Video and audio resources for learning English

Posted on August 19, 2006
Filed under Learning resources | 35 Comments

Criteria for listing a site on this page

  1. it has to provide useful content
  2. it has to work in Mozilla browsers (e.g. Firefox)
  3. it has to load fairly quickly
  4. it can’t have annoying adverts that get in the way of the content
  5. it can’t be too ugly (why are so many English learning sites so UGLY?)

Many of these sites use Real Media. If you think Real Player is Evil, you can download Real Alternative and Media Player Classic. It is excellent!

Featured English Podcast

English learning podcast China232

Video – listen and watch

EFL Videos.com: The Better@English collection of free English teaching and learning videos. We scour the internet for the best ESL, EFL and ELT videos so you won’t have to. New videos are added every day.

EFL Videos
A huge collection of free EFL, ESL, TESOL, and TEFL videos of all types.

English Movie Trailers
Movie video trailers with exercises. The user interface SUCKS but if you spend some time figuring it out, you’ll have fun and learn a lot of English from the engaging movie trailers.

Elllo
Hear native speakers having conversations on many different topics. Transcripts and quizzes provided.

Behind the News
Australian educational video webcasts from Australia’s ABC-TV. Transcripts available. Designed for children, but the topics are interesting for adults as well.

Yahoo News UK
So far, no ads. No extra activities, but lots of short videos of engaging news stories.

CNN Videos
The directory of available videos at CNN. So far the ads aren’t that bad. Lots of resources here for you to practice your listening comprehension.

CNN Video Podcasts
Video podcasts at CNN – lots of news and stories to help you practice your English listening.

BBC Video Nation
Short video clips on all kinds of topics.

BBC Comedy clips
Video clips from various BBC comedy series – laugh and learn!

BBC Film network
A collection of short films in various genres. Some of excellent quality. No exercises – just watch, listen, enjoy and learn.

Australia Network – Living English
Excellent videos, exercises and learning materials about general English – for beginning to intermediate learners

Australia Network – The business of English
Excellent videos, exercises and learning materials about Business English – for intermediate to advanced learners

English language audio and podcasts

Some of these have video as well

Yahoo Podcast directory of EFL (ESL) Podcasts
Search for podcasts about learning English. Try searching for these search terms:
ESL, EFL, ELT, learning English, English Lessons, etc.

Podcast directory at the British Council. Varied topics, transcripts available (PDF format). At the site you’ll also find quizzes and exercises.

Voice of America – Special English.
News and stories in Special English. Special English is English that is simplified and read slowly. Lots of great listening material here and many transcripts.

CNN Podcasts
Podcasts at CNN – lots of news and stories to help you practice your English listening.

Breaking News English
Listening, exercises, and even lesson plans for teachers. Updated fairly regularly with current news stories.

BBC World Service – Learning English Home page.
Something for everyone – videos, listening, business and general English, grammar. Many listening activities have transcripts you can download so you read along as you listen.

Penguin Dossiers
Short readings from Penguin readers. Transcripts and fact sheets available.

NPR (National Public Radio, USA)
A wide variety of news, reports and broadcasts. Unfortunately they use Real Audio format, but their content makes it worth worth downloading and installing Real Alternative.

BBC Online
The BBC Online offers several different channels to listen to. Wide range of topics from news to talk radio to entertainment and more!

35 Comments

Comments

35 Responses to “Video and audio resources for learning English”

  1. thrkaviroshan says:
    February 23, 2007 at 08:22

    I am Kaviroshan. i would like to learn English and also i need audio & video study matariels. therefore i seek your assistant

    thanks
    best regards from
    Thrkaviroshan

  2. ravi says:
    March 29, 2007 at 06:30

    thanks for such useful list of repository.

  3. Wagner Vidal says:
    May 12, 2007 at 03:24

    Hi…We´re Wagner and Amapola.We´re English teachers and we are glad to say hello to all of you there..We would like to have a hand from you to help us piling up some old english books .You know.It çi

  4. joy says:
    May 18, 2007 at 05:58

    My need know English. So, kindly help me, how can I improve my capacity in English.

