In the modern world, a person who does not know or at least does not want to learn English is considered simply uneducated. Too many methods have been invented to comprehend languages and gnaw through the granite of English grammar for a beginner to navigate this wide variety of ways, different schools, courses, textbooks and video lessons. Let's deal with one of these methods - learning English through listening to radio stations - we will analyze the pros and cons of radio in English.
Pros and cons
The pros and cons of radio for learning a foreign language seem to be obvious. Let's take a closer look.
On the one hand, pluses can be called:
- Constant listening comprehension, which is considered one of the first and most important requirements of learning a spoken language;
- you can choose any time that is convenient for you to listen to the radio, from cooking in the kitchen to playing sports and drivingpublic transport;
- the ability to select a radio station according to your own taste and interests;
- the ability to vary the duration of daily activities and control your vocabulary of English words and phrases;
- pros of radio as mass media - with a high advanced level of knowledge of the English language, you can easily and quickly learn the news of foreign media.
But there are downsides to radio in English:
- it is not always possible to understand what they say on the radio station, especially for a beginner in learning a particular foreign language;
- Speaking on the radio can often sound like just incomprehensible mumbling;
- it's hard to tune your gadget to an English radio station;
- it takes a long time to adjust to a fast radio conversation and learn to understand something in it.
How to listen to the radio to learn English?
There are also principles for learning English with the help of radio stations:
- Permanence, that is, you need daily classes, if you can call it that.
- It is enough to devote 15-30 minutes a day to listening to the station, so that soon the advantages of radio in English will be quite clearly manifested.
- Don't stop listening to the radio after the first days if you can't make out fast speech, in learning a language it is useful to listen to conversations on different topics with different timbres and speed of speech - the effect of complete immersion in a foreign environment.
- Prosradio as a source of a living spoken language capable of forming the correct pronunciation (and this is the most important thing, along with knowing a sufficient number of words) and significantly increasing vocabulary, are obvious.
- Even if you don't understand most of what they say from the headphones, listen anyway, in time you will understand everything and the incomprehensible will become obvious.
- But the advantages of the radio will not replace the understanding of the grammar and syntax of the language being studied - read from time to time dictionaries of English words, phrasebooks, grammar reference books and other literature.
- If your receiver is unable to tune into English-speaking stations, try listening to them over the internet.
English radio
As well as a variety of favorite books, there is a wide range of radio stations to find something to your liking, a topic that will pique your interest and motivate you to take action and learn. For example, if you like sports, turn on sports radio and listen to sports broadcasts. For fans of pop music, opera, political and not only news or audiobooks, there is also a wave!
English radio stations
So, when the advantages of radio in English are obvious, it remains only to find the right radio station. And here it is necessary to be guided only by your wishes and interests, because, ultimately, what you listen to should interest and motivate you to study or improve your level of knowledge of the English language.
List of popular radio stations in English:
- BBC World Service – Broadcasts daily news and cultural programs as well as interviews with prominent politicians, journalists, artists and artists.
- Words in News - a selection of weekly extraordinary news.
- BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 1Xtra are music radio stations aimed at target audiences from young to older generations.
- Audio Book Radio - Read audio literature, including classic fiction and young writers.
- BBC Radio 4 is a talk radio broadcasting a wide variety of programs by topic, including quizzes, news and politics.
- Voice Of America Learning English - radio programs are designed for listeners from the initial level of knowledge of the language (slow pronunciation), characterized by broadcasting American English.
- TED Talks - radio podcasts, talks and interviews.
Advanced Radios
These options are suitable for advanced English learners:
- Real Life English – taught by professors from English-speaking universities, hear slang from American to Australian.
- BBC English at Work - business English, you can learn the business level of the language, office conversational structures and basic business vocabulary.
- Business English Pod is another business English radio station at the fluency level.
Kids radio stations
The best way to teach your child English is to include songs, fairy tales, poems, theater plays in English. This also shows the advantages of radio. Indeed, on children's radio stations, the selection of materials and the speed of speech are adjusted precisely for the perception of young listeners.
Little by little, the baby will get used to foreign speech and begin to perceive it as part of his life.
You can try Luke's English Podcast - interesting programs for learning British English.
