Improve Your English Listening Skills In 10 Minutes
Put your hand up if listening tests and lectures stress you out.
[I see you!]You’re not alone, trust me.
The problem is: listening to natural speech is hard. Especially if it’s a lecture or a test…
Let’s quickly illustrate this point with an example:
In 2011, John Field did a study on international students with IELTS levels of 5.5-6.5 – basically, they were like you.
One of his studies was like a lecture and the other was like a listening test.
His findings were scary.
The students understood much less than they expected.
These students had the language qualifications to study at a university in the UK, BUT they didn’t understand much of the test or the lecture.
Does that situation sound familiar?
So what can you do?
The obvious answer is: “improve my English listening skills”
But how do you do that?
My guess is that you’ve been trying to improve your English listening skills for a while, but nothing really works.
But don’t worry
In this article, I’m going teach you to become a better listener by making one simple change to how you listen.
Before we start… Click here if you’re serious about improving your listening to download my free Listening Toolkit. It contains strategies, templates and resources to make you a better listener.
The Power of Planning, Directed Attention and Evaluation
Do you find it difficult to concentrate during long lectures?
Do you try to translate everything you don’t understand?
Do you get lost if you don’t understand a word?
Well last year, Rahmirad and Moini taught a group of Masters level students with the same problems as you.
They split their group into two. One of these groups had normal listening lessons. The other group had strategy training lessons.
And guess what?
The normal listening group didn’t change at all.
but…
The strategy training group significantly improved in their English listening skills!
And they improved just by making one simple change: thinking about their listening.
I’m going to show you how to make this simple change in three easy steps:
1. Planning
Planning results in having the confidence to sit in the classroom.
Planning means that you’re prepared to listen.
Planning means that you’ve done whatever you can to make the listening easier.
How?
Have a test? Look at the practice material until you’re sick of it. Don’t walk into the listening situation not knowing anything. Make sure that you have background knowledge. Have a lecture? Read the material that your lecturer gave you or Google your topic.
Get Prepared Quick: Drunk? Late night? Speak to your classmates for a quick summary of the reading before you listen.
2. Directed Attention
Directed attention will prevent you from getting lost when you don’t understand a word, and it’s pretty easy to use.
Second, focus on the topic, not on the words. Third, use your knowledge of the topic to ‘fill in the blanks’ when you don’t understand something. Here you’re doing two really incredible processes: Quick tip: Don’t understand something? Ignore it or make a quick note of what it could be. If you’re not evaluating the way that you listen, then you’re doing it wrong. But the truth is many students don’t evaluate their listening. They usually just finish the listening and forget about it… Why? Just ask yourself these three questions and write the answers at the bottom of your note paper: Get into the habit of asking yourself those three questions, and you won’t feel lost anymore. Never feel like this after a listening test or lecture again! We’re going to watch a 3 minute video of a PhD student talk about his research. The title of the presentation is: Suspects, Science and CSI Watch the video – take notes on the topic. What is the speaker’s PhD about? Focus on the topic, not individual words. Don’t worry if you can’t understand some parts. Watch the video here: Look at your notes. Answer these three questions: To listen better, you have to practice. The strategies that we’ve talked about above, can help you to improve your English listening skills each time you practice. Now what should you do? Ps. Two more things that will help are:First, make sure you’ve got an idea of the topic.
3. Evaluate
Let me tell you something: evaluating your listening takes two minutes. And it’s really easy to do.
Ready to improve your listening? Click here to download my Free Listening Toolkit.I’m going to show you how to easily do this with your listening in just 10 minutes.
You’ve got 10 minutes to improve your English listening skills, right?
1 Plan: 4 minutes
2 Directed Attention: 4 minutes
3 Evaluate: 2 minutes
Improve Your English Listening Skills
About the Author Sam
Sam is the founder and creator of English For Study. He's also lecturer in EAP/Academic English. Apart from making Academic English easy, he likes learning languages, lifting weights and eating good food.
