Learn English Listening Skills - 10 GREAT Techniques to Improve Your Listening - Understand Natives

Do you find it difficult to understand native speakers of English?

Do you feel that they speak too fast and most of the time you can’t catch what they’re

saying?

If your answer is yes, then this video is for you.

In this lesson, I am going to give you 10 proven methods to improve your English listening

skills.

I will also give you lots of links to free online resources for you to practice.

The techniques that I share with you will help you to understand native speakers when

you watch TV, movies or listen to the radio.

They will help you develop your listening ability for exams like the IELTS, TOEFL or

PTE.

And finally, these methods will help you to understand people better in real-life conversations.

So let’s start.

Number one is listen to English every day.

You want to know the secret to great listening skills?

It’s lots and lots of listening practice.

Remember that the more you listen, the better you get at listening.

The reason you find listening difficult is probably that you’re not practicing enough.

My advice is that you listen to English for at least one hour per day.

Set aside a specific time, maybe an hour in the morning or in the evening and during this

time, just listen to English.

With this type of practice, I have seen great improvement in my students’ listening skills

within 2-3 months.

A great way to do this is to watch the news.

The TV is a good source of news but since we’re on YouTube, you should know that you

can watch a lot of English news right here.

Major news networks like BBC, CNN etc. have YouTube channels where they put out short

news videos that are ideal for improving your listening.

You will find all the links in the description below.

Tip number three is listen to the radio.

The radio is great for listening because you can do it while you are doing other things.

You can listen as you’re driving, while working out, while you’re cleaning the house.

You can listen with a radio set, on your computer, or even on your smartphone.

Now, if you listen on your phone while driving, please be careful, please don’t operate

your phone while you’re driving.

OK, in my opinion, BBC radio is the best radio service for English learners and it’s available

for listening online free of cost.

There are many different BBC radio stations available; BBC Radio 4 is particularly good

because it has a lot of informative shows.

Again, links are below.

Another highly useful listening resource is podcasts.

A podcast is basically a radio show that you can find only on the internet.

The reason I love podcasts is that there are many shows that specialize in particular topics.

This means there are podcasts just for English learners.

These audio lessons will not only help you to improve your listening skills but you can

also learn about grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and more.

I have put links to some very good free podcasts in the description below.

You can also go online and find shows related to your own interests.

You should make podcasts a regular part of your listening practice.

Number five is watch movies in English.

This is one of my favorite methods for improving listening skills because this is how I did

it.

I used to be in your place.

There was a time when I worked really hard on my English because I wanted to be good

at it.

And during that time, what helped me immensely is watching films.

I used to watch two Hollywood movies per week.

And I can tell you from that experience that it did wonders for my listening ability.

Now, initially, I would miss a lot of words but over time, as my listening improved, I

was able to understand almost everything that I heard.

So make it a habit to watch English-language movies – aim to watch at least one per week.

Related to movies are TV shows.

If you ask me, TV shows might be even better than movies for improving your listening skills.

This is because they tend to be much longer – you can watch a movie in 2 hours but a

show goes on for many seasons, so you can get really involved in the story.

This way, you will learn more language from it and come to understand the pronunciation

of the native speakers in the show.

What I do is I always make sure to follow at least one English-language TV show regularly.

I suggest that you do the same.

Now with both movies and TV shows, if you find them very difficult to understand, you

can watch with subtitles.

If you do, use English subtitles, and not subtitles in your own language.

I also recommend that you watch any movie or TV show episode that you like a second

time without subtitles to really sharpen your listening ability.

Next up is probably the most fun technique in this lesson – and that is to listen to

songs in English.

Songs have many advantages – one is that they provide great opportunities for repetition.

We usually don’t just listen to a song once.

If we like it, we come back to it over and over again, and in doing so, we become familiar

with the language used in it.

To get the most benefit out of songs, you should not just listen to them passively.

