BBC Podcasts

This is the BBC podcast home where you can download podcasts on most, if not all, programmes of the radio station.


I would recommend Witness, though. On this programme, history is told by the people who were there. The programme is on five days a week, and they talk to some of the people who lived through moments of history to bring the audience a personal perspective on world events.

110 Things New Yorkers Talked about in 2010

The title of this The New York Times article is self-explanatory. Here you can read the hottest topics for New Yorkers in 2010.

How well acquainted are you with them? What topics do you know anything about? Which are news to you?

What's Next in 2011

What this CBS video about what 2011 has in store for us.

H/T to Free Technology for Teachers.

We remember... in 2010

The BBC has just released this slideshow where they review outstanding politicians, actors, sportspeople who have died in 2010. The slideshow is eight minutes long and optional captions to accompany the audio are available.

H/T  to Free Technology for Teachers.

My snowman's been stolen

This is a lesson by Mike J. Harrison that I have adapted here for people studying online.

Have a look at this Wordle about the theft on a snowman and try to make a sensible story with the vocabulary provided.

This is another Wordle with the story headline. Can you try and make a sensible headline with the vocabulary provided?

The full story is developed on the BBC site.

Watch this YouTube video where a police officer offers the underlying reasons that forced them to make the call public.



You can read a full transcript of the video together with the telephone call here.

Newsy videos

Newsy comes close to perfection for English students who want to keep abreast of the latest news developments. The news items come together with their transcripts, and each piece of news is a mash-up from different sources -ABC, BBC, NBC, and so on.

All in all Newsy is an excellent place to develop our listening skills in an easy effortless way.

Charlie Rose's web page

Charlie Rose's web page can be a very interesting site for advanced English students. Lots of videos on current affairs and reports on general interests topics, many of which are accompanied by their transcription.

Just to give you an example, why don't you want an episode of Charlie Rose's brain series as a follow-up to Straightforward's unit 2?

Robots

PBS is a very interesting place for advanced English students. As well as everyday news, the site broadcasts highly-interesting reports, many of which have transcripts.