FREE Audio Books

Short stories, fables and fairy tales are perfect text to put our students in contact with "real" English. Moreover, reading for pleasure increases motivation and - needless to say - motivation is the first step towards successful learning.

The Internet is a perfect place to find many good samples of short stories and other similar texts which can be read little by little either in class or at home. But Intertnet offers much more than just the "plain text". It also offers the audio for many of those texts. Thus, students not only can read the text but also listen to it, something that will definitely improve their listening and pronunciation skills.

Many publishing houses offer really good texts with audio cds. Students have the option of buying them or borrowing them from their nearest public library. However, Internet gives them free access to many texts without having to move from their house and - what is even better - without having to pay.

So here is a selection of useful links where both teachers and students can find interesting short stories, fables and fairy tales plus their audio. Read, listen... and enjoy!

1) Short Stories --> http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/genre/Short_stories

2)

A picture is worth a thousand words

Knowing that "one picture is worth a thousand words" you'll probably want to use pictures with your students to help get the meaning across. Free images on the web are not that easy to find. You can always ask the author of an image for permission to use their work but some refuse and others just don't answer. As a language teacher, these are the sites I've found most useful:

1) http://hcmc.uvic.ca/clipart/

2) http://www.pdictionary.com/

3) http://openclipart.org/

4) http://tell.fll.purdue.edu/JapanProj//FLClipart/

You can also try to make your own pictures. Maybe you are not an artist (as it is my case) but if your aim is clarity, sure you can do something useful. In case you want to try, you can use the image editor that comes with your computer. For example, on Windows you can use Paint. Moreover, there are some Image Manipulation Programmes that can help you. Fortunately, not all of them cost money. For instance, you can use GIMP, a freely distributed piece of software that you can download, install and use for free.

Listening for your ears

Teaching listening is perhaps one of the most difficult things teachers have to do every day in class. This is so not because the coursebooks we use do not have nice samples of appropriate listening activities depending on the level of our students but because they usually complain that their level is lower than the level the listening we have chosen for them.

Be as it may, in this section you will find different sources to use with your students in class so that they don't feel terrified when we way IT'S LISTENING TIME!!!

We have divided this section (LISTENING FOR YOUR EARS) into levels but we all know that the difficulty of a listening is not always found in the listening itself but in the activity we ask our students to do. Moreover, if we do an adequate pre-listening activity, we will surely reduce the amount of tension and prepare our students for the material they are going to listen to. Besides, as teachers we have the freedom of adapting all sorts of listening texts to the level of our pupils.

LISTENING FOR REAL BEGINNERS

1)

LISTENING FOR ELEMENTARY STUDENTS

1) Listenings from La Mansión del Inglés (Nivel Básico)

2) English podcasts for Elementary students (Level 1) --> Free sample for Level 1 at http://www.podcastsinenglish.com/pages/freesample.shtml

3) Basic Listening Lessons for Elementary Students


LISTENING FOR PRE-INTERMEDIATE STUDENTS

1) English podcasts for Level 2 --> Free sample for Level 2 at http://www.podcastsinenglish.com/pages/freesample.shtml

LISTENING FOR INTERMEDIATE STUDENTS

1) Listenings from La Mansión del Inglés (Nivel Intermedio)

2) Intermediate Listening Lessons for Intermediate Students

3) English podcasts for Level 3 --> Free sample for Level 3 at http://www.podcastsinenglish.com/pages/freesample.shtml

LISTENING FOR UPPER-INTERMEDIATE STUDENTS

1) Using movie clips to improve the listening skills of your students is another good idea to explore in the EFL classroom. The following website contains some samples of interesting clips that will undoubtly help students improve their listening comprehension skills by listening to English as it is spoken by normal people in everyday life. Trailers are a perfect way of doing all this. Besides, each of the trailers in this website contains listening comprehension questions for your students.


LISTENING FOR ADVANCED STUDENTS

1) Listenings from La Mansión del Inglés (Nivel Avanzado)

2) Advanced Listening Lessons for Advanced Students

3)Listening samples of English speakers from around the world with transcripts and interactive quizzes

4) Visit this site for links to some of the best English language radio stations broadcasting over the internet. Also fun monthly LISTENING competition.

5) The national public radio delivers breaking national and world news. Also top stories from business, politics, heath, science, technology, music, arts and culture.

6) The BBC is another excellent source of listening material for advanced students.


PRONUNCIATION PRACTICE

In order to be conrrectly understood, students need a lot of practice. So why don't you explore the following links and try to incorporate some of the activities suggested to your lessons?

1) Pronunciation Lessons for real beginners, beginners and pre-intermediate students (and for those students who, despite having a higher level, have not acquired the appropriate pronunciation of certain sounds in English.

2) Online pronunciation guides to 9 varieties of the English language and 9 other languages.

3) Try this software to make virtual people who speak your text in a computer voice. Use the demo for fun, or learn the pronunciation of English, French, German...

4) English language pronunciation practice with minimal pairs. Simply mouse over to hear.


DICTATIONS

1) Dictations online for all levels (elementary to advanced)

Welcome to "Last Minute Lessons for Teachers"

Do you teach English? Are you tired of just doing the typical activities suggested in the coursebook? This is a very common feeling when you are a teacher. However, when you decide to do something new with your students you don't really know where to begin and usually you lose a lot of time looking for something to adapt to the specific needs of your students.

Well, if the previous description is the one for you, then "Last Minute Lessons for Teachers" is your blog. In it, I will try to include interesting links, videos, and free materials for those who teach English around the world.

I really do hope that you enjoy it!