Are you forever looking for fun material to practice listening with your students and you don't know what websites to use? I'm still always looking for new websites for listening, but the following ones are my favorites. They are great, no matter the level of proficiency of your students.
Learn English Teens from the British Council is a wonderful website for teaching resources in general. They have resources for all the skills, which they divide into levels of the CEFR, so that it's easy to search audio or video that's appropriate for your students. And they include worksheets as well, which can be printed, as well as used online.
Newsround is a news broadcast for young children in the UK, so you'll have to check what your students would be able to handle. I find I can use them for my 12 to 14-year-olds, as it will be difficult enough yet also interesting enough for them. It's a really good resource for staying up to date on the news, which is something I find very important.
Ted Ed uses Ted Talks and converts them into usually short, animated videos. You can search the website according to student level and video duration, as well as subject. There's a huge variety of subjects available. And then these videos also contain lessons, which contain questions, additional resources to explore, and discussion questions.
National Geographic Kids also has a lot of cool videos on their websites. They don't have lessons, but their videos are fun and there's a variety of scienc-y topics available. There's a great chance you'll find something your younger kids will enjoy. I always get my students to come up with questions for each other, which they enjoy a lot.
CNN10 is for your older kids. It's the news explained in 10 minutes, and told in an easier way than for adults, but your students need to be quite proficient. Check which of your students could handle this beforehand; I found it worked well for my 15+ students. They really enjoy it though, because it feels like they're being taken seriously.
So there you have it: five awesome websites for listening practice. Click the pictures to visit these websites and see if you like them!
I recently wrote a blog post about how to structure a good listening skills lesson, which you can find HERE. Check it out for some tips on how to use any audio or video resources in your lessons.
And if you're looking for exercises to use with any of the video you find on these websites (that don't already include exercises), check out these:
They are ready to go, and my students really enjoy working on them!
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