Excellent podcasts for students learning English

Podcasts and audio recordings are a very good resource for English teachers to use with their students to help them improve both their listening and pronunciation skills.

With the internet, students learning English from all over the world can now listen regularly for free to some very good podcasts/audio recordings on their computer, tablet or mobile phone.

Below is a list of my 6 recommended free English learning podcasts/audio recordings that I use or have used with my students. I have arranged the podcasts by the English level they are appropriate for. These podcasts are not for children. In my experience they can be used for both adults and teenagers from 14 years old.

All the podcasts/audio recordings listed here are short (the maximum length is under 10 minutes).

I would suggest that you don't use these podcasts/audio recordings as part of your class, but use them with your students for homework. Normally, I tell my students to listen to them and make some brief notes about what they hear in the podcast/audio recording. Then we talk about the podcast/audio recording at the beginning of the next class and I often ask for their opinion on the topic.

Elementary

I'm afraid that I haven't find any podcast/audio recording which is suitable for students at this level. Sorry.

Lower-Intermediate

Big City Small World from the British Council

A podcast/audio series about a group of people. They talk about general life topics.

Intermediate

6 Minute English from the BBC

A long list of 6 minute podcasts/audio recordings on every type of topic. They are very good.

This is America from the Voice of America

Lots of podcasts on stories about America. It is good for listening to people with an American accent, but they do speak slowly. Some are a little boring though, so I personally don't use them too frequently.

Upper-Intermediate

Learn English Professionals from the British Council

Lots of short audio recordings/podcasts on professional, business and social topics. It is possible that some of them can be used with intermediate students as well.

Witness from the BBC

Interviews with people who witnessed important events in the world. They all last less than 10 minutes. There are thousands of episodes to listen to (five are released each week). Not all of them are appropriate for giving to students, but because there are so many, you will many which are.

These are the only podcasts/audio recordings here which haven't been designed for people learning English, but I have found them to be successful with my upper-intermediate students.

English in 10 minutes from Englishin10minutes.com

Podcasts from two English teachers where they either speak together on a subject (often on travel or different countries) or interview people. They are good for hearing both conversational English and different types of accents.

Advanced

At this level your students should be listening to podcasts or radio programmes (e.g. BBC World Service) designed for native speakers. You can use the Witness podcast (see above) with them or try to find something else.

To find something else for your students, take a look at the podcasts which are available from the BBC website and choose something which you think your students will find interesting or will be useful for them. I would suggest you pick podcasts which aren't long (anything over 20 minutes is excessive).

Blair English online classes