English Listening
We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.
HOW TO LEARN
- You can’t acquire listening skills if you fail to seriously invest in the foundation stage of learning pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. So, if you feel that you aren’t stable in the initial stage, let’s return to fostering them now rather than wasting your time and getting bored while trying to listen a lot but ineffective.
- The listening skill should be collaborated with pronunciation to simplify the process, as listening skills require immense time for students to grasp the content thoroughly.
- Imagine that when learning a foreign language, we are not different from a newborn baby, merely knowing how to listen to what adults say. It takes a baby as fast as more than ten months to be able to babble and say simple words. Thus, the more our brain can be exposed to native speakers’ speech, the more we will soon foster our listening skills.
- To shorten the time and be effective, you should practice listening in integration with the following:
+ Passive listening (unconscious listening): Listen while sleeping, working, whenever possible. The purpose is for the brain to grow familiar with the new language, and over time, it will form the Intonation and Rhythm of the native speaker to speak naturally.
+ Active listening (concentrated listening): Start with simple and slow-paced conversations. Every day, spend a fixed amount of time listening to English subtitles to learn their linking sounds and accentuate their intonation. This stage requires listening persistently and ceaselessly. Though you will feel a bit discouraged sometimes as you don’t see any progress yet. However, once you can genuinely focus on practicing for a few months, you can reach the result earlier, depending on each person’s investment).
+ Critical/Analytical listening (Listen to comprehend): Intensive and Extensive Listening
❤ Step 1: Listen a few times with subtitles first; even if you don’t understand, calmly listen to guess the primary content with words you already know.
❤ Step 2: After listening a few times and still not understanding the content (due to your few vocabulary sources), write down the words or sentences you fail to grasp. Then, look up the dictionary to learn new words first and translate to understand the content.
❤ Step 3: After fully acquiring the content, listen to it 5-6 more times with Engsub. You will see yourself progressing compared to step 1.
❤ Step 4: Listen to each sentence and repeat (shadow) to practice pronunciation. Don’t rush to listen and follow the whole conversation, but patiently practice each sentence. Practice this step 4-5 times.
❤ Step 5: Turn off Engsub or don’t look at the screen to see whether you fully understand the content. If not, go back to steps 3 and 4 to practice again.
Form a habit of practicing these steps every day to avoid losing knowledge.
- After applying Intensive Listening and listening to CNN, BBC, and YouTube in English and understanding 70-80% without too much effort, turn to “extensive listening.” This technique is particularly significant for those yearning to promote translation-interpretation skills and preparing to live and work overseas or in an English-speaking country.
- Extensive Listening does not center on details like Intensive Listening but revolves around understanding the speaker’s meaning. When developing “Extensive Listening,” you may lose a word or even a few sentences, but as long as you understand the content. Even if you can catch all the words, you can’t understand what others are saying, which is considered a failure in Extensive Listening.
- Listening Practice Through Dictation: Listen to each sentence, write it down, and then review the subtitles. This technique is frequently the most effective and complements other skills, but it takes perseverance.
- You should apply Intensive Listening to listen to more complex conversations, that is, listen to the exact one many times until you can understand the entire content. Then, move on to Extensive Listening to improve your listening ability.
- Maintain practice: To avoid weakening listening skills, you must cultivate regularly. To avoid getting dispirited, change the listening source invariably (Netflix, TV, YouTube, music, movies, talk shows, reality shows).
Learning listening skills requires a strict time investment to realize improvement. There is no wrong or right method and no tricks (just like babies don’t have any tricks to listen to adults and understand them immediately). Just prolong the continuity of practice, and it will definitely be enhanced. While listening, you should focus on the vocabulary, intonation, and mouth of native speakers to imitate, which will help gradually form Speaking skills.
Learning a new language is a long process of acquiring knowledge and sharpening skills. Just diligently study and practice without too concentrating on the exams as the score or grade is merely the evident outcome of the ceaseless progress. Just focus on how to learn so that you can use the language fluently and confidently. So, let’s begin learning and persevering with them.