    Tanking yours
    joy

  5. Hussam Eldin says:
    May 29, 2007 at 04:00

    HI

    I started to improve my english skill and knowlege using net and your web (betteratenglish.com) helps me but still I need free downloaded english staff no payment becuase we are not using any payment card in Sudan. So if you know any way to learn and improve my english please e-mail it to me.

    thans and regards

    Hussam

  6. abaidullah says:
    June 26, 2007 at 10:03

    I am abaidullah. i would like to learn English and also i need audio & video study matariels. therefore i seek your assistant

    thanks
    best regards from
    abaidullah

  7. Albert Valenzuela says:
    July 20, 2007 at 10:40

    I’m a filipino pal who is frequent visitor of your site. Thanks a lot indeed for having this very useful website of yours in improving our english proficiency. More power to all the people involved in creating, maintaining, and keep improving the site. You are absolutely great! I know that there a lot of people out there who benefit from it. God bless and keep up the good work.

  8. Bob says:
    July 24, 2007 at 14:54

    I think podcasts are a great way to learn foreign languages. In my opinion, B@E is one of the better English learning ones out there. It’s neat to see all the content available to students now.

    I’ve been teaching EFL for around 14 years in Japan. I do a podcast called the Bob and Rob Show for high-intermediate to advanced level students. Some of you may enjoy it.

    http://englishcaster.com/bobrob

    Best of luck with your studies.
    Bob

  9. Lori says:
    August 2, 2007 at 02:40

    Thanks for stopping by, Bob. I’m sure our listeners would love your show. It’s really great!

  10. Anish says:
    April 18, 2008 at 06:42

    I would like to improve my english as well as speaking power with your kind help

  11. sameer says:
    May 3, 2008 at 07:20

    hi

    plaease send me the releated audia to listen your sebscrbtion

  12. Eric Roth says:
    July 3, 2008 at 03:21

    Thank you for posting this solid primer of ESL/EFL resources.

    Sometimes, especially in bureaucratic education systems, students are denied the learning tools that work best for them because of various educational ideologies. Your list allows the determined and creative ESL/EFL teacher to find the audio and visual tools that work best in their classrooms. Isn’t that very cool?

  13. parthiban says:
    July 9, 2008 at 14:31

    i need audio with video english.so very helpul with your website.

    thanks for your help

  14. merhawi says:
    August 11, 2008 at 07:52

    Would you help me in improving my English listening, speaking, writing and pronoun cation?
    I would really appreciate for your kindness.

  15. syed faizan ahmad says:
    August 20, 2008 at 17:18

    hi dear i want to talk to any person because my English speaking is not very well i want to make perfect thanks

  16. Shrikant says:
    September 13, 2008 at 09:16

    Hi,
    I am an English Language teacher and finding good listening material has always been a problem.However, this website is great.Thank you for making so much high quality material available to teachers such as myself .I am certain that my students will benefit greatly.

    Regards,
    Shrikant

  17. mary pearson says:
    November 4, 2008 at 17:50

    In order to improve my English (as a second language) and also higher level English, I would like to find some audio books (CDs + written page on screen with native English reader). Therefore, the written page must be on the screen at the same time as that page is being read. Could you please let me know if you have any such facilities/products available?
    Many thanks.
    Regards,
    Mary.

  18. Lori says:
    November 4, 2008 at 22:33

    Hi Mary,

    The only thing we have available on our own site is the podcasts and accompanying transcripts. Most of the transcripts are available as pdf or MSWord downloads in addition to being posted on full on the web page.

  19. Rajeshkumar says:
    November 29, 2008 at 13:58

    Hi,

    I am really thankful to provide such a good resourse of english learning.
    Thank U once again.

    If anybody have any video clip please send it to me.

  20. Rajeshkumar says:
    November 29, 2008 at 14:00

    Hi,
    I will use the site again and again to improve my language skills.

