Oral Comprehension sites

updated November 2016...

Hello English learners!! The Oral Comprehension label in the column on your right with its list of links is active again. :-)
I hope you'll use it 15mn everyday. Listening is the key to improving your English!

 EVERY DAY. EVERY SINGLE DAY!
1. Choose one audio documents in any of the suggested links.
2. Listen to the audio doc at least three times. (LISTEN x 3 minimum) It doesn't matter if you don't understand everything. 
3. Try to answer the quiz when available.
4. Listen to the document once again with the script IF you want to and if it is provided.

ORAL COMPREHENSION sites

http://howjsay.com/ Comment prononcer un mot ?(how d'ya say ... how do you say?)

esl-lab.com: Randall's site made me begin that blog. Thank you so much Randall! 

http://www.newsinlevels.com/

On the top bar, you see Level 1, 2 and 3. You can even test your level before you choose.Put your mouse on it and choose a subject you like.

The British council made something just for you teenagers
http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/
Go there, http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/study-break  and elsewhere! 

And for you, whatever your age is!

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/

and more particularly here with very varied documents, audio or video

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/listen-and-watch

Here is an example here about Dating. Interested students ?

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/big-city-small-world/series-2-episode-10-date

One more site, just discovered.
http://www.engvid.com/

A colleague's website
http://www.franglish.fr/COBAC/

https://www.podcastsinenglish.com/index.shtml

http://www.5minuteenglish.com/listening.htm

A great youtube page here :

http://www.youtube.com/user/australianetwork/videos?flow=list&view=0&sort=dd&query=learning+English+series

Another youtube page with mini lessons (1mn or less!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsiqK8jGEWo&list=ECF8F4F464C322BFFF&index=1

http://elllo.org The best with Randall’s but all of it is not free anymore. Too bad, I loved ELLLO (English Language Listening Lab Online) 
Still, some lessons are still here for free! 
There used to be more than a thousand short audio documents, with vocabulary help, comprehension exercises and the script. The script is only here for you to check your comprehension after you’ve listened to the audio for at least three times... Teaching is repeating.

Many documents. The page has been archived and is not updated anymore but the audio / video documents and the exercises are still available. Use them!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/

http://www.5minuteenglish.com/listening.htm

http://www.agendaweb.org/ 

This is grammar mainly but useful!

This one will ask you to evaluate yourself and do some easy exercises and the site will memorize you. you'll like it!

http://lp.babbel.com/d/FRA_index.html?l1=FRA&l2=ENG&ch=SEM

http://www.manythings.org/listen/

OOPS

UPDATE here is what prevents me from refilling the OC list  after my careless move. Still, Blogger seems to be having problems: I found that here: http://knownissues.blogspot.fr/ 
Known issues for Blogger: 
The latest on what's still a problem, what's getting fixed, and what's been taken care of, direct from the Blogger team.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013
We're investigating reports of users not being able to edit the Link List gadget. We'll update this post as soon as we have more information. Thanks for your patience.

Today is March 30th ... so that makes 3 days for Blogger to try and fix and fail.  But hey! Let's be patient.
And I say Thank You Blogger guys and gals for your hard work. 
.................................................................................................................................................................
Wow wow wow, I've just made a big mistake and deleted the LABEL with the Oral Comprehension great sites I've found on the marvellous Web.

SITES FOR YOU TO IMPROVE YOUR ENGLISH FOR FREE!

(Am I making myself clear dear pupils?)
So I'm going to have to put it up again and I will begin with Randall's site. http://esl-lab.com/
I started this blog because of this site. It made me realize how useful a blog could be for my pupils. Just to show them they had free access to many English recordings and that by listening to them EVERYDAY, they would get better and better at English.
Since then, I've made many other discoveries on the web.Enjoy! And sorry when the links are no longer valid. I was actually trying to remove the Macao link in the label OC sites when I deleted the whole bunch.

What is Wealth really like?

Too big for trial... An honest politician! Kuddos to Elizabeth Warren

Senator Elizabeth Warren embarrasses Bank Regulators at first hearing :

« What I want to know is, tell me a little bit about the last few times you’ve taken the biggest institutions on Wall Street all the way to a trial. …. Anybody ? »

Well, after the answers she got, repeating the same questions twice, she concludes : « You know, I just want a note on this : There are District attorneys and U.S. attorneys who are out there everyday squeezing ordinary citizens on sometimes very thin grounds and taking them to trial in order to ‘make an example’ as they put it. I’m really concerned that too big to fail has become too big for trial. » 

Japan's Prime Minister on 3/11: Naoto Kan

Naoto-san, thank you so much for speaking out.
My Experiences as Prime Minister during the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster from Cinema Forum Fukushima on Vimeo.

No headlines on the ongoing nuclear disaster -update

Still no headlines around Fuku Nuke plant. Not even for the anniversary of the big Tohoku earthquake.
Holy smoke! What a shame!

