Can Learn English is a Canadian content, "Canadian English" website hosted by a Canadian teacher named Dana (a TESOL trained and qualified teacher). You'll find a YouTube channel with well-produced videos, a Facebook page, podcasts, free E-textbook, and also an Academy: Online courses with academic lessons referenced to the CLBs. Intended for intermediate/advanced learners: Choose from a variety of courses starting at $10.
ESL Talk is a podcast produced by Daniel Shaw who interviews ESL teachers on a variety of aspects of practice. Recent episodes include topics such as: Fears and Competition in the ESL industry; Teaching Subjects and Extracurricular Classes to Students; Bolstering Vocabulary with Teacher Talk; Building Cultural Awareness; and Writing and Publishing ESL Content. The podcast is intended for current and prospective English language teachers, as well as content creators, and educators in general, with the goal of providing “strategies, techniques, advice, and skills to help you improve as a teacher and to be more effective both inside and outside the classroom”. All episodes are clearly labelled and can be listened to directly through the website, without installing a podcast app. The site also includes teaching resources (sample lesson plans), some of which are available at no cost, while others are fee-based. Additionally, educators are able to indicate their interest in being a guest on the podcast, by suggesting a topic and providing information about their expertise on the topic.
Added July, 2023
Lingthusiasm is an outstanding podcast about linguistics in general. You can choose episodes by topics such as phonetics, morphology, phonology, syntax and more! For example, in Episode 13: What Does it Mean to Sound Black?, the host Gretchen McCulloch interviews Dr. Nicole Holliday, an Assistant Professor of linguistics at Pomona College about her work on the speech of American black/biracial young men, prosody and intonation, and what it means to sound black.
This highly engaging podcast is hosted by an English language learner: Daniel Goodson, a German speaker from Switzerland. He interviews linguistics scholars, polyglots, travelers and other English language learners to discuss, tips, challenges, vocabulary, accents, motivation and research. His podcasts are accompanied by a blog and links to his social media accounts. The episodes could be used as listening exercises to prompt in-class discussion, or as inspiration to create a class podcast.
Public Legal Education (PLE) Learning Exchange of Ontario has produced a series of 4 podcasts with accompanying CLB lesson plans and assessments. The podcasts vary in length from 15 to 20 minutes and cover common problems for newcomers, such tenant and workplace issues. In each episode, the host interviews a legal expert who provides advice. The podcasts are suitable for CLB 6 and higher.
This free podcast on Linguistic Discrimination is available through the Radio Public app (a free download through Google Play or the App Store). You can also listen to it directly through your browser at https://vocalfriespod.com/. Transcripts for most episodes are also available.
The creators provide a list of topics that are ideal for the classroom including the following:
1) Why foreign accents are judged harshly
2) Accent and Identity
3) Bilingual Brains
4) Black English
and
5) "Rez" English.
