The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has some fantastic resources online:  Catalyst is a 10 minute documentary programme with transcripts, and Foreign Correspondent is a 30 minute news documentary programme with transcripts.  Both shows have a short introduction before the transcript begins.

The news is a great learning resource because you usually already know the context.  Just by looking at a few pictures, you can usually guess what the story is, so it’s easy to listen and connect what you hear with what you already know.  Euronews provides a transcript with each video in their “OUR LATEST VIDEO NEWS” section so you can listen first and then read if you’d like.

Practicing English by watching films is good for improving your stamina, but there are other things you can do as well.  Take a film that you know very well from watching it in your mother tongue.  Now watch this movie in English (with English subtitles if you like) and you will learn all kinds of language because you know what they will say so you can pay attention to how they say it. When you’re watching a film for the first time, after a...

TED is an incredible organization that brings some of the most intelligent and passionate people in the world together to give lectures and inspire the rest of us with their ideas.  They also have subtitles in many languages and an excellent interactive transcript tool for every video.  For a taste of the amazing minds who participate in TED lectures, watch neurologist Vilayanur Ramachandran talk about some very unusual things he has discovered...

It is possible to do some speaking practice alone, especially accent training. Choose a speaker of English who you like, someone who you think has a good accent. Try and find some videos of this person speaking on youtube or on DVD, and take a section that’s about 30 seconds long. Listen carefully to it: pay attention to the speed, the rhythm, the intonation and the pauses. Now go to Vocaroo (or use recording software on your PC) and record...

You can practice most things alone, but to really practice speaking you need a partner. And you can find native speakers to practice with at SharedTalk, LiveMocha or Conversation Exchange (REMEMBER: Always protect your privacy online). These sites will all help you find someone who speaks English and wants to learn your native language so you can practice in tandem. You might speak 20 minutes in English and 20 minutes in your mother tongue....