Other online listening media
- One of the best places to find listening practice is on
the
BBC's website for English learners. Usually they
have a script, so you can listen and read. Some interesting
programmes are:
- Words in the News
- 6-Minute English
- Talk About English
- Talking Sport
- Express English
- CNN has a
service for (native speaker) students - a daily 10-minute news
programme with a full transcript.
- Euronews offers
online video reports on a wide range of news stories
- The BBC Video
Nation features ordinary people from all over the
UK talking about their lives. You can learn a lot about the variety
of cultures in Britain, and practise listening to a range of
accents.
- BBC Radio
4 A wide range of drama, news,
documentary, discussion programmes, etc. The website has the
facility to listen again to a huge range of programmes – click
here.
- The
BBC Science Explorer is a collection of
fascinating radio programmes about science, featuring
documentaries, discussions and interviews with important
scientists. Click the link and, if you don't see many
programmes, click the tab for "View as a list", near the bottom of
the page, on the left-hand side.
- BBC Radio 5
live The website also has a lot of
interesting programmes, mostly about sport and news. You can
listen again to a lot of programmes – click here listen again to a
huge range of programmes – click here.
- The Guardian
online newspaper has a large collection of news-related audio
files. You can read background information before listening (or
watching) the audio and video files. There are podcasts at
this same page.
-
BBC China: Ask about Britain This
five-minute bilingual programme is designed for Mandarin Chinese
learners of English, but will be useful for other nationalities.
Each week it answers learners’ questions about life in the UK.
Episodes cover topics such as good manners, university, racial
diversity and RP English. Also available as a podcast – click
here.
Written by Charlie Martineau