Home

Learning English and creative writing through photographs

Nouns

Pronouns

Verbs

Adjectives

Adverbs

Prepositions

Conjunctions

Interjections

Idioms, phrasal verbs
and proverbs

Vocabulary

Speaking and Pronunciation

Reading

Spelling

Writing

"A picture is worth a thousand words ..." blog

 
Search this website only

                                                 

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)

[02] ComAudio, from efl.net

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
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)

 

                                                                                                                        

Relevant links


Family Code Philippines (free legal information)
the kristo (if you want the Spanish version, click here)
The Cross
Romans Road
Knowing God Personally
Got Questions Ministries
Spiritual Counterfeits Project
Probe Ministries
Radio Bible Class
Crosswalk
Living Hope
Women Today Magazine
Silver Ring Thing
Purefreedom
True Love Waits
Every Student
You Are Someone Special
True Love
Starting With God
Cloud and Townsend Resources
Love and Respect
Real Relationships

Legal Updates
Baptist Churches in the Philippines
Campus Connection
Families of Faith
Salt and Light
Father's Love Letter
Oneplace.com – Listen for Life
and Faith Talk Web Radio

iamnext - college student website
Academics, fun, career, living, people, sex, love, spirituality

Improve your English by listening to English radio programs on the Internet

Australia
ABC Radio National
ABC News Radio
Radio Australia
2GB Sydney
4BC Brisbane

Canada
Radio Canada International
CBC Newsworld
CFRB

China
China Radio International

England
BBC General
BBC World Service
BBC Drama
Talk Sport
BBC World Service - Learning English

Hong Kong
RTHK Radio 3

Indonesia
KangGURU Radio

Israel
Israel Radio
Jerusalem Post Radio

Scotland
Radio Scotland
Scotland Radio Now

South Africa
Channel Africa

Sweden
Radio Sweden

United States
ABC News
NPR
Radio Disney
Voice of America Special English (simplified)

Wales
Radio Cymru

oneplace.com - click here to listen 

Online magazines

Women Today Magazine
Chinese Women Today
Relationships; Sex & Love; Advice; Beauty; Fashion; Food; Money; Work; Chat; Online Studies; Life Stories; Wellness & Spirit; Self-Esteem; Family & Home; Health & Fitness; Wit & Wisdom

SOON Online Magazine
Learning English Index

free world-wide easy-English literature programme; free hard copies available on request

Men Today Online (A high adventure magazine for men)

Power To Change (English); for other languages, click Arabic; French; German; Italian; Japanese; Malay; Russian; Spanish; Chinese; Thai; and Czech

Online libraries (some with audio)

Project Gutenberg Official Home Site: Easy to access literary works for free
Top 100
Online Book Catalog - Overview

English Online Resources Electronic Text Center, University Of Virginia
Complete texts of thousands of works of English literature, including novels, plays, poetry and Bibles

Humanities Text Initiative
University of Michigan
Online access to complete texts of many works of English literature

Project Bartleby Archive
Complete texts of many works of English literature

The Internet Classics Archive Complete texts of hundreds of works of English literature.

The On-Line Books Page Complete texts of more than 7,000 works of English literature

The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare

Online dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias, almanacs, atlases, translators

Online Reference
Dictionary, Encyclopedia & more
Word:
Look in: Dictionary & thesaurus
Computing Dictionary
Medical Dictionary
Legal Dictionary
Financial Dictionary
Acronyms
Idioms
Wikipedia Encyclopedia
Columbia Encyclopedia
Periodicals
Literature
by:
 

OneLook® Dictionaries
Definitions and spellings of more than seven million words from over 1001 indexed online dictionaries

Visual Dictionary and Encyclopedia

The Internet Picture Dictionary

Encyclopedia Britannica On-line

MSN Encarta Dictionary

Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

Online bilingual dictionaries from www.freedict.com

Online English to African / African to English Dictionary

Online English to Indonesian / Indonesian to English Dictionary

Online English to Japanese / Japanese to English Dictionary

Online English to Spanish / Spanish to English Dictionary

Online English to Swahili / Swahili to English Dictionary

Information Please
On-Line Dictionary, Internet Encyclopedia, Atlas and Almanac Reference

English-Chinese Dictionary
Chinese-English Dictionary
from TigerNT

Webster's Online Dictionary. With Multilingual Thesaurus Translation

YourDictionary
Free online English dictionary with definitions, thesaurus entries, spelling, pronunciation, synonyms and etymology

RhymeZone rhyming dictionary and thesaurus

AskOxford.com (UK)
AskOxford.com (US)
English grammar, spelling, usage and writing; dictionary; crosswords and puzzles

Online newspapers

Click Here to Visit ThePaperboy.com Newspaper Directory
Read 6000+ Online Newspapers @ ThePaperboy.com