This week I'm going to explore another zone of the Web: the world of podcasts! I already knew this tool and sometimes I download the podcasts of a RaiRadio2 broadcast when I'm not able to follow it in real time. But I never though that I could download something in order to improve my English... In effect it could be an interesting and funny way of keeping my English in training. From the very beginning of my experience (or, I could better say, life) as English learning student, teachers have been telling me to try to translate English songs, to watch films in the original language or to read a lot (obviously in English!). I have to confess that I've never done anything of this, because it was time-demanding and also a bit boring. But, this time, I think I'm going to try this new tool: podcasts can be very useful to me, because I can download them into my mp3 player and listen to them in any moment, even in train, during my daily journey to Padua, or walking around this city.Searching through del.icio.us, I found some useful sites which provide podcasts.
- Better at English: here you I can find a wide range of podcasts to improve my skills in English. The site provides also online listenings and transcriptions, and all the material is divided into three levels (intermediate, upper intermedaite and advanced) and into different grammatical topics (phrasal verbs, business English, idioms and slangs, vocabulary, ect.).
- Libri Vox: a funny way to learn English could be listening to these free audio books (which means that they have no copyrights). You can choose among a huge number of title and genres and, if you just want to make yourself an idea, you can download only a chapter.
- EnglishPod | Learn Business English with Daily MP3 Podcasts:I think the title is clear enough. This website teaches you what business English is and how it has to be used in the different situations: relationships, presentation, inviting, being diplomatic and so on. In each "lesson" you are followed by Scott and Jessica, whose voices I found very friendly and relaxing. Very interesting!
4 commenti:
Hi Sara! I agree with you when you say that listening to podcasts with an mp3 player could be very useful to improve our English, above all our listening and vocabulary skills. I really like "Libri Vox" because reading is one of my passions and with podcasts I can listen to my favourite books everywhere I go. What is more you can volunteer for this site and read chapters of a book and your record will be published. I also like "English pod" because podcasts are organised following different levels of difficulty and they talk about different things. You can listen to podcasts about relationships, weather, money idioms and many more.
Dear Sara, I really appreciated LibriVox, because I simply adore reading and I think this website will give me the chance to unify two passions of mine: literature and English. What's more, listening to books in the original language sounds wonderful: roughly translating an Italian proverb I would say that in this case pleasure and need will meet in LibriVox!
See y soon!
Hi Sara!
I noticed the third website you suggested: I checked it too and it was one of those I wanted to highlight in my post! I completely agree with you: it provides very useful podcasts in Business English that are divided into categories according to the typology of the task you are supposed to carry out. I think I will visit it more than once when I am at work and asked to answer an important telephone call!!
See you soon,
Elena
Hi,Sara!
I'm surprised...you already knew what a podcast was, great!I tried to convince me not to be the only one who didn't know what it was...But this fact demonstrates that I am who still live in the Stone Age!
Like you, I've always found difficulties in following my English teacher's devices. I rarely read English books and I didn't watch many movies in English. Maybe, if I had do it, now my listening skills would be better. But now we're grown up and maybe we could strive a little more. When I'll had the broadband (hopefully into 2 weeks!), I'd like to download some podcasts... Maybe a book from LibriVox, who knows :-)! I found this site as well and I saved it because I think it would be great listening to a book, isn't it?
I had a look to Better at English, too. I couldn't listen to the podcasts (again, no broadband!), but from your description and from what I saw I think it could be a very useful tool to improve my English! I especially like the fact you can download the transcriptions of the English lessons.
See you on Wednesday!
Martina
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