podcasts
podcasts are great for language practice. they give you a chance to listen to long periods of speaking on a single topic. that allows you to concentrate. they also let you rewind and hear the same thing over until you are certain you have understood. many also have transcripts so you can read while you listen, especially helpful if you have difficulty with the speed or accent of the speaker. there are many excellent podcasts and far more terrible ones. if you keep trying, though, you will find reliably good shows that return each episode with new things to interest you and allow you to practice your listening while enjoying the show. this is, of course, passive learning and nowhere near as helpful as actual active writing study but consuming media in english is an important part of life as an english speaker, not really part of language education. this list also includes some video channels with the primarily audio-only ones.
youtube lectures
for the last decade or so, youtube has revolutionized the way the world consumes visual information. but what most people don’t realize about youtube is how much impact it has had on the world of academic lectures. there are now literally millions of lectures on all possible topics. the problem with these is, however, that they are not usually particularly good for language-learning because most speakers are painfully bad at using the english language, either because they don’t speak it fluently or because they speak it fluently but poorly. being an excellent communicator in english is, sadly, not a requirement for teaching in the language – often not even for teaching the language itself. there are, however, within that large group, many excellently-delivered lectures given by those whose english is worth listening to to practice and learn from.
