Speaking and Listening Practice 口语和听力练习
- English Central:
Practice pronunciation by watching interesting videos. You can listen
to thousands of accents and try to imitate native speakers. This program
even allows you to slow down speech so that you can hear it better!
- Listen and Write: This website allows you to listen to recordings and write what you hear. There are many different levels and it tracks what words you need to learn.
- Live Mocha: This is a FREE website that allows you to learn many different languages by taking short lessons. Native speakers will check your written and oral assessments and give you feedback.
- Digital Dialects: The Digital Dialects website features free to use online games for learning languages. Language resources include games for learning phrases, numbers, useful words, spelling, verb conjugation and alphabets. Games use Macromedia Flash Player
- BBC Languages: Links on this free site will keep you busy for hours. Phrasebooks, videos, revision aids. There is something here for everyone.
- Open Culture: You can also enjoy hundreds of free audio books here; scroll down to English.
- Phonetics: Learn how to pronounce words correctly. Click on "American English" and you can listen to the different phonetic sounds, see videos that show how the sound is produced, and listen to example words.
- Ship or Sheep: Perfect your English pronunciation with Minimal Pair Practice
- Oxford University Press Phonetics: This chart explains, in Chinese, the purpose and use of phonetics. It also have the entire IPA chart with all sounds and corresponding words.
- The Vowel Machine: See if you know your vowel sounds by playing this interactive game. Press "spin" and play the recording--you can switch between the spelling of each word and the IPA symbols. It tests your listening and your knowledge of long and short vowel sounds.
- RP English Vowel Sounds and SymWord: Do you know your IPA symbols and their corresponding pronunciation for all of your vowels? Test your knowledge with these games!
- The Phonetic Chart: Click on one of IPA symbols and it will provide the sound you need to pronounce the word below.
Practicing Pronunciation
As a non-native speaker of English you understand how hard it is to get those pesky words sounding right. It's frustrating to know you've got the correct words to express what you want, or if you're asked to repeat yourself several times I understand the temptation to give up.
Here's a tip that will help. It won't fix the problem immediately but practiced in conjunction with vocabulary and grammar skills, it will help speed the process up. It's to actively listen.
Let me explain. If you are actively listening you are listening to and registering the patterns of language. You can hear the underlying musicality, rhythms and stresses that combine to carry meaning. A word by itself seldom does that. In context, in a sentence or paragraph, meaning becomes clear.
Practicing actively listening can take many forms. Here are a couple:
Here's a tip that will help. It won't fix the problem immediately but practiced in conjunction with vocabulary and grammar skills, it will help speed the process up. It's to actively listen.
Let me explain. If you are actively listening you are listening to and registering the patterns of language. You can hear the underlying musicality, rhythms and stresses that combine to carry meaning. A word by itself seldom does that. In context, in a sentence or paragraph, meaning becomes clear.
Practicing actively listening can take many forms. Here are a couple:
- Listen to stories/news being read aloud on podcasts:
A great way to check your understanding is to stop the podcast after a sentence or two and put into your own words what you think you heard and then check with the transcript if there is one.
Here's a link to the British Council Learn English podcasts. Don't be put off by the accents you'll hear and explore the site fully. You'll find a full range of activities and supporting material, including transcripts, available for free.
The British Council also has material especially geared for children. You'll find classic children's stories, tongue twisters and more to listen to.
- Listen to podcasts of classic English short stories:
Learn Out Loud has many freely available as well as a large number covering all sorts of other subjects. You'll be listening to native speakers and absorbing the rhythms of the language. You may not understand everything you hear at first but it's perfect for an immersion experience! - Listen to classic children's stories.
These are available with a transcript. They're great for practicing transcribing and delivery to get the flow of language - its pauses, pace and stresses. Once you have the meaning clear you can practice reading the story out loud using the audio as a model.