Picture yourself arriving in an English-speaking country. You are absolutely thrilled to be there, as you’re about to communicate with native English speakers! You can already see yourself casually chatting with local people—but things do not go as planned. You are not even out of the airport that you start being filled with terror hearing people around you.
“They speak so fast!” “I couldn’t understand a word of what she said.” “Wow, their accent is so thick!”
While such a reaction is very common, its consequences are potentially tragic: your fear of not understanding creates in you a fear of communicating. Your body tenses, your heart races, your mouth dries, and you end up not speaking to anybody —your inability to listen ends up directly hindering your ability to speak. Instead of making the most of your time abroad, you get frustrated and bitter.
I like to tell my students that in order to be able to be a good speaker, you need to be a great listener. Listening is not an end in itself: it is mainly the key to a better understanding of the English language. Listening isn’t just about understanding the basic meaning of what is being said. You need to be able to listen for pronunciation, for rhythm, for accents, even for emotions. So what can you do to become a great listener before your next trip abroad?
Exposure
The first key is to schedule daily exposure to the language. You need to spend as much time as possible in direct contact with English. Some people have told me that it is only possible if you live in English-speaking countries to begin with; I’d argue that the amount of contact you have with a language has nothing to do with the place where you live. If I live in England and only spend time with people speaking my native language, not developing any kind of interest for local culture, my English will not magically improve!
Anyway, here comes the Internet. You do not need me to tell you that the Internet is an incredible source of material in English—from videos to blogs, podcasts, and newspaper articles, more of 50% of the content available on the Internet is in English! But in order to truly benefit from all that, you need to be well organized. Maybe you could watch a video of your favorite YouTuber in the morning while getting ready, then listen to a podcast as you are driving to work, and finally read an online article during lunch break? Absolutely doable, right? The trouble is doing it every day. But discipline pays off. Spend time with the language and have fun doing it!
Recognize patterns
I often tell students that when they are reading in English they should not try to understand everything–it’s better to try to focus on the general idea in order to get the gist of the text. I believe the same trick applies to listening: yes, you certainly will not understand everything from that episode of your favorite TV series but hey, is it really that important? You need to accept that in order to prevent it from becoming hugely frustrating for you. Next step: recognizing patterns.
Patterns are elements that you keep hearing all the time. People tend to always say the same things. It could be a specific word, or a specific reaction, or even a typical exchange between speakers. Take the following exchange:
“Hey, how is it going?”
“I’m alright, what about you?”
Such an exchange can be heard time after time in most movies and TV shows. You should be able to identify it immediately, and maybe even reproduce it (but then we would be touching the topic of speaking). Recognizing patterns allows you to infer what might be coming next in the conversation. Inferring is a way to mentally prepare for what’s coming next in the exchange and, as a consequence, understand it better. The more exposure you are getting, the more patterns you will start recognizing, the more you’ll be able to infer speech.
Be actually interested in what you are doing
Cookie-cutter exercises are not a good way to make a student improve. If I want you to truly focus on the task at hand, I’d better find texts and documents that are directly related to topics of your interest. Now, I am not saying that I do not want you to discover new things and explore the unknown! My job is also to challenge you with things you have never heard about before. However, working alone is a different story.
When alone at your desk or on your couch, there is nobody to keep an eye on you, nobody to push you to your limits. When working on potentially boring material, you are running the risk of losing all interest in your work and quickly abandon it. For that reason, I believe it is a good idea to focus on topics of your interest, without trying to be exposed to super-high quality English at all cost. When trying to find material to watch, read, or listen to, do not type “English text to read” or “videos in English to practice listening.” Are you into fashion? Simply google “fashion week” or research “fashion vlog” on YouTube and start exploring. Don’t restrict yourself to English-learning content. Truly explore the web according to your interests.
Do not solely focus on meaning
Non-native speakers tend to focus so much on understanding the words that they forget paralinguistics. Paralinguistics are the aspects of spoken communication that do not involve words. Maybe you’re like me, and you feel incredibly uncomfortable talking on the phone—it might be because you heavily rely on paralinguistics when speaking with somebody. Eye contact, smiles, gestures, body language, and silences are all elements that carry actual meaning in a conversation. Interestingly, they are typically highly related to one’s culture and change depending on where you are. How do you expect to understand a native speaker if you have never studied the paralinguistics of their culture?
When practicing, try to pay close attention to everything happening in the conversations: gestures, eyes moving, distance between speakers. Do not just try to understand words; try to understand emotions and relationships. Developing an awareness of those elements will help you tremendously the day you are in an actual conversation with a native speaker.
Relax
Finally, most learners tend to take their listening practice sessions as something that needs to be done in a very serious fashion, requiring their full concentration. While practicing listening in such a way has its importance in some contexts (mainly exams), I truly believe that you can actually benefit more from relaxing as much as you can when doing your listening routine.
Listening to a podcast? Just walk around the house and do your cleaning at the same time. Watching an episode of your favorite TV series? It’s definitely ok to fall asleep. Listening is not something that should require a very high level of concentration. Non-native speakers with a high level of listening typically do not have the feeling they are doing any effort when listening. Train your brain and your body to relax when listening. You are not actively speaking, writing, or even reading; just let the sound flow through your body. You could even stop trying to understand the meaning of the words: just listen to the music of the language, and feel its rhythm and beat. It will be a great experience!
Always remember: your hard work will pay off in the long run!
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