Sunday, July 12, 2009

WWITV: TV Channels Online


The days when you could only watch TV on a TV set are long gone. Just hook up to the internet, go to wwitv.com, choose a country, and you're all set to start watching. There's an enormous selection of countries. As for the English-speaking ones, it has 20 Australian channels, over 700 from the US, 10 from Ireland, 57 from Canada, and 3 from South Africa.

Watching Tv is excellent practice, especially for advanced students. Watching TV regularly can really help you improve your comprehension skills. If you feel that you don't understand everything, that's ok. It's normal, focus on what you do understand and not on what you don't. That means, if you don't understand something, forget about it and keep on listening. As long as you can follow the general idea, you're on the right track.

Hope you like it!

wwitv.com

Levels: Intermediate, Advanced, Very Advanced

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Lingualnet: Movies and Video Clips




Learning English Through Movies! Sounds like a plan. On a website where movies goes from clips of "Lost in Translation" to amateur productions or even clips on home and garden, the learning experience can be quite broad.

The site has 8 categories: Drama, Animation, Cine-Poetry, Home Made, Documentary, Travel, Commercials, Home and Garden. And each clip has a script, so you can check if you don't understand, and you can toggle the subtitles on and off. Some videos also have a quiz you can take.

How about it?

Lingualnet

Levels: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced

Friday, July 10, 2009

BBC: The Flatmates




The Flatmates is an English language teaching soap. It's basically a radio play based on the life of a group of flatmates; like Orson Welle's "The War of the Worlds", but on the Internet, of course.

Unfortunately it's over. So there won't be any new episodes. But the full archive is available online. So you can watch the entire 204 episodes if you wish, and get to know Tim, Helen, Khalid, Alice and Michal.

Each episode has a language point and a quiz so you can practice what you hear and learn even more vocabulary and grammar. And it also seems that listeners might even be able to create their own episodes in the future.

This is high quality stuff. Definitely worth checking out.


The Flatmates


Levels: Intermediate

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Real English: Easy videos




Real videos for beginners. Here you'll find lots of very basic videos for beginners. There are also some more advanced videos for intermediate students.

Most of the videos are based on situations, like introductions, getting information, etc. And many of them also focus on a grammar or vocabulary topic: possessive adjectives or colors.

What's great is that each video has a guide that includes exercises, and you can watch the videos in several languages (French, Japanese, Corean, Chinese), or with subtitles.


Real English

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Aulafacil: Simple Listening Texts




At the beginning you just need some nice, simple things to listen to. And that's what you can find at aulafacil.com .

"Aula fácil" actually means easy classroom in English. The texts and dialogs are quite easy in fact, and all of them are recorded by different speakers. There are two different sets:


Readings 1

Readings 2


Enjoy!

Levels: Beginner, low-Intermediate

Monday, July 6, 2009

Harry Potter Audiobooks



Audiobooks are a great way to learn English. So if you're a Harry Potter fan this is an excellent combination. And not only will you have the thrill of a great story, but the audiobooks are read by actors who read the text but also give a different voice to each of the different characters. And the voices are great!This really gives the audiobook a lot of life in comparison to other audio books that are simply a person reading a text.

Harry Potter audiobooks come in both American and British versions. The British version is read by Stephen Fry and the American version by Jim Dale.

This is not a simplified version of the text so, if you're at an intermediate level, it will probably give you some trouble. But keep on listening! If you persevere, you should be able to follow the basic story.

Why not?

Where to get: Visit your local English book shop or online. At Audio Editions, for example, where you can also listen to some audio samples


Levels: Intermediate, Advanced

Saturday, July 4, 2009

ello.org




A great site with lots of different things to listen to. There are almost a thousand conversations on different topics. And you can also do quizzes to check that you understood correctly.

Check it out!


www.elllo.org


Difficulty levels: Intermediate

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Tales of Mere Existence



Splendid. Reflections on everyday life with cool drawings. Below you'll find a list of some of the videos they have made. But there are many more. Just search for "Tales of mere existence" on Youtube or go to http://www.ingredientx.com/ .


Here are some of the videos that I liked:











BBC: 6 Minute English




Quick and to the point. The BBC has many different 6 minute radios shows that you can download or listen to online. This is a great website to listen and have some fun at the same time. There are so many different topics that you won't know which one to choose. Of course, all the broadcasts are in British English and the radio shows also explain many of the difficult words during the program.

Give it a go!

6 Minute English


Difficulty Levels: Intermediate