British Council - LearnEnglish - Themes Podcasts

LearnEnglish Themes Podcasts are for learners at Intermediate to Advanced level and cover a large number of themes.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - April Fool's Day

Recently, a group of scientists and psychologists decided to try and find out what the funniest joke in the world was.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Circus

A good circus has always built its reputation on its ability to amaze and entertain and what could be more amazing than a flea circus? But does such a thing really exist and can fleas really be taught to perform circus tricks?

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Consumer society

"There is enough on earth for everybody's need, but not for everyone's greed." (Ghandi)

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Ecotourism

Nowadays, many of us try to live in a way that will damage the environment as little as possible and we want to take these attitudes on holiday with us. This is why alternative forms of tourism are becoming more popular all over the world.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Aviation

"Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others." (Amelia Earhart)

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Science

Linus Pauling was the only person who has ever won two (unshared) Nobel Prizes: for Chemistry in 1954 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Languages 2 (The Kernewek Success Story)

Cornish is a language that is listed as 'extinct' in the UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages but which has experienced a remarkable revival in recent years.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Space (Wormholes)

Have you ever seen the science fiction film 'Contact'? If you have, then you will remember the scene near the end of the film, when the heroine travels to the star Vega, twenty-six light years away from Earth, through a wormhole in space.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Awards

The Nobels are the originals, of course. Alfred Nobel, the man who invented deadly explosives, decided to try and do something good with all the money he earned, and gave prizes to people who made progress in literature, science, economics and – perhaps most importantly – peace.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Australia

Most countries have a unique piece of music that means something special to its people.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Jungles

A world like no other – perhaps this is the best way to describe the world of the rainforest.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Animal conservation

Far out into the ocean to the north and west of Britain are the cold wild islands of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Nursing

The most famous nurse of all time must be Florence Nightingale, but have you heard of Mary Seacole?

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Physical education

School days are supposed to be the best days of your life and part of that experience usually involves some strenuous physical activity.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Universities

More than a quarter of the working population of the USA has one. Cairo, Bologna, and Paris have been offering them the longest. And you can now supposedly get them by sitting at home at a computer. What am I talking about? A university education, of course.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Magic

From the witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth, to Gandalf the Wizard in Lord of the Rings books and films, it is clear that the idea of magic has been around for many years.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Revolution

One of the causes of the problems in Russia's sad history in the 20th century was the use of imported words which people didn't fully understand. “Revolution� (or the Russian word “revolyutsia�) was one of these.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Disability

Nowadays in the “west� the able bodied are constantly reminded that disabled people have rights just like everyone else and they mustn't discriminate against them in any way.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Vice

March 2005: it's official – vice pays. And it's not even illegal.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Modern music

If you think that “A Bigger Bang� was their 25th album now the Rolling Stones have been around for more than 40 years, and that singer Mick Jagger, guitarist Keith Richards and the other musicians are all well into their 60s, and are all grandfathers, it starts to look a bit strange.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Physics

In the square outside the British Library in London is a sculpture of Sir Isaac Newton - The first man who asked why apples seem always to fall towards the centre of the earth.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Collecting things

My grandmother had a beautiful elephant carved out of sandalwood on her dressing table which I secretly used to covet.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Disarmament

Britain has the most severe gun control laws in the world. Handguns or pistols are banned for civilians, even for sports purposes.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Treasure

When I was a young girl living in Ireland, I was always pleased when it rained, because that meant I could go treasure hunting.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Food

Do we live to eat or eat to live? That is the question.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Postal systems

For as long as humans have existed there has been a need to keep in touch, to transfer information between people in different places.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Nigeria

I don't think that coincidences have any special meaning most of the time – but in this case it is an example of the power of music to tell you things that are impossible to find out any other way.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Water Sports

All over the world people head for oceans, lakes, pools and rivers in search of fun, freedom and excitement. On the water, in the water or under the water, there are a huge range of sports and activities available to lovers of H2O.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Papua New Guinea

Why New Guinea? One of the first Europeans to arrive in the 16th century from Portugal thought the country resembled Guinea in West Africa.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Alternative medicine

"If all the medicine in the world were thrown into the sea, it would be bad for the fish and good for humanity" O.W. Holmes.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Cultural heritage

If you think about World Heritage Sites, you probably think of places associated with ancient art and culture, historical buildings and monuments.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Death

Death is something that everybody has in common. We are all born, we all live and we all die.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Venomous Animals

Find out about 5 of the most deadly animals in Australia: the sea wasp, the funnelweb spider, the fierce snake, the blue-ringed octopus and the cone shell.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - India

Question: Where do pyjamas, yoga, curry, gurus and Bollywood films, come from?

