Free English Listening - British Council's Learn English Podcasts

Hi!
Today I'm going to be talking about a mobile app that is perfect for everyone seeking for an opportunity to listen to English! British Council's LearnEnglish Podcasts! This is a very well-created app that you can use to develop your listening and comprehension skills. It is totally free and avaliable for both Android and iOS. Let me inform you about this app a little bit before you go and download it. Here we go!

For the source of the photos used in this post please click here

The app helps you learn everyday English by providing over 80 episodes and over 20 hours of free listening about a wide range of topics, as well as great new features that help you listen and understand the conversations.





In each episode, podcast hosts Tess, Ravi, Adam and Rob chat with different people to talk about everyday topics such as their favourite celebrities, making plans for the weekend, having a dinner party and which cities they like to live in.

LISTEN, READ AND CHECK THAT YOU UNDERSTAND

In every episode, listen and read along with a moving audioscript. The audioscript gets highlighted to help you focus on listening. Comprehension questions come with each episode so that you can check your listening and whether you understand the conversation.

 

HOW THE APP HELPS YOU LEARN EVERYDAY ENGLISH

The best way to improve your listening skills is to listen to a little bit everyday and try to listen to a wide range of different topics in English. When you are listening, try to remember or write down as many of the main points as possible.
  
FEATURES: BACKGROUND PLAYING AND OFFLINE ACCESS

The audio plays even when the screen is turned off. This is a popular request from our users – thank you all for your feedback.
You can also:

• download episodes onto your tablet or phone and listen offline

• delete episodes after you’ve listened to them to create space on your tablet or phone. Re-download episodes when you want to listen again.

For the source of information please click here
 

You can copy the audioscript
to your phone or tablet's clipboard.
By clicking "copy" you can translate
words or sentences into your own
language, or for taking notes.

You can also share podcasts 
via Facebook, Twitter or Email. 








As a learner and pre-service teacher, I think that comprension is a vital part of language learning. Learners need to be exposed to the authentic language use as much as possible. From this perspective, this mobile app comes very handy. Students are able to listen to native speakers of English in various natural contexts. The topics covered in the podcasts are every day topics which help students improve their listening skills naturally in an authentic way. Learners can see the transcription of the audio while listening to it and the app highlights the parts spoken about automatically so that students can easily follow the transcription. Furthermore, while listening to these podcasts, learners are provided with information about different topics and learn new things. Having finished listening, students are given comprehension questions to make sure they understood the podcast which is a plus. 

You can see a small clip created for this app by British Council:



WHAT CAN BE DONE USING THIS APP?

I would definitely suggest this app to my students and make use of it in different ways.

Example Task Idea 
There is a podcast avaliable in the app about a conversation taking place between Human Resources manager and an employee who is unhappy with the way he is treated by his boss. As a task, I might ask my students to listen to this podcast and then ask them to

• state the reasons why the employee might be treated this way by his boss
• come up with solutions to his problem
• think about what they would do if they were in his position etc.

I might provide them with vocabulary items that they can use related to workplace & office for this specific podcast. This activity helps them develop critical thinking skills, improve their writing skills, and they can learn new vocabulary. Learners can go beyond simple learning and gain empathy skills by putting themselves in other people's shoes. Moreover, they can learn what to do when they are faced with such a problem in real life themselves. Learners can also create their own podcasts inspired by an example one from the app.
Of course this is only one example. Teachers should use their creativity and come up with different activities and tasks using this app and the podcasts avaliable in it. At the end of the day, the responsibility falls on our shoulders to create a learning task and engage our students into this activity. This app might be a helping friend along the way! 

Thanks.