Useful Listening Sites for ESL Students
Compiled by Paul Goldberg (updated Oct. 2005)
Appropriate for Extensive Listening
Spotlight Radio:
Voice of America - Special English:
Connect with English:
User name: Password: annenberg
BBC World Service - Learning English:
L.E.A.R.N. - Language Education and Research Network:
User name: pgstudent Password: readnow
ELLLO – English Language Listening Lab Online
Elllo.org
Appropriate for Extensive Listening (advanced level only)
Takako’s Great Adventure:
Euronews:
National Public Radio:
The America Project:
Other Useful Listening Sites
ESL Cyber Listening Lab:
ESL About: or
English Listening Lounge:
Adele's ESL Corner:
Tower of English:
???
Listening on the Web
1. Which sites did you visit? ______
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2. Which site did you like most? ______
Why? ______
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3. Which site did you like least? ______
Why? ______
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4. Tell about two or three stories you heard or sections you visited that you liked. (what did you listen to, how long were they, why were they good, etc)
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December 7, 2006
To:Teachers of Communicative English I, II, III, and IV
From:Dr. Francis 'Paco' Lindsey, Director, English Language Programs
Some of you have asked about websites for listening exercises either for the classroom or homework. Here are a few sites I have run across (and I'm not a particularly strong web explorer).
Many of these require RealPlayer, but some can be played on Windows Media Player. In addition, some exercises can be downloaded as .mp3 files. One or two require Flash and/or Shockwave.
Adele's ESL Corner (some basic level listening exercises):
ESL Cyber Listening Lab (over 50 listening quizzes for different levels)
English Language Listening Lab Online
Spotlight Radio (uses very slow 'special English')
Voice of America (this biased news source uses 'special English')
English Listening Lounge (a member site which has a free area)
Takako's Great Adventure (a story)
BBC World Service—Learning English
Euronews
National Public Radio
CNN Student News (you need to 'sign up' to use this)
Course materials by an ESL instructor (resources at the bottom of the page are more general)
Collection of ESL resources
Pronunciation practice site
In addition, there are a number of small news sites and chat rooms that can be found with a Google search like and . A Japanese site lists a number of links, some bilingual, students can use.
Google videos has several short videos and with the increase in podcasting, there are numerous other shorts which can be found with just a little searching.