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

dear Minh ,thank you very much for your good directions and idea.

I have to say the point of summarising and breaking down questions is great!

Of course, listening is most difficult task. I hear this audio 3 times to understand because my listening power is low in English language. I easily understand American people to speaking English but I don't understand British or other European native peoples. I'm practice to solve this problem.

For me , I listen most of the audio files from this website and take the exercises.When I face with some situations like the sound is so native ,at that time , the only familiar words 've left in my brain.So I have to reorganize what he said .As a practice for both speaking and listening ,I have a lot of calls to English learners like me through English practising apps.

We can improve our listening skills by asking more questions. We should summarize the lectures of teacher without pretending to understand the lecture which actually we didn't. We should thoroughly understand the conversation and try to keep the speaker at slow pace to understand complete conversation.

I try to listen to podcasts and watch the movie. The most important problem that I struggle with, is, I can hardly follow the speaker when I hear an unfamiliar word. I stuck in the word and miss the rest of the speech or conversation.

Hello Nafy,

I would encourage you to try not to get stuck on one word and to instead try to understand phrases or sentences. Often (though not always), this will probably help you figure out what the word means, even if you're not sure what the word is. This is not easy to do, but I think it might help you.

Another good idea is to consider practising your pronunciation, which will not only help your speaking, but also your listening! On a page like this, for example, find five or six words or phrases that were pronounced in a way that you found difficult. Write them down, listen to how they are pronounced, and then practise saying them again and again until they feel more comfortable to pronounce.

This also requires discipline and in the beginning your progress will probably feel slow. But gradually, you will improve both your speaking and your listening comprehension.

I hope this helps you.

All the best,

Kirk

The LearnEnglish Team

It's not difficult, it is just a practice. Initially, I was very bad at it but over time I have improvised on my listening skill. What happens when we listen is, every word hits our ears stimulate, and creates a new thought and that's why we get lost in our own thoughts. So the problem is with us, our own thoughts. To control those we need to stay calm and meditation is a great tool for that. When we know something is happening all the time in our head while doing anything. Pull back oneself in the present moment by focusing on the breath. I highly recommend do this even you're listening to anyone that will definitely help what is you're putting in your head.

When I start trying to say smth I seem like a child who knows only "yes, maybe, no, good" :(

Hi shady babe,

Don't worry, speaking is something that can definitely improve, if you give it lots of practice and patience :)

Jonathan