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 think we must practice. practice make perfect!

To help listening skill, I practice watching videos and series in English. I listening to music too and I like to learn new words and write them to remember and improve mu vocabulary.

I usually listen to the BBC news on the television. Also, I listen to some audios and youtube clips from the internet. I have a keen interest in listening to English speakers in order to improve my skills.

For helping my listening, I usually watch the same TV series episode three times. At first, I watch it without subtitles. After that, I watch with subtitles, linking what I've just listened to with the words. Then, I watch without subtitles, and this time I can understand better. If you want to try, you have to make sure that you like the TV series, after all, you will watch it three times.

I think listening is the most difficult skill of three other fundamental skills (reading, speaking and writing). For improving this skill the best method may be living in close contact with people vho speaks the language we want to learn.

I try to listen audios every day as I read a transcription, then it’s easier for me to understand the pronunciation. After that I try to read the text one more time but out loud. I also like to watch movies or videos but without subtitles neither in English nor Spanish.

I use to listen to the radio and watch the T.V, but Gabriela has given me a good idea since now I will try to summarize and to break down the conversation into small questions that let me get control of the conversation.

Listening how I do to improve it. Firstly, people start from the easy listening and short conversations. When you feel comfortable with them, then you change to a little hard that are long conversations and you have to learn many phrases and words. Secondly, you should listen to plenty of source English such as BBC news, CNC, Ted talk and more. The most important thing that you need to check it with transcript. The third, you should practise with long conversations and and make sure you can get the idea. The fourth, you have to spend a lot of time to do it everyday. Practise make perfect. In conclusion, you are patience to learn English, step by step and day by day. After a period time you will improve your skill. I also wish myself do it well.