Listening is one of the 4 skills our students rarely get to practice outside of our classrooms. Language learners need to be able to hear English from various speakers and sources at different speeds. Chances are language learners will communicate in English more with non-native speakers versus native speakers since the world has about 400 million native speakers compared to over a billion non-native speakers of English. Below are various websites with audio recordings of music, poetry, news and more accompanied with exercises, games, or transcripts to help your language learners improve their listening skills. For more ideas on how to use web tools and apps to enhance student listening skills check out our webinar recordings, Teaching with Listening Tools and Apps and Audio Projects for Learners.
To learn more about integrating technology to support English language learners, attend our TESOL webinars.
Listening Sites for Teens and Adults
- English Central has several Youtube videos at different English levels in which students are asked to listen to then try pronouncing the words correctly. Play against others.
- Dictation Exercises from English Club has different dictation exercises at various levels for students. Students can choose their listening speed and check their answers.
- Listen and Write is another site to find dictation exercises. Choose your audio level and take a test.
- AudioPuzzler is a game where students choose to listen to famous movie clips then type what they hear.
- PlayPhrase is a platform where students get to hear English phrases from over 300 movie clips and repeat what they hear.
- Lyrics Training and Tune into English help students to learn English by listening to popular songs then singing and playing games with others.
- LingoRank has over 400 selected talks to improve your English listening and vocabulary skills.
- Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages.
- ELLLO, the English Language Listening Library Online, has videos and audio recordings with listening quizzes and transcripts.
- Listen-A-Minute is a Sean Banville site with a listening and various class and online activities. Each listening comes with a pdf teachers can download of these activities.
- ManyThings is a site which lists various listening exercises and games for language learners.
- Podcasts in English is a site to find podcasts and activities for English language learners on various topics. Find some for adults, business English, traveling and more. Students choose the level.
- VOA News is a site where each current event comes with an audio recording.
