Where urban wildlife lives, what is destroying those habitats, and three things one person can do about it — an A2 listening.
Foxes, hedgehogs, red squirrels and otters live closer to us than most children think: in woodlands and hedgerows, in ponds and rivers, in school playgrounds and back gardens. This short listening explains what happens to those habitats as towns and cities grow — and it ends with three things a child can actually do about it.
The text is read slowly and most of it sits on vocabulary an A2 class already half knows — trees, rivers, gardens, houses and roads, litter. Around that core there are a few words worth pre-teaching.
Words to pre-teach
- a species — one kind of plant or animal; the plural looks the same
- a habitat — the place where a plant or animal naturally lives
- a hedgerow — a line of bushes between fields, full of small wildlife
- to die out / to become extinct — to disappear completely
- litter — rubbish left in the street; people drop litter
- a local council — the people who run a town or an area
- a wildlife charity — an organisation that protects animals and plants
The three actions at the end
- Find out about the habitats near your home, then write to the local council or to a wildlife charity about the problems.
- Never drop litter, and pick up the litter you find in woodland, hedges, gardens and parks.
- Build a small wildlife habitat of your own — in a garden, or even on a balcony.
Grammar to notice: everything that is changing right now is in the present continuous — towns and cities are getting bigger, humans are destroying these habitats, many reptiles are dying out. The advice at the end uses two polite patterns worth copying: you could find out about… and why not create your own little wildlife habitat?
Level A2, ages 10+. British English throughout: rubbish, litter, local council. The video repeats the often-quoted estimate that three species disappear every hour — a good moment to ask a class where a number like that comes from, and how anyone could ever count it.
The same recording with questions: Wildlife Habitats — A2 listening. Eight questions on the habitats, the plants and animals named in the video, and the three actions at the end.