  21. nasiam says:
    December 19, 2008 at 19:58

    Hi,
    iam trying yo improve my english…you have some usefull tools..I hope I find a partener to helpe each other to improve our capabilities..my regards.
    nas_wanas@yahoo.com

  22. Ali says:
    December 23, 2008 at 23:13

    I am student,
    would you help me in improving english. listening, speaking, writting and pronouncation.
    really thanks…..thanks,
    Iwill wait you massege ,

  23. Komoestar says:
    January 12, 2009 at 11:00

    Hi

    Thank for the website and your podcasts are well useful for me .

    This types of websites are essential for students like us who are chasing continuously for their better English proficiency.

    I am afraid to say that I could not afford to donate the websites currently due to some reasons . But I believe I will be a donar in near future

  24. Mandefro says:
    January 14, 2009 at 21:52

    Hi
    Would you help me to improve listening and speaking English.
    I will wait you

  25. Madhu babu Isukapatla says:
    February 6, 2009 at 11:09

    Hello,

    I would like to improve My speaking english,reading english, listening english,writing english like a native english people. Help me to improve in short time.

    I hope heare u soon.

  26. Javier CH says:
    February 19, 2009 at 10:44

    no it wasn’t! anyway, I have to give you props on your web design it beats most english learning sites’ ass! and I do think Realplayer is evil :wink: here’s another video resource I found interesting sorry, after 5 min looking for it I gave up finding out where to post the link properly.

  27. Amjad says:
    March 27, 2009 at 15:27

    hi i m a student and i want to learn and speak englsih fluently and some vocabulary of daily use. so mail me some audio and vedio of learning in free bcz i m a student and also no credit card or any other
    i will be thankfull to you
    best regard
    Amjad

  28. Waheed Ali Lakho says:
    May 15, 2009 at 17:47

    Hi this is WAHEED ALI LAKHO from Pakistan. I really lovethis material because I want to go abroad therefor I need to learn english
    I hope your assistance will help me to reach my destination
    Regards,
    Waheed

  29. hichem says:
    May 30, 2009 at 15:42

    salam hi i’m hichem from morroco i wanna improve my english language and english listning too so i hope that you to help me and i need oudio i think it’s better. thanx you so so much

  30. radi says:
    September 24, 2009 at 12:49

    hi
    i’m radi from egypt.thank u very much about this effort.hope u more success.love lori voice in podcasts very much……..bbi :grin:

  31. J.K. INDIKA UDAYA KUMARA says:
    October 8, 2009 at 08:15

    i’ kataragama sri lankan very poor student so i would like to improve my English knowledge so i think if i have a web cam , speaker set& head set it will easy for me.i hope any one will help me.

  32. Ewa says:
    June 23, 2010 at 07:06

    :grin: Hello everyone!!!! My name is Ewa. I come from Poland. My English is really poor and I would like to learn a lot so I need conversation with other people. If you want to be my pen friend please send me email.

  33. Keyla Hendrik says:
    August 23, 2010 at 05:57

    I like learning English. All this time, I just learn English in conventional ways and it’s so difficult for me to find such listening materials. It may sound old-fashioned, but that’s the fact. I am glad to find this. Thank you.

  34. elhadj says:
    September 5, 2010 at 18:04

    hello every body,
    I’m Elhadj from Algeria.
    I’m really happy to find this web site it’s so usfull because the secret of English
    is in the prounounciation,so we mast listen and listen to natives speakers to improve our
    level in this topic.
    I want to thank every one who make something to prepare this site.

  35. MOHD FARAZ says:
    January 6, 2011 at 16:27

    Hey every one !
    I also want to improve my english spoken skill so if anybody interested can have conversation with me because all you should know if you people want to be fluent in english you have to talk more and more.
    so my email id: faraz.kne10@gmail.com
    skype id: sarfaraz1220
    i will appreciate your move towards me
    i will be very kind of you