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Useful links
I would like to find some sources of North American/Australian/African sound files/transmissions that are readily available online. I feel there is rather a bias towards British English on the following pages - PLEASE let me know of any radio stations or other sites that have current affairs programmes that would be suitable for recording. Thanks.
Here are some links you might find useful to help you improve your English.
GENERAL
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.shtml This BBC site is specifically for students learning English
http://www.eapor.net/ a site with many links to different kinds of sites all regarding learning English. Of particular interest to SIS students are the Writing and EAP sites.
http://home.gwu.edu/~meloni/eslstudyhall/ many links to learning websites
http://www.studyguidezone.com/resource_tips.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/ This is the home page to BBC Radio. Radio 4 is my favourite. However, from this page you have direct access to all the BBC radio stations available online. Remember that many BBC radio programmes (and some TV programmes – eg, Panorama, BBC 1’s award winning current affairs programme at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/default.stm ) are available both to download (MP3) or to listen to for years after they were first transmitted. Simply go to the “Listen Again” page of each radio station (e.g. for Radio 4 this is http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/progs/listenagain.shtml ) or to each particular programme’s webpage where past programmes are listed (e.g. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/default.stm ). Some programmes, however, are only available for 7 days so you need to keep check of which current affairs programmes do not store their programmes. For example the excellent daily World Service programme “Analysis” only keeps programmes for 7 days http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/analysis.shtml . Other interesting BBC programmes are:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/analysis/default.stm Analysis - this Radio 4 weekly programme (only keeps audio 7 days online), similar to that on World Service provides a more detailed analysis of issues in Britain. However, many of the programmes have links to articles and short audio clips from the programmes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/assignment.shtml Assignment - a weekly World Service documentary on hot issues around the world
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/file_on_4/default.stm File on Four - a weekly Radio 4 investigative documentary series
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/talking_point_programme/default.stm This is the International Version of the BBC's 'Have your say' page'. Here you can see short videos relating to the hot topics of the moment and readwhat other listeners/viewers have to say about the topics.
http://www.npr.org/ National Public Radio. Many stories are archived and stories are organised by topic so it's easy to follow a story line.
http://www.un.org/webcast/archive.htm Here you can watch the UN in action. Many of their sessions are recorded live and are then placed in the archives. This site is particularly useful for people who have difficulty with listening as the transcripts for many of the sessions are available online, so you can check on what is being said if you can't grasp the gist.
http://www.un.org/webcast/WC2003a.html Here you can watch the UN discussion programme, World Chronicle. Usually an issue relating to a UN resolution is discussed. Transcripts for most of these programmes are available from the webpage. I have downloaded some of these programmes and left a copy in CIAL.
http://radio.un.org/ This is the UN's radio archive. These are shorter clips and are usually quite easy to understand as many of the speakers are not L1 English and therefore speak more slowly, though sometimes the accent is so heavy it may be hard to understand.
http://www.cnn.com/ No comment needed. Video clips here are only available for 7 days after they have been posted (which is why I can never use them for listening comprehension exercises).
http://eleaston.com/listen.html Choose what to listen to by topic – lots of links to sites, such as the Hoover Institution “Uncommon Knowledge” programme. (not updated regularly)
http://www.economist.com/audio/?ps=other The Economist also has a series of interviews available on the net. these are usually less than 10 minutes and cover all ranges of topics from technology to travel. No transcripts are available, but they are usually clear and easy to follow (Thanks Alessandro for reminding me of this resource)
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/index.htm If you want to listen to the famous and infamous put their linguistic skills to the test log onto this website where there is an online speech bank and a list of the "100 top speeches" (Thanks you Francesco for this one)
http://www.onestopenglish.com/news/Magazine/News/news.htm intended for teachers of English, but has some topical graded reading comprehension passages for practice.
http://www.onestopenglish.com/business_esp/english_specific_purposes.htm again, this website is intended for teachers but students can download useful practice materials in specific language areas (e.g. legal English, banking and financial services etc).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/ A brief summary of the day’s news. Most articles are kept online for weeks and even months. Many links are provided to other articles and sites for a greater understanding of the topic.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ The online version of one of the UK’s broadsheet (quality) newspapers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianweekly/0,12598,837809,00.html Sister weekly of the Guardian giving an in-depth analysis of the issues of the week.
http://www.un.org/News/ This is the United Nations News Centre. Here you can read about all the latest developments
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSEPublicLecturesAndEvents/eventsTranscripts.htm This is the LSE Transcripts page. Here you find transcripts of many of the Lectures held at the school by eminent Professors from all over the world. Unfortunately no sound files are available, otherwise I would make them into listening exercises!
See the writing section of http://www.eapor.net/ for many useful links.
http://europa.eu.int/eurodicautom/Controller EU on-line multilingual dictionary. Unfortunately this online dictionary facility is no longer being updated, but can still be a very useful tool when writing materials connected with the EU.
http://132.208.224.131/Concord.htm online concordancer (useful for finding out how words and expressions are used in real English). The online corpora are much smaller than their commercial versions, so results are not always satisfactory)
http://www.quinion.com/words/ A fun site about words as they are used in English.
http://www.wordspy.com/index/Language-General.asp This site no longer issues a neologism a day, but is still a valuable source of finding out what new words mean, where they first appeared and when they first came into being.
http://www.studygs.net/index.htm Here is a lot of advice about learner strategies and independent learning
If you know of any website that has some interesting articles/exercises or other materials which you think would be useful for other learners, please write to let me know and I will update this page. Thanks.