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

The listening section is so tricky, in some cases It could be easy or difficult depends on what kind of the topic and vocabulary they use. I did not find anything hard from the accent but for vocabulary, I can not escape from any strange vocabulary. If we want to increase our listening score It could be better if we practiced by reading too.

i think to improve your listening skill you need to listen to podcasts tv shows practice hard and stuff like this

Listening for people who didn't birth in a country where don´t speak English is very difficult to understand very well some records because the level about it, is different in each one. So my strategy consist of listeneing once without taking notes, and twice listening again but taking notes. If I find out some unknow words, I search it the meaning, and then listened again but following the lecture to try to accustom to the sounds of words.

For me has been a challenge too, I need to give more time in this area, I work on my listen with podcast and songs, but some songs are too fast or use a particular way to pronounce the words, grammar also is a challenge. There are a lot of things to study, thousands of words, grammar, listening, writing, but it's not impossible. It's just hard work and persistence and on the other hand english is an awesome language.

Listening is used to be my big challenge. I tried to improve my lestening skills all the time but unfortunately l was struggled by new bans l could not know them in aim to solve them like the accents. l arrived to understand most of British words then l realized that there are more accents quite different and the spelling is tottaly changed. I was really lost. Then some of my friends told me don't panik. There is one English language the ways of speaking are accent. Focus on one accent practice it and try to learn more vocabulary and grammar skills. Is that true?

Hello Ahmed Abdi,

That's a difficult question to answer well without knowing more about what situations you need or intend to use English in. If, for example, you are going to use it to do business with people from a particular country or region of the world, then I'd recommend focusing on the accent from that region. But in most other cases, I'd encourage you to listen to different accents. It won't hurt to focus on one accent for some time, but be sure to listen to others.

There are some minor variations in the grammar and vocabulary that people use in different varieties of English, but in most cases I doubt these differences will be a serious problem for you.

I hope this helps.

All the best,

Kirk

The LearnEnglish Team

Thank you Mr Kirk! Very good advice! Well, l have to change my way. l know it is hard but nothing is impossible with perseverance. Best regards!

I have to admit that also for me listening is the most difficult area. I try to go the miles away to improve it by listening to audio books and watching movies without subtitles as much as I can. In real life when I have a conversation, when I can't understand some sentences I ask in a polite manner the person who is included in conversation if he/she can repeat it or speak slowly, and sometimes I just pretend to understand and change the topic. its really challenge for me, but I think its just a matter of time and i will master it soon with hard work

Dear Peter M., I really want to improve my listening skills because I often get in trouble when I speak with other peole. Nowadays, I try to do more and more listening practise to learn new vocabulary and the English slang to sound more natural. Even if I can't understand the audio I repeat it twice or three times and one more time with the transcription just to look at the correct spelling of new words I've listened. Other thing I've been doing is watch videos or series without subtitles. Sometimes it's kind of difficult but I want to challenge me. Best regards!

Hi Gema25,

It sounds like you're doing the right things. Remember, that when you're improving step by step over time it can be hard to see the progress, but that doesn't mean you aren't improving. Practice makes perfect, so keep it up!

Peter