Listen story English for kid

Storytelling is one of the most ancient traditions around the world, and chances are youve been asking to hear stories and telling your own stories ever since you learned to speak.

Just as listening to stories is one of the main ways we learn our first language as children, listening to stories in a second language like English can help us take our language skills to the next level.

Stories provide a fun and interesting way to learn Englishand, fortunately, there are some amazing free resources online where you can listen to all kinds of tales.

In this post, youll findeight of the best online resources to use when you want to listen to English stories!

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How to Learn by Listening to English Stories

There are plenty ofmethods you can use to get more out of yourEnglish listening time.

For starters, you can listen to the same story multiple times. Repetition is a great way toimprove understanding and memorization ofimportant English wordsand concepts.

Try just focusing on the main idea of the story the first time you listen to it. See if you can decipher (figure out) what the theme or main plot of the story is about.

Then, when you listen a second time, practice listening for specific details. One way to do this is to complete fill-in-the-blank exercises while you listen. This activity will help you train your ear to catch specific words that are being said.

If youre someone who prefers writing things down, then take notes while you listen to the story. Jot down (write down) things that you think are important to the story or words that you didnt understand and plan to look up later.

Along those same lines, keeping a vocabulary journal can be extremely helpful when youre learning a language. As you listen to these stories, you should be expanding your vocabulary. Keeping a journal of new words allows you to refer back to them if you need more practice and provides you with a physical way to assess your progress during your listening time.

Lastly, after youve listened to the story a few times, download the transcript (written text of the story) and read it. (Several of our resources below come with transcripts built-in.) You can either do this on your own or read along while listening to the audio recording of the story again. This will ensure that you understand exactly what youre hearing and willclear up anywords or phrases you dont know how to spell.

Now that youre equipped (set) with the tools you need, its time to get started listening to English stories with the following eight amazing websites!

Listen to English Stories on 8 Wonderful Websites

Storynory

Storynory is a truly amazing website that offers free audio stories. Their stories are divided by genre, including fairy tales, classics, myths and legends, poems, original stories and more.

Every audio recording is accompanied by a transcript that you can review, and some stories even offer related educational material for further practice.

The site was originally created for kids, but its great for adults learning English as well because all of the material is level appropriate.

Storynory offers both shorter stories that you can get through in one sitting and longer chapter books or stories, like L. Frank Baums The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, that are often divided into separate recordings or by chapters.

I recommend beginning with the first Baskervilles story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle entitled Mr. Sherlock Holmes. If you like this classic, youre in luck, as Storynory has uploaded tons of Sherlock Holmes tales to the site. This first story of the series is read in a clear voice that should be easy for English learners to understand.

FluentU

FluentU takes authentic videoslike music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talksand turns them into personalized language learning lessons.

You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Click here to check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.

Try FluentU for FREE!

I recommend beginning with Crazy News Stories first, which tells several real-life news stories about wild animals and flooding. The stories are brief and incorporate easier vocabulary that shouldnt be too difficult to understand.

Learn English Through Story

Learn English Through Story is a YouTube channel thats specifically designed for English learners. As such, stories are read clearly and slowly and are appropriate for ESL listeners.

Stories come in a variety of types, including smaller tales like The Three Little Pigs or longer books like Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.

If you dont want to listen to classics or short pieces of fiction, the channel also records nonfiction story segments on real places, people, traditions and more.

Each story contains the written text on the screen as its read, so you can follow along if you choose or just check your comprehension afterward. Each story is also categorized by level, which means that you can find exactly what works for you.

If youre in the mood for a longer book, I recommend starting with the recording of Lewis CarrollsAlices Adventures in Wonderlandbecause chances are, youre probably already familiar with the story. Having prior (previous) knowledge of a book can help you follow the English version better.

Digitalbook

Digitalbook is a site that offers tons of free audiobooks for English learners to download or listen to directly on the site.

It has both classic novels like Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and shorter tales like The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, so whether you want a bigger listening project or some shorter practice, theres something for you.

Digitalbook provides a synopsis (summary) of each story and the corresponding English level so you know exactly what to expect.

Try starting with the recording of Bram Stokers Dracula, which is written in epistolary form (meaning its written as a series of letters and journal entries). This can be a nice way for English learners to break up the content and focus on just one letter or journal entry at a time.

StoryCorps

StoryCorps is a project created by an organization that interviews Americans from all types of backgrounds to find out their stories.

You can listen to different people telling stories about their lives, which exposes you to a wide range of accents and vocabulary. You can find stories based on themes, such as military, LGBTQ or African American history.

Typically, these stories range anywhere from a few minutes to 12 minutes long, so theyre short enough to listen to in one sitting.

Many of the stories are accompanied by beautiful animations, photographs or other neat visuals.

I recommend starting with a story called The Treasures of Mrs. Gradys Library. Its about a man who used to steal library books as a teenager because he didnt want his friends to know he liked reading.

The story is truly beautiful, and though it may be a bit more difficult for English learners to understand due to the mans thick Southern accent (hes from Arkansas), its definitely worth listening to. The beautiful animations make it easier to follow than it would be otherwise.

Stories to Grow by

This site was originally created for kids, which means that the English level is simple enough and also appropriate for ESL learners.

Stories to Grow by offers free audiobooks of classic fairy tales and fables and provides transcripts of each recording.

The stories are usually around 15 minutes long and dont require any preparation ahead of time.

Try starting with the classic story called The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, a tale about a sweet toy that becomes real. The story is only about seven minutes long and uses vocabulary thats easy to understand.

Open Culture

Open Culture has an enormous list of free audiobooks divided into three categories: fiction & literature, poetry and nonfiction.

Each list is sorted by authors names, so its easy to find whatever youre looking for. Their content includes longer books, shorter stories, fables and more.

The list tells you exactly how each audiobook is available (through iTunes, Spotify, streaming, mp3 download, etc.), and some of these great stories are even read aloud by their original author.

For beginners, I recommend starting with a childrens book like Margaret Wise Browns Goodnight Moon.It features super simple sentence structure and vocabulary and uses repetition to make learning easier.

Easy Stories in English

Easy Stories in English is another site created specifically for ESL learners. The stories are divided into four different levels so you can easily find what you need.

Transcripts of the stories are available, and the site has both shorter stories and longer books or stories divided by chapters so that each recording is no longer than about 15 minutes.

Intermediate learners can begin with a story like The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe. Not only is this a classic short story thatll add some fantastic vocabulary to your knowledge, but the audio introduction to the story will also explain certain vocabulary words that youll need to know ahead of time.

To make a long story short, you now have all the resources you need to go out and listen to some fantastic English stories!

Camille Turner is an experienced writer, editor and ESL teacher.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)