One of the most frequent complaints made by English language learners is that they can’t understand most of the things they listen to. Listening is, indeed, a challenging skill for students to develop. Especially when listening to authentic (that is, not recorded for language learners) conversations. It happens due to several reasons, namely: students are not used to the natural rhythm of the target language, they hear completely new sounds that they don’t have in their first language, they are anxious to understand everything, etc. The good news is that you can solve that problem. You just need to keep reading to find out how to improve your listening skills in English!
How to improve your listening skills
If you want to start working to develop your ability to understand everything you hear, the first and most important thing you need to have is consistency. This means that you need to practice every single day. This consistency will make English (or any other language, in fact) familiar to your brain. This everyday practice will make you comfortable with the language, and you’ll start to increasingly understand more and more of what you are exposed to. Just commit yourself to a daily practice, and you’ll see. Don’t worry, though. You can do it every day without making it a bore. You can have fun while you develop your listening.
Watch videos on YouTube
Youtube is one of the greatest resources for language learning ever! You can find videos about almost everything you love there. From YouTubers talking about everyday life to amazing documentaries about Einstein’s theory of relativity. Besides these authentic videos, you can also find tons of English lessons for different levels recorded by teachers all over the world to help you improve your language skills. The video lessons may be more appropriate for beginners, while authentic videos may benefit more intermediate and advanced speakers. The only secret is finding something you love and watching videos about it there. You won’t want to stop!
Watch movies and tv shows
Who doesn’t like watching Netflix all day? Many people think it’s a waste of time, and it, indeed, can be if you watch too much of it purposeless. If you’re focused on developing your language skills, though, it can be an awesome resource. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, among others, have hundreds of thousands of movies and tv shows across all genres. You’ll surely find one that you’ll enjoy. Besides having a fun, relaxing time, you can use it to enhance your listening. But how to improve your listening skills in English using these streaming services? First of all, use must watch it in English (obviously). Second, if you think it’s too difficult to understand, you can also use subtitles (in English!), which will transcribe everything the characters say. This way, you have another resource to help you, the written text. As you progress and notice that you can understand fairly well what everyone says, you can stop using it and focus entirely on the audio. Many of these platforms allow you to control the playback speed of what you’re watching. That is, if you think people are talking too fast, you can slow them down. This can be good for those who are not upper-intermediate or advanced speakers. However, use this feature carefully! Too much of it may hinder your ability to talk at a normal speed later on.
Listen to podcasts
Podcasts are amazing. Almost everything that has already been said for the other resources is true for podcasts too! For example, you can listen to podcasts about almost anything, and you can control the playback speed of what you’re listening to. But one crucial difference concerning them is that you can listen to them almost anytime, anywhere. It can help you make the most out of your time. If you’re cleaning your house, you can listen to them. If you’re doing the dishes, you can listen to them. If you’re commuting you can listen to them. If you’re jogging, you can listen to them. If you’re in bed waiting to fall asleep, you can listen to them. Do you see? It’s not difficult to notice that they can be with you almost all the time. Think about at least 1 hour that you spend doing these things daily, if you use it to listen to podcasts, it’ll be 7 hours a week, 30 hours a month, and 365 hours a year. It’s not difficult to see that you’ll benefit a lot from them! There are a lot of podcast players for you to choose from. Just hit your App/Play Store, and choose one!
Find an e-pal
E-pals are the contemporary pen pals. People you usually don’t know personally, but you’ve been communicating with through e-mails, text messages, etc. Finding an e-pal can contribute not only to the development of your listening but also to the development of all the other skills you need in your target language: speaking, writing, and reading. Don’t be afraid to go online and make friends around the world. The advantages go way beyond developing your basic language skills. You’ll become even more sociable, more outgoing, and you’ll get to know different cultures, which, in turn, will make you a better human being. If you’re not sure where to find them, read our awesome article A Powerful Guide to Speak English by Yourself to find free apps and websites that you can start using right now!
Listen to audiobooks
Similar to podcasts, audiobooks are flexible and you can listen to them anywhere, anytime. Beginner learners can listen to stories they already know, which will make it easier for them to understand. More advanced speakers can explore new things such as classic, fiction books just to relax or education books to improve their knowledge on something. Either way, you’ll be killing two birds with one stone!
Expose yourself to different accents
Understanding what people say in English is not only about your level of proficiency. Sometimes, even people who have English as their first language struggle to understand others. This happens because English is spoken worldwide, which makes it a language extremely rich in terms of accents. You can find hundreds (if not thousands) of them. So, if you want to be able to understand almost every English speaker you run into, you must be exposed to as many different accents as possible. So, don’t stick yourself to one specific accent. Instead, try to watch and listen to people from every part of the globe speaking English. This will make you even more competent in understanding this language.
Join a conversation group
People have often joined others with similar interests to talk about what they like, and to practice it, and with languages, this is not different. In many cities and towns, you can find English conversation groups that you can join to develop your language skills. Even if you’re not able to be with them, you can do it online easily. Just talk to the English speakers that you know and check if they know anyone from these groups to introduce the person to you. Talk to them and show that you are willing to be part of it. They’ll certainly welcome you into the conversation group. If you’re not able to find one at all, a good idea would be to start your own!
Relax
Last but not least, another extremely important tip we have for you that’s looking for how to improve your listening skills in English is R-E-L-A-X! We’re not kidding. Relaxing is a very important part of the process of developing your language skills. One of the most recognized scientists in the field of language acquisition, Stephen Krashen, has developed the affective filter hypothesis, which states that low self-esteem, low motivation, high anxiety level, and high introversion may block the acquisition of a second language. On the other hand, high self-esteem, high motivation, low anxiety level, and high extroversion may facilitate the process.
If you want more tips on how to learn English, click here!
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