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.