Listening Skill 👂🏽

Listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the communication process. Listening is key to all effective communication. Without the ability to listen effectively, messages are easily misunderstood.

A 5-Step Method to Improve Your Listening Skills

Step 1: Listen to the Audio – No Reading!

The first step in this method is to simply listen to the audio alone. Don’t read the text in advance and don’t follow along with it as you listen. The point here is to focus solely on your aural skills and see how much you can understand without any visual aid.

Step 2: Repeat!

It’s not time to look at the text just yet. Many learners make the mistake of turning to the text too quickly. However, the point here is to practice your listening skills so just stay focused on listening for the time being.

Step 3: Get Reading

As you read through the text, identify any new words you come across. See if you can guess the meaning of the words from their context; otherwise, look them up in a dictionary. If there are any new words that you think will be particularly useful for you in conversation, write them down and add them to your list of new vocabulary to learn.

Step 4: Listen With the Text

Once you’ve read through the text a few times and looked up any words you didn’t understand, you should be confident about its meaning. Next, I suggest listening again a couple more times while you read along with the text.

Step 5: Listen Again Without the Text

Finally, go back and listen again a few more times without the text. By this point, you should be able to understand almost everything quite well even without the visual aid of the text.

👀 Here are some ideas for materials you could use to practice with:

A scene from a movie or tv show (+ the subtitles)
A podcast episode you have a transcript for
A video of news site
A YouTube video with a transcription
A book in print and audiobook format
Dialogues and their transcription

Videeeo :)