BBC Learning English for ELT / ESL / EFL

BBC Learning English is a platform that makes people learn English and English culture by providing materials and videos. BBC's videos and equipment can be efficient in teaching English general knowledge and making students develop new skills.

How to use BBC Learning English?

Teachers can use the website, or they can download the application and use it from their mobile devices by creating accounts with their email addresses. Also, they can make their students use it at home to practice English with videos. Furthermore, this application has a decent feature in terms of notifying interesting subjects each day, and it may be helpful to trigger the urge to study English.

Where to use BBC Learning English?

In the application and on the website, there are different programs such as everyday English, business English, learning with news, learning with drama and English for children besides the basic language knowledge such as grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Business, drama, everyday English, and stories for children make students learn different specific vocabularies and grammatical points. With these programs, teachers can make a connection with students’ daily lives in the classroom and create an attractive platform for their students. For instance, while watching videos about news in the class, students can be familiar with the entire process of the news and learn different new things about the external world. Also, listening to children’s books and watching dramas can make them learn new things and develop better listening and reading skills. In addition to these, if teachers encourage their students to use this application at home, instead of giving boring worksheets, it can be a very efficient and fun way of self-learning for them.

 

Limitations

BBC Learning English includes British accents, so it may affect students who speak with other accents in terms of making them pronounce words like a British. Despite this, it allows students to understand British speakers by listening to their accents and seeing their pronunciations. I think it is very crucial to understand people who use the language differently to be able to communicate with everybody. In a nutshell, I do not mind listening to a British accent every day, but it may affect others poorly so, teachers should be careful about it.

Tips and Suggestions 

As I mentioned, some children's books waiting for teachers and students. If you are trying to teach English since you are here, reading my blog, you should go and use these children's books and take advantage of its vocabulary and grammatical points. I suggest that teachers should make their students try to read or listen to a book every day and take notes about new vocabulary and grammar. Also, you can give these stories to your students as homework and make them summarize the story or create a different ending in the story for fun. While reading or listening to the news and dramas or any topic on BBC, teachers should advise their students to see them not just from an educational perspective but also from a social perspective too. Students should try to learn new things from each video. You can make them do some searches after listening to the news or watching a drama and talk about it in the class. That way, they can be able to learn a language like a native and learn a new culture.