How to Improve Your Listening Skills 1
HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR LISTENING SKILLS
Real Life Listening
Do we always need to understand 100%?
In real life we don’t normally need to understand every word. We
can focus on the information we need
to get from listening. We usually
catch meaningful words (nouns, verbs, adjectives etc.) and
build
meaning from them.
Tips on listening in real life
• Prepare for the topic (if possible).
• Try to relax when listening.
• Don’t panic if you don’t understand at first, give yourself time to adjust to the accent.
• Listen in for the clues to help you understand.
• Listen in for signposts (for example, so, anyway etc).
• Ask for repetition or clarification to make sure you understood the speaker.
Types of speech
Greenhouse
We often learn words in isolation, they are like plants in separate pots
in a greenhouse. That’s how they are recorded in a dictionary.
Example:
what did you say
/wɒt dɪd juː seɪ/
Each word is spoken very carefully, and each sound is very clear. There
is a pause between each word.
Garden
Words rarely occur on their own; they ‘touch each other gently’ in a
sentence like flowers carefully arranged in a garden.
Example:
what di jew say
/wɒt dɪ ʤuː seɪ/
The words run smoothly into each other, without a pause between
them.
Jungle
In real life spoken
speech is often like a messy, unruly jungle; it’s
difficult to understand where one word ends and the other one starts.
It is often difficult to tell whether a word has been said at all.
Example:
wha chew she
/wɒ ʧuː seɪ/
It is this type of speech that we need to be familiar and comfortable
with in order to be good listeners.
How to Improve Your Listening Skills 2
How to practise listening
There are two main and effective ways to practise and improve your listening.
Regular listening practice is the key to success.
• Incorporate regular practice in your day/week.
• It doesn’t take much time (one-minute abstract, spend about 20 minutes).
•
Set up a period of time, e.g. for one month every day or for 2 months 3 times a week.
Happy listening! 😊
Approach
a. You listen from the general idea to the detail.
b. You listen for every word.
Practice
algorithm
Online
tools
British Council
ESL Cyber Listening Lab
Breaking News English
BBC 6-minute English
TubeQuizard
lyricstraining
YouGlish
Video
resources:
films, TV
shows,
YouTube
channels
ororo.tv
Talks at Google
Skillopedia
Stanford
School of Business
The Graham Norton show
Jimmy KimmelLive
Luke’s ENGLISH Podcast
1. Listen for the first time and
try to understand the main idea
2. Listen again for understanding
details
3. Read the script/watch with
subtitles if necessary
4. Check some important words
if necessary
5. Listen again without the
script/subtitles
1. Choose a short abstract.
2. Listen to it many times and
write a dictation.
3. Compare your text with the
original.
4. Analyse the parts you didn't
hear.
5. Listen again.
