You can take a short quiz about this video, and learn some vocabulary at esolcourses.com. Most lessons on this site are British-English, but several are American-English.
Category Archives: Listening
Kanopy – Thousands of Free Movies
This is a new service from the Framingham Library. You can watch up to 5 free movies each month – at home, or on your phone with the Kanopy App.
Classic movies, international movies, educational movies (including learning English), and lots of movies for kids too. All you need is a Framingham library card. If you don’t live in Framingham, you can check here if your library also has this service. Or – you can check to see at your own library if they have Kanopy, or other services with movies, such as Hoopla or Overdrive.
Dictation
Dictation is listening to someone speaking and then trying to write what you hear.
Practicing dictation can help improve your:
- English listening skills
- Grammar
- Writing and Punctuation
- Spelling
- Speaking and pronunciation (if you speak the words you hear – out loud – while you’re writing it)
The EnglishClub website has a good collection of dictation exercises, at 3 different levels of difficulty. Here’s an example:
1. Listen to the dictation at normal speed (just listen; don’t try to write it).
2. Listen again at slow speed and try to write/type what your hear (with a smartphone, you need to use paper).
Include capitalization and punctuation.
3. Listen again at slow speed if you need to.
4. Listen at normal speed for a last check.
5. When you’re ready, click/press Show Answer and compare the answer to your writing.
(The mailbox is just behind the big water fountain.)
YouGlish – Listen to “Real” Pronunciation
Are there words – or groups of words – that are are especially difficult for you to pronounce, or understand, in English? “uncomfortable”; “sixth”; “how much does this cost”; “what are you going to do”?
On YouGlish.com you can type in those words, and then listen to how they are said – as part of conversation – by many different people in YouTube videos. Try it below. (Press the 
button to go to the next video.)
Libby
Reading books and listening to audiobooks is an excellent and enjoyable way to improve your English. Did you know that you can borrow eBooks and audiobooks (with thousands of choices) – for free – right on your phone or tablet? All you need is a library card from your local library, and the new Libby app from OverDrive.
If you live in Massachusetts, you don’t even need to visit the library to get a card. You can get a free eCard from the Boston Public Library.
After you enter your library card number in the app, you can borrow ebooks or audiobooks. There are also some “Read Along” books (mostly kids’ books) that you can listen to while you read.
YouTube – Finding English Grammar Lessons
There are SO many videos on YouTube that can help you improve your English grammar (and much more!). Search for a video lesson about anything you want to study. You can start by searching for: beginner English grammar.
You will see many choices for videos. Which one should you watch?
Look at: 
- How much time the video takes – 5 minutes? 30 minutes? 2 hours?
- How many people watched (viewed) the video
(1.3M = 1.3 Million = 1,300,000)
(14K = 14 Thousand = 14,000) - When was the video put on YouTube – 2 weeks ago? 8 years ago?
If you have a problem with something specific, watch some lessons on that. On YouTube, search for English past tense (or ESL past tense); or ESL verb to be; or ESL auxiliary verbs; or quoted and reported speech (direct and indirect speech).
When you find a video you like, you can look for more videos by the same people. Many people have a “channel” – a group of their videos – that you can go to on YouTube. Examples of some good YouTube channels for English learners are: Jennifer ESL, EngVid, and Rachel’s English.
Numbers!
EnglishNumber.com is a very good little website to help you learn and practice… English numbers!
Small numbers, large numbers, and numbers of all kinds – such as the name of years (2018), months, dates, fractions, math equations, decimals, and percentages.
There are listening exercises where you can see if you understand the numbers correctly.
This works best on your computer, but it mostly works on your phone/tablet.
Enjoy a Free Movie Outside
Lots of free movies will be shown outside this summer all around MetroWest and Greater Boston. Movies usually begin at sundown. If the weather is “iffy”, it’s good to check for cancellations before you go.
Here are some locations with outdoor movie nights this summer:
- Hopedale Movie Night
Hopedale Town Park – Corner of Freedom and Dutcher Streets - Hopkinton Movies on the Common
Hopkinton Common, 1 Main Street - Boston – Hatch Shell on the Esplanade – Free Friday Flicks every Friday
Pretty location along the Charles River, big screen, lots of space, lots of people
Movies start around 8; Games before that starting at 6:00 - Wellesley – Summer Films outside at the Davis Museum, Wellesley College
Free museum tours, art activities, free ice cream starting at 7PM - Boston – Sunday Movies at Christopher Columbus Park
Beautiful park in Boston’s North End along the water
[Full Schedule] - Boston – Saturday Night Movies at the Prudential Center (at the South Garden)
Children’s activities start at 6PM - More at Boston Central’s Summer Movie Guide