Students' resources
Free English listening practice for different levels
Free English listening practice for different levels
Want to improve your English listening skills, but you don’t know how?
Listening to movies or songs can be extremely challenging for lower level students, especially when you start learning English and you are at Elementary(A1), pre-intermediate(A2) or even at intermediate(B1) it can still be hard. I know many students who give up because of that, they try to listen to a movie, but it just doesn’t work. For that reason you need listening adapted to your level!
How
That’s why I recommend https://elllo.org/ to all my students.
What is it?
It’s an easy website with over 3000 different listenings. They are listenings at different levels, different topics and done by different speakers (that way you can also get used to different accents you have difficulty with).
Why?
- Like I said before there are many different listenings, they are monologues or small conversations between different people about a central topic.
- The listenings are typically 3 to 5 minutes long, so it doesn’t take too much time for you to practise listening.
- You can download the listenings
- All listenings have a tape script, so you can listen and read at the same time.
- They also have a few comprehension questions to check if you understand what it was about
- They also have some vocabulary in the listening that they explain more closely and give you a small exercise to practice it.
What to do?
Pick a level for you that is not too easy, not too difficult, next pick a topic and start listening. Usually I tell my students to listen 2 to 3 times. 1 without the tape script to check if you understand. Then if you try to answer the questions you listen again 1 more time without the tape script and finally you check your answers by listening and reading the tape script.
Watch out for!
I think it’s really important to listen and also see the written words for the 2nd or 3rd time you are listening because this helps your brain better understand what was actually being said. This then helps your brain make better connections between the pronunciation of a word and the actual word. And all this improves your listening ear, making it easier for you to understand what people say.
So, no more excuses to improve your English listening skills.
Go to https://elllo.org/ pick a listening and start listening and tell us which listening you enjoyed the most.
Spread the word
Kristof Abrath
Teacher, Trainer, Course Designer
Teaching in English on 4 different continents since 2006.