ESL Listening Activities

ESL listening activities are very important when you are learning to speak and listen to English.

There is plenty of material available to help students learn English grammar and to have reading comprehension practice, but there are not so many activities when learning how to speak and listen to English.

However, these are the skills that many students need the most help with. Listening to a native speaker or having a conversation with one are very much all or nothing situations. You are either able to understand the native speaker or not. If you cannot understand it is very difficult to practice and improve your abilities so that in the future you are able to communicate with a native speaker.

This page provides a range of material to help you improve your ESL listening skills. You will be able to listen to a native speaker speaking and try to understand what is being said.

ESL Listening Comprehension

The first type of activities are ESL listening comprehension activities. In these I have recorded a passage being spoken and you have to answer questions about the passage.

Each passage will be related to a specific topic, and elsewhere on this site other information, such as flashcards and example conversations has been provided about that topic. So to can find lots of other activities or material to review before attempting the listening comprehension if you need to polish your understanding.

There are listening comprehensions that are aimed at ESL students of different abilities: some for beginners, intermediates or advanced learners.

Spoken Vocabulary Lists

The second type of resource on this page are spoken vocabulary lists. These lists of vocabulary on a range of topics are also presented in the vocabulary section of this site and as flashcards, both with definition of the words to help you learn the new vocabulary.

In this section the spoken vocabulary lists just contain the vocabulary words as they would be spoken and pronounced by a native speaker. Being able to hear the vocabulary pronounced by a native speaker will help you improve your ESL listening comprehension when doing ESL listening activities.

Listen to the lists and get used to how the words sound.

ESL Listening Topics

ESL Banking Listening - Listening practice for the banking vocabulary with exercises.

ESL Doctors Listening - Exercises to help you learn and be able to understand the spoken ESL doctors vocabulary.

ESL Meeting Someone New Listening - Listening practice with exercises for the meeting someone new vocabulary.

ESL Halloween Listening - Activities and exercises where you need to listen to Halloween vocabulary and answer questions.

ESL Pets Listening - Tasks to help you understand the spoken pets vocabulary. 

ESL Weather Listening - Exercises so you can practicing listening to weather vocabulary.

ESL Shopping Listening - Listening practice so you can learn shopping vocabulary. 

ESL Travel Listening - Activities and exercises to help you get better at listening to travel vocabulary.

ESL Clothes Listening - Tasks about clothes to help you understand the spoken vocabulary.

ESL Sport Listening - Listening practice with exercises so you can learn sport vocabulary. 

ESL Legal Listening - Exercises for you to practice listening to legal vocabulary.

ESL Driving Listening - Tasks to help you practice listening to spoken English vocabulary about driving, cars and transport.

ESL Work Listening - Listening activities for you to do so you get better at understanding spoken work vocabulary.

ESL Eating Out Listening - Activities for you to do about understanding spoken eating out vocabulary.

ESL Houses Listening - Listening tasks for you to do so you will get better at understanding the houses vocabulary when it is spoken.

ESL Taking a Trip Listening - Tasks related to taking a trip vocabulary being spoken so you can listen to the words.

ESL Family Members Listening - Listening exercises that will help you get better at understanding the spoken family members vocabulary.

ESL Party Listening - Activities about listening to party vocabulary so you will understand it better.

ESL Christmas Listening - A page with recordings of Christmas vocabulary being used so you can get better at understanding it.

ESL University Listening - This page has listening tasks for you to do that will help you learn the university vocabulary.

ESL at the Beach Listening - Tasks for you to do so you can practice listening to the at the beach vocabulary. 

ESL Supermarket Listening - On this page there are several tasks to do to practice listening to spoken supermarket vocabulary. 

ESL Birthday Listening - On this page there are a range of listening tasks all about listening to birthday vocabulary. 

ESL Hotel Listening - There are several activities on this page about listening to hotel vocabulary that will help you get better at using English.

ESL Cities Listening - Listening practice tasks to help you ;learn cities vocabulary.

ESL  Describing People Listening - A page with recordings of spoken describing people vocabulary and exercises for you to do.

ESL Cooking Listening - Activities all about listening to cooking vocabulary being spoken by a native English speaker. 

ESL School Listening - Tasks for you to do that all all about listening to spoken school vocabulary. 

ESL Baby Listening - Recordings and exercises all about listening to spoken baby vocabulary. 

ESL Politics Listening - Various tasks with recordings of a native English speaker so you can practice listening to politics vocabulary. 

ESL New Year Listening - Activities all about using and listening to New Year vocabulary.