home / first impressions / online audio and podcasts contact us

Login

Subscriber ID

Password

Forgotten your login?

Not a member?
Sign up now!

On this site


iT's Magazines S.L.
Pau Claris 139, 4-3
08009 Barcelona
Spain

Online audio and podcasts

its-team

If you want to use authentic audio material in your classes or want to listen to English for your own pleasure, then there is a whole world of audio waiting for you on the Internet.

Internet radio is the radio of the future, and the best place to start exploring what it has to offer is at the BBC Radio website. Here you can listen live to all the BBC radio stations, including stations dedicated to music and speech. On Radio 4 you will find news and current affairs programmes as well as drama and entertainment shows. And there's always the BBC World Service. Not only are these radio stations available to listen to live but you can also listen to any programme for up to seven days after it is first broadcast with the "Listen Again" feature.

To listen to the audio you first need to download the BBC iPlayer. When you've downloaded it, choose the U.K. version and you're ready to start listening. The BBC iPlayer is an amazing invention, giving U.K. residents the chance to also watch TV programmes for up to seven days after transmission. Unfortunately, outside the United Kingdom you can access the radio only.

There are thousands of other radio stations out there. You can search for stations at sites such as the Reciva Radio Portal.

If you don't want to listen to Internet radio on your computer, then there are other options. There are more and more Wi-Fi radios available that allow you to play Internet radio. One of these is the Pico Wi-Fi that links to any broadband Wi-Fi connection to stream both live and "listen again" Internet broadcasts. Radio stations are listed alphabetically by country or music type. The advantage of the Pico is that you can take the radio with you (within Wi-Fi range) and don't have to sit at your computer to listen. It also has a rechargeable battery and looks extremely cool.

Another online audio option is podcasts. A podcast is an audio program that you subscribe to. Whenever a new episode is available of your chosen programme it downloads automatically. You can then listen to it on either your computer, or your MP3 player or iPod. Podcasts are amazing because they allow you to download only what you want to listen to and you can listen to it anywhere, including on the bus to work.

The best way to download podcasts is by using iTunes. You don't need to own an Apple iPod to use iTunes. Go to the iTunes site and follow the instructions to download the program. Once it's downloaded look for the podcast directory. You can then search for the podcasts that interest you. Again, there's a lot on offer. The BBC has an excellent daily news podcast, and other stations such as NPR (National Public Radio) in the United States also have a good range of programmes on offer.

Once you have subscribed to your chosen podcast and downloaded the latest programme, you can either listen to it using the iTunes program or transfer it to your MP3 player. The next time you open the iTunes program it will automatically check to see if there's a new episode of the podcast to download.

There are quite a few podcasts related to learning English, and there will no doubt be many more in the near future. The British Council has just created some new LearnEnglish Podcasts Web pages that are free for teachers and students to use. Via these pages, you can listen online, download audio material, subscribe to podcasts and print study materials. There's a whole range of topics to choose from including elementary podcasts, English for work and professionals, audio fun from LearnEnglish Kids, and Science.

And, as with all the audio we've mentioned above, it's all free!

Websites