Listening

What helps you improve your listening ability? Watching films with subtitles? Listening to songs while looking at the lyrics? Watching a speech or presentation with a transcript? The internet is a great tool which gives you access to all this and more - something which would have been unimaginable not so long ago. Here are some ideas to get you listening. (Tip: listen to something you like or are interested in - don't force yourself to listen to stuff you don't care about - you'll have plenty of time to do that if you're going on to higher education...)

Academic English listening

YouTube Edu  -  a very good source of academic listening practice, searchable by university or subject

Academic Earth  - more lectures, mostly from US universities

Lecture fox - Lectures from Oxford are on page 5

If you're an IPhone or Ipod user then you really should look into 'ITunes U'. It's a great source of lectures and educational course materials available through ITunes.

ITunes U

General English listening

Audio English  - some free exercises

BBC Audio and Video

British Council Podcasts

TED (Technology,Entertainment,Design)

elllo.org

English Listening Lounge

VideoNation