In this day and age, students have many tools at their disposal for practicing English! While many of them can’t be compared to the typical English learning method (with a teacher, whether in a class or online) they are valuable tools for practicing and honing your listening and comprehension skills.
This list has been compiled and presented in no particular order of importance.
- TED ed videos:
While we are all familiar with TED talks, not many people know about TED ed. TED ed is an educational area of the TED family, animated videos with extremely interesting topics ranging from Biology, History and Science, to Politics, Philosophy and Psychology. All videos are subtitled making it easier to follow and if you go to their website, there are even questions and other tasks to complete about the information shared in the videos.
- BBC Learning English Channel:
The BBC has – for a long time – had a commitment to spreading the English language all over the world. As part of such commitment, they have created the BBC Learning English channel which has several different sections, one of which is the ‘News review’, where they go over the news and show you how to make use of the words/phrases you can find there in your everyday life.
- Rachel’s English:
If your focus is pronunciation, then this channel is for you! The videos are easy to follow with explanations of how to produce the sounds as well as close-ups and slow motion so you can mimic the sounds!
- The Business English Pod:
This channel features voice-overs with presentation sheets to teach students about business-related vocabulary! It is a very useful tool to supplement your Business English lessons.
- Speak English with Mr. Duncan:
What makes these videos so interesting is Mr. Duncan’s fun and open approach to almost every subject he speaks about! A very experienced English teacher who loves what he does and has an unusual format for his videos, they are all live streams! You may join in and chat with him or watch the videos, later on, to check on the subjects he discussed.