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Indigenous peoples

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children (Native American proverb)

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Parts of the Body

There are 50 trillion cells in the human body, 206 bones, 32 teeth, and more than five and a half litres of blood.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Beaches

Imagine a beach; a quiet place, with only the noise of the sea and the gulls in the background.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Charities

A charity is a non profit making organisation that raises money for people in need. These days there are thousands of charities round the world and it is possible to donate money to help people, animals and places.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Overpopulation

"I come from the south of England, in the most densely-populated corner of a small island, which, you might think, is full of people."

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Town or Country - Town or country mouse?

Once upon a time, there were two mice cousins. One lived in the town and the other in the country.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Drugs - QAT: To Chew or Not To Chew

Visitors to countries around the Horn of Africa should be prepared for an extraordinary sight. This will be of a man with one great big swollen cheek bulging out, as if a tennis ball has been inserted into it, green teeth and a far away look in his eyes.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Deserts - The Oasis of Siwa

"Only the desert has a fascinationto ride alonein the sun in the foreverunpossessed countryaway from man. That is a great temptation." (DH Lawrence)

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Conspiracies

Are you convinced that your government is in contact with UFOs? Do you think that President Kennedy was the victim of more than one assassin?

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Environment

Which form of energy is free during the day, produces no dangerous waste products and will be available for the next 4 billion years? Solar power, of course.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Peacekeeping

Wherever there is conflict in the world and enemies have agreed to let a third party or neutral force come in to try and maintain the peace, it is usually the familiar blue helmets of the United Nations that we see on the scene.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Biodiversity - The Eden Project

In 1999, Tim Smit, an ex-rock musician and record producer, borrowed the name of the biblical garden for a collection of space-age domes in a corner of southwest England - the Eden Project.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Information Society - Viral Marketing

In 1998 Iconocast gave the award for Internet marketing buzzword of the year to the term 'viral marketing', but what does it really mean?

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Cryptology

Dbo zpv sfbe uijt? Jut b tfdsfu dpef! If you dont understand that, it is because I wrote it in a secret code.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Books

This is a story about how I stopped watching TV and began reading again for pleasure, after ten years in which I hardly turned a page.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Agriculture

When you think of animal farming, cows, sheep, goats, horses, pigs, chickens and ducks probably come to mind.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Health

An HIV/AIDS success story: Number of people living with HIV/AIDS in 2004: 39.4 million. Deaths from Aids in 2004: 4.9 million. Children (under 15) with Aids by end of 2004: 2.2 million.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Jokes

It is better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. Mark Twain (famous humorist)

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Weather

It's hardly surprising that weather is a favourite topic for so many people around the world - it affects where we choose to live, what we wear, our moods, and perhaps even our national characteristics.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Ireland

Saint Patrick's Day. St. Patricks Day is a very well known Irish national holiday, which is celebrated not only in Ireland but all around the world on the 17th of March.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - The Commonwealth

11 March is Commonwealth Day. The Commonwealth, is an association of independent sovereign states, almost all of which are former territories of the British Empire.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Women's rights

Sojourner Truth. The name Sojourner may be familiar to you. It was the name of the wheeled robot that was sent on the expedition to Mars in 1997 to explore the surface of the planet.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Wales

Wales and St. David. "Gwnewch y pethau bychain = Do the little things (that you have seen me do and heard about)"

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Languages

The Meaning of Tingo. "I recently found a book by the writer Adam Jacot de Boinod called The Meaning Of Tingo. As a native speaker of English, I was a bit confused. I had never heard of this word tingo, and was curious about the title of the book."

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Board Games

Little Wooden Armies. 1500 years ago a king in India named Kaid, who had built a huge empire, was sick at heart. He called his minister, Sassa, to him and said : Day and night I think about my past battles, I dream of conquests and invasions, I cant sleep for thinking about imaginary wars and victories. But I have no more enemies, and it is a sin to make war without cause. What can I do to regain my peace of mind?

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - New Zealand

New Zealand: two islands where old meets new. Tucked away in the Pacific Ocean, here the sun seems to slip more slowly across the sky, perhaps thanks to Maui, a legendary Maori demi-god, whose magic fishing net caught the sun.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Classical music

Everything you (n)ever wanted to know about Mozart. Did you know that Mozart was a keen and skilful billiard player? Or that he had a slight deformity of his left ear, usually kept covered by his wig?

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Word Play

How to Play With Words. "This paragraph is not ordinary. Look at it. At first, it wont look too odd. Just a normal paragraph - you may think. But look at it again and you might find it a bit unusual. Just a tiny bit. Whats wrong with it, you may ask?"

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Telephony

Mobile phones. When Scotsman Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, it was a revolution in communication.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Pilgrims

There are many legends surrounding the pilgrims. In fact they were real people: English men and women who wanted to escape the religious controversies and economic problems of their time by emigrating to America.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Names

Shakespeare told us that a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet. But is that true? Are names important?