No headlines on the ongoing nuclear disaster

« Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Ongoing Disaster » doesn’t make the headlines though it should.

Still, here are some of the articles I was able to find today that feebly commemorate the accident, the man-made disaster that took place after the huge Magnitude 9 earthquake and the following tsunami.

Maybe it's too early in the U.S. and real HEADLINES will appear on the sites I've visited this morning.

I thought I'd see something like:
                     
           ONGOING DISASTER IN FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI

Anyway, I've found these articles on different issues:

NBC Rare tour of Fukushima reveals colossal decontamination efforts                   http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/08/17234000-rare-tour-of-fukushima-reveals-colossal-decontamination-efforts?lite

CNN  DEBRIS IN HAWAII

http://edition.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#/video/us/2013/03/11/pkg-lah-japan-tsunami-debris.cnn

ABC  EMPTY SCHOOL in Namie, Japan

http://abcnews.go.com/International/fukushima-school-limbo-years-nuclear-disaster/story?id=18695762

WASHINGTON POST   A personal fight against nuclear power in Japan                http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-personal-fight-against-nuclear-power-in-japan/2013/03/09/ff64d5e4-882e-11e2-999e-5f8e0410cb9d_video.html


This video is from NBC news from last year... It ends with 'Consequences go on.' Indeed...

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The day begins in Japan. REMEMBER 3/11

JAPAN and FRANCE have at least one crucial thing in common. Both are nuclear nations.
Let us demand  transparent information on the ongoing nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The rest will follow.
Monday March 11, 2013 begins in Japan.  In less than a hour.
                         GANBATTE NIHON!

Impressive.

From the Guardian  Wednesday 6 March 2013 20.04 GMT

"General David Petraeus and 'dirty wars' veteran behind commando units implicated in detainee abuse."

Meet U.S.colonel James Steele, a Fascinating video

Advice from Stéphane Hessel

FOIA

"The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a U.S. law that gives U.S. citizens the right to access information from the federal government. It is often described as the law that keeps citizens in the know about their government."

Here is a fascinating read that exemplifies the interest of the FOIA so very vividly.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/long-ago-wiretap-inspires-a-battle-with-the-cia-for-more-information/2013/03/02/8ebaa924-77b0-11e2-aa12-e6cf1d31106b_story.html


FOIA and its French equivalent: CADA.fr

Rosa was the spark..

President Obama helped unveil a bronze statue of activist Rosa Parks, whose 1955 refusal to give up her seat to a white man on a city bus in segregated Alabama was a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement. Parks became the first African-American woman to be honored with a full length statue in National Statuary Hall.

Changing the world is not easy and it takes times and many men and women like Rosa parks to change the world for the better.
From a great PBS article (and there's a video interview too) about a book called "The Rebellious Life of Rosa Parks" by Jeanne Theoharis, a political science professor at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York
Extract: Moreover, the Montgomery bus boycott did not transform America overnight. It took 382 days and hundreds of volunteers to force change, and that was years before the March on Washington. Parks and her husband Raymond lost their jobs and would not regain economic security until they moved far away, to Detroit. Parks would readily admit that she was hardly the first working black woman to refuse to give up her bus seat. It is important that the story get told well -- not, as "a romantic fable."

We're all one!

« What interesting to me about that is regardless of where I am, anywhere, every audience get that. It doesn’t matter. It’s the pentatonic scale for some reason. » Bobby McFerrin

Better food = more food

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/audioslideshow/2013/feb/15/india-rice-revolution-audio-slideshow

Old truth

It's a documentary from 2011 but it will remain a topical issue for decades to come. And spent fuel for many more centuries... Extract from the video :

Sixto Rodriguez

Searching for Sugar Man  A documentary I really really want to see. What a great musician and man. 
Here is the trailer and watch him talk in the second video saying: "I don't think there's anything that can't be and is not political."

Words and meanings.

Words and meanings.
Language is really fascinating, perpetually evolving, unfolding.
We are constantly learning from it.
I've heard you, dear pupils, use a word I'd never heard before: "Beeatch".
????????????? What was that?
I looked it up and here's what I found: No less than 5 very varied and even opposed meanings.
urbandictionary.com/beeatch

Nuclear testing

Ambassador Susan E. Rice is the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and a member of President Obama's Cabinet. She reacts to North Korea 3rd nuclear test.
http://usun.state.gov/leadership/c31461.htm

Yoko Ono-Lennon about Assange

Phobos is hollow?

European Space Agency Indicates Mars’ Moon Phobos is Hollow and Artificial

Extract from the abstract here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009GL041829/abstract

"We conclude that the interior of Phobos likely contains large voids. When applied to various hypotheses bearing on the origin of Phobos, these results are inconsistent with the proposition that Phobos is a captured asteroid."

Read and see more here: WEIRD STUFF!!