How do you write about the person who plays music on the radio or at the club?  Is it DJ, D.J., D. J., deejay or dee-jay? Should there be 3 commas or 4 commas in the list above? Should I have written three and four in the sentence above this one? Should I have written “three” and “four” in the sentence above this one? Is it better to write from 2-5:00 pm or from 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm? Do you write the abbreviations for...

If you want to improve your listening (and spelling) skills, try out this site: Listen and Write.  They have taken media from a wide range of sources, found transcripts, and made them into dictation activities.  This means that you can listen to (or watch, many of the sources are on youtube) a news report, an interview, a song, a film trailer or a TV show and then listen to it in “chapters” so you can focus on 5-10 seconds of text...

The United Nations has short videos with transcripts on their UN in Action site.

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.