You should be an active listener – for songs that you like, find the lyrics (that’s the

words of the song) – you can find them online by searching on Google – and try to understand

them.

Also, make an effort to learn your favorite songs.

Now you’re probably saying, I’m really shy about singing, I don’t want other people

to hear me – well, if that’s a concern, then sing when you’re alone, by yourself.

Singing in English allows you to not just understand pronunciation but also practice

it.

And this will feed into your listening ability and make you a better listener.

YouTube is again a great place to find your favorite artists and listen to songs.

I listen to English-language songs every day.

You should too.

Number eight is listen to audiobooks.

An audiobook is a recording of someone reading a print book.

Usually, books are read either by their authors or by professional voice actors.

These are extremely helpful for improving your listening because you will listen to

an entire book on a single subject.

This means a lot of subject matter and vocabulary will be repeated throughout the recording.

You can find a lot of free audiobooks by searching on YouTube (I have put links to some search

terms in the description).

If you want very high-quality audiobooks, you can purchase them on a website like Audible.com.

But if can’t afford that, no problem – there are plenty of free audiobooks available online

– they’re great and you should try to listen to at least one audiobook per month.

Number nine is listen to TED talks.

TED is a company that has produced thousands of speeches and informational videos, and

these are freely available on YouTube.

These are very high-quality, they’re professionally produced, and the best part for English learners

is that the speech is clear and is highly suitable for listening practice.

There are a number of YouTube channels in the TED network.

The links are in the description.

I suggest that you subscribe to these and watch their videos as part of your listening

routine.

And finally, number ten is the transcription exercise.

This is an exercise you can do with any type of listening material.

Here’s how you do it.

After you listen to something (it could be a podcast, it could be a song or a TV show

episode), after you watch or listen fully one time, you listen to it a second time.

But now, you sit down with pen and paper and you try to write out exactly what you hear.

After you hear a sentence, you pause the audio or video and write that sentence.

If you need, you can rewind and listen again, and make corrections.

This exercise is amazing for improving your listening skills because it makes you focus

intensely on the listening material.

It’s better to do this with something short, maybe audio that’s about 5 to 10 minutes

long so that you stay interested to keep listening and finish the entire thing.

Try to do this exercise at least once per week.

OK, those are my top ten techniques.

But I have a few bonus tips to share with you for improving your listening skills: The

first is: always listen at your level of understanding.

This means don’t listen to something that’s too difficult for you.

If you cannot understand the overall meaning of what you hear, you should not listen to

it because it’s no use and you will only get frustrated.

Also, if you can understand everything that you’re hearing perfectly and it’s too

easy, again, it’s not going to benefit you.

Instead, choose what is comfortable for you but that is still challenging – where you

are not sure of some of the sounds or the meanings of words.

That kind of material is what will really help you to develop your listening ability.

Next is: repetition is key.

I mentioned when I was talking about the transcription exercise that you can listen to something

multiple times to write what you hear.

You can actually do this even if you’re not transcribing something.

Whether you watch a movie, a TV show or you’re listening to a podcast, whatever it is, it’s

a great idea to listen to the same material more than once.

That will help you to catch words or phrases that you previously missed, and it can work

wonders for your listening.

One reason that listening can be challenging for you is you may not have enough vocabulary

for the material you’re listening to.

So, reading and developing your vocabulary will benefit your listening ability in the

long-term.

Another challenge in listening is that learners of English are often unfamiliar with native-speaker

pronunciation.

It’s a very good idea for you to work on your own pronunciation, and also to learn

about the pronunciation system of English, as this will make it easier for you to understand

the way that native speakers speak.

I have a lesson this, and I also have lessons on vocabulary development.

The links are in the description, so make sure to check them out.

Alright, in the end, don’t forget that the number one secret to developing your listening

skills is to practice.

Listen every day, do the things I have suggested in this lesson, and I am confident that you

will greatly improve your English listening skills.

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Happy learning and I will see you in another lesson soon.