English Central

Are you looking for a website where you can practice your English listening and speaking skills while watching real-life video clips? Then you might be interested in English Central!

Unlike many of the websites I've reviewed, you will need to register to use this website, but it is free! And if you want instructions in Spanish or a few other foreign languages, just click on the drop-down menu under "English" at the very top of the home page.

So let's talk about how to register. At the home page (see above), click on the "Student" button under "Register. It's Free!" Once you do that, you need to supply your user name (it doesn't have to be your real name), your email address, and a password of your choice. Once you enter these, you will get to a registration page (see below) asking for your main interest. This will determine what videos English Central offers to you, but you can always choose others once you're registered.

Next, you will be asked what level you're at (see below). I suggest that you click on "Don't want to use any of those scales" and then select "Intermediate." Again, this does not restrict what you can watch at the website.

Finally, you will be asked to supply a little information about your country of residence, native language, and gender. You don't have to provide a photo to register!

Now you're registered and ready to use the website, so click on "Get Started!"

You'll be given lots of choices of videos to watch, so pick something that interests you. Since I love animals, I chose a TV story on a rescued puppy.

The great thing about English Central is what you can do when you watch a video. First, you can read all the words spoken on the video to help you understand it. If the dialogue is too fast, you can slow it down by clicking on the "Snail" button to the left of the video. If you don't understand the meaning of a word, or if you want to hear it pronounced again, just click on that word in the text box. If the video seems too hard (or too easy), you can find videos at a different level. There are 862 in all, and they are rated Easy, Medium, and Hard.

If your computer has a microphone, you can also practice your speaking. To the left of each text box, there is a red microphone button. Press on that and record yourself speaking the text in the box. Press on the button again to stop recording. After you have recorded a few lines, you will see your score above the video. I tried it and got an A+, but then I'm a native speaker :) I would be curious to know how you score!


English Central also has a premium membership which might be very helpful if you have a lot of time to study. I especially liked the Vocabulary section, but most of the content is available only if you have the premium membership. This costs $10 a month or $50 for six months. If you need to work on increasing your English vocabulary but have trouble studying on your own, this might be worth it!