Tag Archives: free resources

Honing Listening Skills with Radio Garden: All the Radio Stations Just a Click Away.

General, ,

These long, long days at home make us crave for new things which break, even for a little while, routine.

I know you might come with a better idea or a  funnier thing to do than dedicating some time to brushing up your listening skills. Yep. I am pretty sure you can come up with a few. But, and this is a big BUT, probably not as necessary or useful.  Today, I am going to suggest a site I think you are going to love 😆  and that is going to help you improve your listening skills.

So, have a look.

It is a website called Radio Garden, which allows you to tune into live radio stations around the world. Anywhere in the world. And my favourite part is how you find the radio stations: the interface of the website shows a 3D globe you can spin. You will see hundreds of glowing green dots representing cities or towns all around the globe with radio stations. Click on one of these dots, choose a radio station and let’s get down to some serious listening time.

Free Reading and Downloading Graded and Unabridged Books

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Here, in Spain, we are beginning our fifth week of quarantine. A few days before lockdown,  I asked my students to go to the school library and borrow a book to read. Some of them could not attend that day for various reasons – I never ask, they are adults- and therefore could not borrow the book. Their  problem now  is that confined at home, some of them are finding it difficult to get their hands on a graded book in English. No worries! I’ve got you covered!

But before sharing with you this site, let me tell you the story of a time in my life when I almost hated reading.

Why  I don't select  reading books  for my students

I never tell my students which book to read. I have always enjoyed reading, not the point of being called a bookworm, but pretty close. However, when I was at university I was asked to read tons of books, compulsory books someone had decided for me. Every literature teacher had a long reading list of books we had to read if we wanted to pass his or her subject. No point in cheating. Some teachers in exams ,  to make sure we had read them, simply wrote a paragraph from a chapter in the book  and we were asked to write what went before and after the paragraph. They thought they were being smart! I thought they were nuts!

These teachers almost made me hate reading. Almost. So I promised myself that if I ever got the chance to decide on this matter, I would never pick a compulsory book for my students. I would just take them to the library and let them choose something that would engage them. This is what I have been doing for a very long time and have never regretted my decision. I find that students read more and learn more if they are allowed to select their own books.

But, enough of my ramblings and let’s get back to the part where my students are at home, confined, but still in need to find a nice graded book to read. And this is where I need to thank María Argente del Castillo for bringing English e-Reader to my attention.

What is English E-Reader and why do I like it?

English e-Reader offers one of the biggest online libraries of graded e-books. Here, you can find plenty of ebooks in different digital formats: epub, fb2, mobi, rtf, txt, as well as audiobooks in mp3 format. You can download the ebook of your choice and if you sign up, you can read it online for free.

Most books in this website are graded (also called adapted)  by levels: from Starter (A1) to Advanced C1, but you can also find unabridged books suitable for level C2.
Now, choose your book and let’s enjoy reading!