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.

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...

Podcast Alley has hundreds of podcasts about anything you can imagine.  Choose a genre from the pull-down menu on the top left and listen to something that interests you.

This American Life is a 60 minute weekly radio program produced by National Public Radio in the US.  There is an incredible variety of stories on this show, just click the “Radio Archives” link on the top of the page, choose a year and start browsing.  The length of the program allows the presenters to speak at a relaxed pace and really explore their subject material sensitively and in depth.  One particularly good episode is The Giant Pool of...