Listening

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart, Nelson Mandela.

Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can; there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did, Sarah Caldwell.

English is the official universal language. It is, by far, the language of international trade, finance, diplomacy, etc. It is used not only in English spoken countries, such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and The United Kingdom but worldwide. One of the basic strategies to significantly increase your English language competence is to listen as much as possible.

What could you listen to? As the old saying goes, variety is the spice of life. Listen, listen, and then again listen as much as possible. Listening is a prerequisite for learning. When you can listen and understand, your listening skill actually spills over into the other skills, you will improve your pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.

Here are some apps and websites you may find useful for improving your English listening skills.

• ESLVideo.com is an impressive collection of videos organized by level. A lot of their videos include quizzes.

• Elllo has an incredibly large number of listening resources designed especially for ESL and EFL students and teachers.

• Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab has been providing online English listening comprehension activities for ESL and EFL learners since 1998.

• English radio and podcasts are a great way to improve your English while doing chores, cooking food, exercising or commuting. Online radio is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. A podcast is a curated, radio talk show or program that you can download from the Internet on your mobile, tablet or computer, and can be subscribed to through web syndication (RSS). Podcasts are basically a series of episodes or audio files, typically in MP3 format, that are distributed via an RSS feed.

You can start listening to a podcast with your browser (Spotify, TuneIn, or SoundCloud) or use a Podcast app, such as Spotify, Google Podcasts, or Player FM.

• TuneIn is a free music streaming website and a free online radio service that brings together live sports, music, news, podcasts and over 100,000 live radio stations from all around the world.

  There are plenty of alternatives that let you access a huge variety of radio stations: FMRadioFree -15,000 US radio stations-, radio.net -60,000 radio stations worldwide-, iHeartRadio; and Online Radio Box.

   

• YouTube is another outstanding resource. It is packed with free videos about anything and everything you could possibly want to know, listen or you are just curious about. In particular, there are many ESL courses, such as JenniferESL, Learn English with Mister Duncan, and BBC Learning English, amongst others.

• Other websites for watching videos are: Open Culture is one of the best free cultural & educational media on the web; Ted is about ideas worth spreading. It is packed with many inspiring videos to watch; Vimeo, D.tube, Utreon, odysee, PeerTube and BitChute. Clients: NewPipe, NewPipe is a Lightweight YouTube frontend. FreeTube is an open source YouTube client built with privacy in mind.

• Television. Many consider television to be bad for us. It encourages consumerism, presents a distorted image of what is really going on in the world, and is linked to depression, social anxiety, attention problems, obesity, etc. However, watching English television programmes is very helpful to improve your listening skills and pronunciation. How can you find these English television programmes?

Video streaming services and video sharing sites: NetFlix, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, veoh, Vimeo, Metacafe, imgur, and Dailymotion. You may want to watch some popular sitcoms, such as The Big Bang Theory (it has become not just one of the most successful comedies in television history, but a cultural phenomenon), Friends, South Park, The Simpsons, The IT Crowd, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, etc.

You may also want to watch free-to-air channels at Astra 19.2°E, Eutelsat Hot Bird 13ºE, etc. For further information visit European Satellite Zapping & Directory. That’s English is a free Spanish TV series for learning English.

• Ebooks, audiobooks, and comics. Amazon Kindle is one of the best ebook reader apps. Audible is a pricey membership service that provides customers with a huge selection of audiobooks and podcasts. Where to find free audiobooks? JustToThePoint, I want more, Librivox, Gutenberg, Storynory, Open Culture, Lit2Go, Thought Audio, and Learn Out Loud.

• Other ideas: video games, comics, chatbots, go to cinemas with English language movies and language exchange.

Some Language Exchange sites are: MyLanguageExchange.com, ConversationExchange.com, Polyglot Club, Penpal World and Interpals.