Listening and speaking practice on this page is organized by unit, with each unit linking out to a set of lesson posts covering audio activities, discussion prompts, and speaking tasks. Scroll through the unit lists below to find a topic that matches what you are currently studying, or work through them in order if you are starting from the beginning.
UNIT 1
Each unit’s listening and speaking practice is meant to be used together rather than in isolation: listen to the linked audio or watch the linked clip first, then use the accompanying discussion questions to practice speaking about the same topic. This pairing mirrors how the two skills reinforce each other in real conversation, where understanding what someone says directly shapes how you respond.
If you are teaching a class rather than studying alone, most of these listening and speaking practice units work well as short warm-up activities: play the audio once, let students jot down key words, then open with one of the discussion questions before moving into the main lesson. For self-study, it usually helps to listen twice — once for general understanding and once more closely — before attempting the speaking prompts.
Progress through listening and speaking practice tends to be uneven at first, since listening comprehension often improves faster than confident speaking. That gap is normal. Revisiting a unit’s audio a second time after a week or two, once the vocabulary feels more familiar, usually makes the speaking half noticeably easier the second time around.
For extra listening material outside of these units, the British Council’s LearnEnglish listening section is a free, well-organized companion resource. If you have not yet looked at the Reading, Writing, Listening & Speaking hub this page belongs to, it is worth a visit to see how these units connect to the reading and writing side as well.
Not every unit needs to be completed in a single sitting. Listening and speaking practice tends to stick better when it is spaced out — a unit today, a review of the same vocabulary tomorrow, and a fresh unit a few days later — rather than working through several units back to back. If a particular unit’s topic feels unfamiliar, it can help to read a short summary of the topic first, then listen, so unfamiliar vocabulary is not the only new thing you are processing at once.
Parents or tutors supporting a learner at home can use these listening and speaking practice units as a light structure for weekly sessions: pick one unit, listen together, and take turns answering the discussion questions out loud rather than in writing. Speaking the answers, even briefly, builds a different kind of fluency than typing them would.
Classroom teachers adapting these listening and speaking practice units for larger groups often split the class into pairs for the speaking half, with each pair reporting one answer back to the group afterward. This keeps everyone talking during the activity itself, rather than only the more confident students, while still leaving time for a short whole-class discussion once pairs have compared notes.
As you move through more of this listening and speaking practice list, it is worth keeping a short running log of new vocabulary from each unit, even just a few words per session. Reviewing that log briefly before starting the next unit tends to save time overall, since recognizing a word from a previous unit is faster than encountering it as completely new material.
