Enhance your listening skills through BBC’s 6 minute English page
Probably most of you, language learners, have come across and used any BBC materials. Their website is very complete and has tons of resources. I would like to concentrate on one of them in particular the 6 minute English page.
For learners
A lot of learners struggle with listening and the dialogues the website provides on diverse topics with vocabulary explanations and transcript are ideal in size and level for quick everyday practice. Something that you should be doing ideally if you would like to reach your English learning goals quickly.
If you are not practising a bit every day, then what are you waiting for?
For teachers
Self study is great and that is one way you can approach this wonderful resource. However, I have found an alternative way to use it and that is in phone or skype classes. As the topics are quite catchy and inspire conversation, I assign a specific dialogue to my student, they prepare it in advance and then during our phone sessions they retell what that article was about and then discuss further adding any personal opinions or experiences.
You could perfectly do this with any article on the web and I have tried BBC news and CNN, but having an audio and also introducing new vocabulary in a reasonable number is much more practical and simpler than having to read and resume a full blown article.
So this is my little time saver tip for teachers and a great self study resource for learners out there.
