ESL at the Beach Listening

It is often difficult to practice English listening, but these ESL at the beach listening tasks on this page will let you have experience of listening to spoken at the beach vocabulary. Once you have mastered the exercises on this page you should hopefully be ready to talk to other English speakers.

There are four listening tasks on this page, and for each of the activities you have a recording that you need to listen to and then answer questions or do some other task. You can listen several times to each recording if you need to. When listening try to also remember how the words are pronounced. If you need help understanding the recordings you can go to the ESL at the beach vocabulary page that has a recording of the beach vocabulary being spoken by a native English speaker, so you can hear what each word should sound like.

The four ESL at the beach listening tasks on this page are as follows:

• Identify spoken word order.
• Identify spoken definition.
• Listening comprehension.
• Dictation passage.

ESL At the Beach Listening Exercises

Exercise 1 – Identification of Spoken Word Order

In this ESL at the beach listening exercise you need to listen to the following recording and then decide which group of words (A-D) in each question is in the same order as those spoken in the recording. There is a get score button to click at the end of the questions so you can see how many you got correct.

ESL at the Beach Identification of Spoken Word Order

Listen to the recording of the five groups of five words each given above and decide which option (A-D) in the five questions in this test has the correct order.

1) Which is the correct order for group of words one?

    A) Sand, Life preserver ,Hermit crab, Cape, Swimsuit
    B) Life preserver, Swimsuit, Hermit crab, Cape, Sand
    C) Cape, Swimsuit, Sand ,Hermit crab, Life preserver
    D) Hermit crab, Cape, Sand, Swimsuit, Life preserver

2) Which is the correct order for group of words two?

    A) Bay, Rock pool, Underwater, Clam, Barnacle
    B) Rock pool, Barnacle, Underwater, Clam, Bay
    C) Clam, Barnacle, Bay, Underwater, Rock pool
    D) Underwater, Clam, Bay, Barnacle, Rock pool

3) Which is the correct order for group of words three?

    A) Relax, Neap tide, Life preserver, Sail, Rest
    B) Neap tide, Rest, Life preserver, Sail, Relax
    C) Sail, Rest, Relax, Life preserver, Neap tide
    D) Life preserver, Sail, Relax, Rest, Neap tide

4) Which is the correct order for group of words four?

    A) Low tide, Pelican, Undertow, Fish, Suntan
    B) Pelican, Suntan, Undertow, Fish, Low tide
    C) Fish, Suntan, Low tide, Undertow, Pelican
    D) Undertow, Fish, Low tide, Suntan, Pelican

5) Which is the correct order for group of words five?

    A) Bikini, Fin, Boardwalk, Palm tree, Seashore
    B) Fin, Seashore, Boardwalk, Palm tree, Bikini
    C) Palm tree, Seashore, Bikini, Boardwalk, Fin
    D) Boardwalk, Palm tree, Bikini, Seashore, Fin

Score =

Correct answers:

Exercise 2 – Identification of Spoken Definition

For this ESL at the beach listening activity you again need to listen to the recording, but this time you need to decide which word (A-D) in each of the questions matches the definition that is spoken in the recording. Again you can use the get score button to see the correct answers and how many you got correct.

ESL at the Beach Listening Identification of Vocabulary Meaning

Listen to the recording of the meanings of the five vocabulary words given above and decide which word out of the options (A-D) in each question matches the meaning.

1) What is the meaning of the first definition in the recording?

    A) Limper
    B) Rest
    C) Conch
    D) High tide

2) What is the meaning of the second definition in the recording?

    A) Jet-ski
    B) Tide
    C) Coral
    D) Wet

3) What is the meaning of the third definition in the recording?

    A) Cape
    B) Wave
    C) Hermit crab
    D) Island

4) What is the meaning of the fourth definition in the recording?

    A) Seagull
    B) Shark
    C) Wharf
    D) Relax

5) What is the meaning of the fifth definition in the recording?

    A) Low tide
    B) Swimming cap
    C) Bay
    D) Undertow

Score =

Correct answers:

Exercise 3 – Listening Comprehension

In the next ESL at the beach listening exercise you need to listen to the following recording of a passage and then answer the questions about it. Then there is the get score button so you can see how you did.

At the end of this page you will find a link that you can click to show the full text of the passage so you can look at it and check your understanding of the spoken passage.

ESL at the Beach Listening Comprehension

Listen to the recording of the passage about at the beach above and answer the following five questions.

1) How much plastic trash is being washed into the oceans every year?

    A) Ten thousand tons.
    B) Ten million tons.
    C) Eight thousand tons.
    D) Eight million tons.

2) What is the main source of beach pollution?

    A) Plastic trash.
    B) Solid waste.
    C) Sewage sludge.
    D) Oil spill.

3) What is the danger of beach pollution for sea animals?

    A) Polluted water can poison sea animals.
    B) Solid waste can be eaten by sea animals.
    C) Sea animals can be choked by plastic rings.
    D) Sea animals can be killed if drinking sea water.

4) What is the effect of beach pollution on human health?

    A) It can cause infection.
    B) It can cure illness.
    C) It is harmful.
    D) It contains viruses and bacteria.

5) What can be done to prevent beach pollution?

    A) Not swimming at the beach.
    B) Not recycling your trash.
    C) Not smoking at the beach.
    D) Not throwing trash at the beach.

Score =

Correct answers:

Exercise 4 – Dictation

In the last ESL at the beach exercise you need to listen to the spoken passage in the following recording and then write it down exactly as it is in the recording. In the recording the passage is first spoken at a slow speaking speed and then again with pauses after every few words and the punctuation included.

There is also a link at the end of the page that you can click to show the text of this passage so you can check to see how well you did when writing it down for the dictation.

Listening Comprehension Passage
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Dictation Passage
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