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Christmas

Christmas is one of those holidays which means very different things to different people.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Twins

What do the singer Alanis Morissette, the supermodel Gisele Bundchen and the ex-Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, all have in common?

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Human Rights

Chimpanzees, and the other great apes - gorillas, orang-utans and bonobos (pygmy chimps) - are always one of the favourite attractions in any zoo. There seems little doubt that the main reason for this is because they are so similar to us, and the more "human" their behaviour, the more the visitors to the zoo enjoy themselves.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Gambling

Human beings have spent large amounts of money trying to beat the laws of probability for centuries.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Scotland

The Sick Man of Europe? "We Scots get a bad press for our lifestyles, to say the least. Some years ago, Jack McConnell, First Minister of the Scottish Parliament, called us 'one of the most unhealthy countries in Europe,' with a culture of 'lack of exercise, drugs abuse, excessive drinking and over eating.'"

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Assassination

"My heart burnt within me with indignation and grief; we could think of nothing else ... Every one is feeling the same. I never knew so universal a feeling." (Elizabeth Gaskell 1865)

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Extra Sensory Perception

Some believe that we all have the ability of ESP to some degree but that most of us choose not to develop it.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Computers

Computer games have been criticised for quite some time over a whole range of issues. Some people say they are overly violent and encourage violent behaviour particularly in children. Others say that they make children hyperactive, unsociable and are bad for their eyes. Now, however, it seems that computer games have also become a feminist issue.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Staple foods

Feeding the world - why we need rice : Rice is low-fat and high in energy, and you can mix it with just about anything to make a wide variety of tasty nutritious dishes. Ask anyone from any country in the world to tell you their favourite rice recipe and you will get a wide selection, ranging from sushi in Japan to risottos in northern Italy.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Food

Food "When I was at school, our teacher told the class You are what you eat. My friends and I would laugh and call each other hamburger and biscuits. Our teacher was trying to show us the importance of eating the right food to stay healthy."

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Disasters

Natural disasters take many different forms and can happen without warning. Earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, drought, typhoons and hurricanes are all natural disasters.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Old Age

Building bridges. "Being old is when you know all the answers but nobody asks you the questions." (Anonymous)

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Rescue

Rescue at Sea - the RNLI : "Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, For those in peril on the sea!"

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Peace Symbols

"The concept of peace is a very important one in cultures all over the world. Think about how we greet people. In some languages, the phrases for greetings contain the word for peace."

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Literacy

"Ive written this article and youre reading it. So we are members of the same club. Were both literate - we can read and write."

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Space

The moon: As the brightest and biggest thing in the night sky, the moon has inspired music, poetry and stories for centuries. Federico Garcia Lorca wrote a ballad about it. Debussy composed a piece for piano. Frank Sinatra wanted someone to fly him there.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Festivals

There are festivals going on somewhere in the world every day of the year. We have selected a few of the more unusual, colourful festivals from around the world.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Slavery

Slavery is the idea that a human is someones property, that he/she can be bought, sold and owned; and forced to work without being paid. This concept has been around for thousands of years and all major civilizations used slaves at some point.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Youth Culture

Student power: when most people think of strikes, they think of factory workers asking for better pay and conditions, or perhaps refusing to work to support a colleague who has been unfairly sacked.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Olympic Games

In 2004 the Olympic Games returned to its home in Greece, where it began around 3000 years ago. The first recorded Olympic festival took place in 776 BC. Similar festivals had been organised for at least two or three centuries prior to this, but 776 BC saw the start of a regular festival which was to take place every Olympiad, or four year period.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Transport

Railways are not a modern invention as most of us think. The idea of transporting things and people on rails has been around for a long time.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Home

Accidents: we all know that chainsaws are very dangerous - in Britain 1207 people had to visit hospitals after accidents with chainsaws in 1999. However, in the same year, 16,662 people more than twelve times as many - were injured by their sofa!

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Animals

Read/listen to some facts about animals that will amaze you. Then try and read between the lines to answer the questions.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Cooperatives

The idea of the co-operative is one of the greatest British inventions. To be more exact, it all began with a small shop in Toad Lane, Rochdale in Lancashire.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Canada

"Like most people I suppose, I know the USA from watching American films. I think my view of Canada is nearly the same, the only problem is that you cant see much of Canada in American films."

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Refugees

A refugee, defined by the United Nations, is a person who is unable or unwilling to return to their country because of a well-founded fear of persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or because they belong to a particular social group.

LearnEnglish Podcasts - Themes - Sea Monsters

Question: What animal is over 30 feet long, has a big head, enormous eyes, a mane like a lion, a long neck, a body like a snake and lots of arms like an octopus? Answer: Nobody knows.

Dernière mise à jour : 17/06/2013 @ 08:44