not specifically for English learners, but is a collection of conversations between friends and family members in Britain on lots of different topics. It is a good way to hear natural English and a range of different British accents.
You can access it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02nrshh/episodes/downloads
Happy Listening!
