What's the weather like in your country? In the UK, the weather is usually quite awful so people like to talk about the weather a lot! As a result, we use many different words and phases to talk about the weather.
A good way to learn weather vocabulary is to watch the weather report. Now you can go to YouTube and find the different reports from all over the world. Choose the accent you want to learn: American, Australian, British, etc.
Let's see how you can practise vocabulary, listening and pronunciation. Listen to this weather report of the UK (see below).
Lower Level Students:
Listen to the different words he uses and write down the words.
Click on the subtitles/closed captions. Read and listen again. Are your words correct? Spelling correct?
Listen again and find the adjectives, nouns, verbs for the weather words.
Higher level Students:
Listen to the phrases that are used. What adjectives are used with the weather words (nouns)? Are any verbs used?
How do they pronounce the words and link them together?
How are the phrases used in a sentence?
Transcribing (for high level)
A good way to practise your listening, vocabulary and speaking is to transcribe what you hear. Transcribing means you write down EVERYTHING you hear.
Listen without the subtitles.
Write down every word you hear - all the sentences.
Stop the video, go back as many times as you need so you can write the whole script.
When you are happy with what you have written, switch on the subtitles and check.
Then read the script. Copy how the weatherman pronounces the words and links the sounds together.
Vocabulary list from the video clip:
truly awful weather
strong winds
heavy rain
torrential rain
gale force winds
winds easing down