An interview about listening skills

Listen to the English teacher talk about listening to practise and improve your listening skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Preparation

Transcript

Presenter: So, today's expert teacher is Gabriella, a university English teacher from Leeds. Gabriella, hi and thanks for joining us today.

Gabriella: Thanks for having me!

Presenter: So, I have to confess today's topic is something I am really bad at: listening. Most people say speaking is the most stressful part of learning a new language but, for me, with my B1 German, speaking isn't so bad. At least I'm in control of it. But listening … woah … people speak so fast and it's like my brain just shuts down. Am I just really strange and bad at listening? Tell me, honestly, I can take it.

Gabriella: No, you're not strange. In fact, it's really common. You know, in exams most people do pretty well in speaking compared with listening. Of course, exams are a different situation from real life because in an exam you can't ask for something to be repeated or explained. You usually have just one or maybe two opportunities to listen to the dialogue and then it's gone.

Presenter: Right, but in real life I feel stupid always saying, 'Sorry, can you repeat that, please?', especially if I still don't understand even when they repeat it. And people out there listening, I hope you don't do this – quite often the person just repeats what they said equally as fast and I'm still lost!

Gabriella: They do, don't they? In real life, you've got two strategies. One is to pretend to understand and get out of the conversation as fast as you can.

Presenter: Yep, sounds familiar!

Gabriella: But, obviously that's not going to help if it's a conversation with high stakes. It might have important consequences. I mean, if you're just chatting with a stranger at the bus stop, it doesn't matter. But imagine you're at a government office or a bank, trying to find out what paperwork you need to get your ID or open a bank account. What can you do then?

Presenter: I hope you've got the answer, Gabriella, because I'm coming out in a cold sweat just thinking about either of those situations!

Gabriella: The other strategy is to summarise what they said.

Presenter: But how can you do that if you didn't understand what they said?

Gabriella: Ah, well, you only start the summary, so you might say, in German in your case, 'OK, so the first thing I have to do is …?' and make it a question. Or, for example, 'And which office is that again?' Break it down into smaller questions and the other person will naturally start answering them. That way you're controlling the conversation a bit more.

Presenter: I get you ...

Task 1

TrueOrFalse_MjMzNjg=.xml

Task 2

Matching_MjMzNjk=.xml

Discussion

What do you do to help with listening?

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Language level

B1 Intermediate

i listen to music, watch some movies and sometimes i do the tests but.. it's still quite difficult for me :(((

I prefer listening to the podcasts and English clips with native speakers as much as i can. another way and the most helpful one which is so advantagous to improve the skill is that pause and play and write whatever you listen to, through listening, this technique really works to help you with listening in a best way and in the meantime. you will be familiar with the right and common structures used in british conversation through the technique and also you can Watch films and series to affect your listening skill and to improve it in the best way.

What do you do to help with listening? My advice is to listen a lot of English conversations as much as you can, from movies, music, podcasts, YouTube videos, radios, native speaker friends, seminars, networking parties and so on, to improve one person's familiarity with English Speakings. Then learn more about the vocabulary and pronunciations to improve even further.

I listen many things in english ( podcast, film, series) and obviously I listen english people and I try to understand as much as I can. It's difficult to understand especially if the accent is strange, like if it's from irish people.

in music for ex i replay it till i get it in the university i used to record audio files for courses

I can read a little English, but I can't hear well. I feel two different languages

I try to practice every day. I watch on you tube almost everyday at short videos in order to improve my listening skills. For sure if I will be consequent the results must shown. Thank you!

to improve my listening I try to listening some podcasts, I see the movie and video on youtube

Yeah, it's so difficult to listen to the people with native language, because they speak very fast. But i would suggest you to watch friends series. That's much fun and instructive for listening skill.

I try to focus and concentrate as much as possible on what is being said. That way I don't miss key information. I listen to the radio every day on my way to or from work or driving around at the week end. I have a favourite radio station.