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Listening: discussions and interactive exercises

Listening is the very first language skill we picked up as we grew up. Speaking and reading came to us later on after we have learned from listening to older members of our family and to other people in our community. Learning to speak and write English takes us through the same route. Listening to other people speak English is the foundation to mastering the English language.

Listed below are links to discussions and interactive exercises in listening from the best ESL and EFL resources on the Internet. Clicking the blue links will take you to the specific pages where the discussions and activities are, while clicking the website name will take you to the home page. Take time to browse these excellent websites; they are consistently good and fast loading. Besides the activities and exercises listed below, these sites generously offer, free of charge, a tremendous range of valuable resources for ESL and EFL teachers and students. (Please take note of the differences between American English and British English when browsing these sites.)

Exercises in listening and taking dictation in various levels: Elementary, Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate, Upper Intermediate. After making your selection, you will it hear it read several times.

Pre-Intermediate selections include the following:
The Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl)
East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
The Unicorn (James Thurber)A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)

Intermediate selections include the following:
The Wolf (James Thurber)
Pooh (A A Milne)
1984 (George Orwell)
Prufrock (T S Eliot)
The Owl (James Thurber)
The Emperor's Clothes (H C Andersen)
Earthly Powers (Anthony Burgess)
Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro)
Sons and Lovers (D H Lawrence)
Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
Emma (Jane Austen)
The Great Gatsby (Scott Fitzgerald)
The Hobbit (J R Tolkien)
Three Men in a Boat (J K Jerome)

Upper Intermediate selections include the following:
Catch A Falling Star (John Donne)
The Baskervilles (Conan Doyle)
A Rich Man (Edward Jones)
On The Moon (Arthur C Clarke)
Singapore (Anonymous)
Bollywood (Al Jazeera)
True Believer (Eric Hoofer)
Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka)
Sons and Lovers (D H Lawrence)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway)
Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens)
The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway)

Listen to and read songs, stories, features, poetry, easy world news, speeches, and audio book extracts (with cloze exercises)

With over 1,000 free listening activities (with images, interactive quizzes, audio transcripts and downloadable MP3s) designed for ESL and EFL students and teachers, and divided into categories like Weekly Updates, Interviews, Mixer, Games, Songs, News Center, Talking Points

With listening, grammar, comprehension, and dictation exercises; Real Player required

Elementary
Pre-Intermediate
Intermediate
Advanced

Listen and Read Along (Flash / MP3)
Numerous activities including American Music, American Stories, Environment Report and Science in the News

English Listening Room (Listening cloze quizzes; RealAudio and Flash 4 or newer required)

Listen and Answer

Dictation Quiz

Podcasts (Learn a Song; Listen and Repeat; Jokes in English; Selected MP3 Files for EFL/ESL Students; VOA’s Special English Programs in a Podcast RSS Feed)

Intermediate and Advanced
Phone and Cars (Multiple Choice Activity); Hollerin' Contest (Multiple Choice Activity); Timekeeping (Multiple Choice Activity); Ukuleles (Multiple Choice Activity); The Intelligent Dog (Multiple Choice Activity); The Intelligent Dog (Cloze Activity)

All Levels
Billy and the Bullies (Cloze Activity)

Minimal Pairs for all levels
Initial /b/ and /v/

Medial and Final /b/ and /v/

Talking Crosswords
Initial /b/ and /v/
Medial and Final /b/ and /v/

Comprehensive tutorials include Getting the most out of lectures; The three stages of how to listen at lectures; Taking notes during lectures. Especially useful is “Notetaking demo” in RealAudio (RealPlayer required)

Note: RealAudio Player required for some stories

Short Stories
Longer Stories
Stories for Little Kids

Dictations (Learn to listen to fast English)
Words of Wisdom (Interesting Quotes and Sayings)
Joe's Newest Jokes (Listen, Laugh and Learn!)
English Quiz Games (A fast, fun way to learn English!)

Note: Flash required

Listening Activities (Listening for individual sounds); Listening to American English; Extra Practice Listening for Linking of Telephone Numbers: Listening to Phone Numbers - 1 and Listening to Phone Numbers – 2; Conversations; Telephone Conversations; Following Directions on the Telephone Find Our House (Flash) Conversation--At the Shoe Store; Story - A Bad Day; Conversations - Negative Questions; Restaurant Conversations; Clothes Shopping; At the Bank

Listening skills: jazz chant (with MP3 and recording script)
Listening skills: lesson plans (worksheets, teacher's notes, recording scripts and MP3 files)
Listening skills: listening to the news
Listening skills: how to teach listening

This site offers over 150 audio and video activities (Windows Media Player or Real Player required) divided into the following categories with Easy, Medium and Difficult Levels:

General Listening Quizzes (everyday conversations with adult and children's voices)

Listening Quizzes for Academic Purposes (practice for TOEFL / TOEIC tests with lectures, interviews, and conversations)

20-Minute ESL Vocabulary Lessons

Language Learning and Life Tips ( language and life-skills tips with audio and discussion questions)

Long Conversations with RealVideo ( interviews and conversations)

8 to 13-year old authors read their own stories and poems as you follow along. Selections are chosen from over ten thousand entries a year from children all over the world

BBC RADIO via the Internet

ENGLISH AROUND THE WORLD
Improve your English by listening to news and discussion from English language radio news programs via the Internet

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

NEWS STORIES FROM ENGLAND

STORIES FOR CHILDREN

CHRISTMAS CAROL AUDIO STORY

WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE (MP3 files of modern English update of the Standard Version of the Bible from 1901, read in standard American English)

Hundreds of hours of spoken audio in English of a tremendous range of poems, stories, plays, essays, lectures, and interviews for children and adults

[20] Weekly audio postcards, from ESL PodCards

For ESL teachers and students; free downloads of audio files with worksheets for self-study or in the classroom

Notes:

Spoken English Learned Quickly Free downloads of lessons and books (Learning Spoken English, a 450-page Student Workbook and an Instructor’s Guide) to your computer, iPod, Blackberry, MP3 player or PDA; Lessons on vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and verb tenses using spoken English exercises; Complete lessons contain enough recorded audio lesson material for two hours of study a day, five days a week for nine months.

English for the medical professional, from HospitalEnglish.com (free resources for medical professionals like doctors, nurses, physical therapists, radiologists, physician assistants, pharmacists, etc, studying English and medical printables for teachers; with medical vocabulary builders and pronunciation guide, patient counseling activities, disease state directors, healthcare professional articles, medical flashcards, hospital lesson plans, and ESP worksheets)