How to Improve the Four Skills in English: Listening, Reading, Speaking & Writing

Hi everybody, my name is Shawna and this is the American English Podcast. My goal here is to teach you the English spoken in the United States. Through common expressions, pronunciation tips, and interesting cultural snippets or stories, I hope to keep this fun, useful, and interesting.

Let's do it. a language learner just like me. Over the years, I've spent a lot of time learning German, Portuguese, French, Spanish, and even Esperanto. My levels are very different in each of these languages, but each one has taught me something new. In today's episode, I want to go back to the

the fundamentals, how to improve the four skills, listening, reading, speaking, and writing. My perspective isn't coming only from being a learner though. It's also from teaching experience.

After getting certified in TESOL, I taught more than 3000 ESL classes to students from around the world. And it always intrigued me why some students progress

much faster than others. What are they doing differently? As both a teacher and a learner, I've spent a lot of time thinking

about how we can learn languages more effectively. Maybe you have too. Cool, we're the same. The point is I've sat with this question for a long time

and I hope some of the research and tips you hear today will help you reflect on your own learning process, maybe even rethink the way you study, whether you work independently or with a teacher,

because learning how to learn is empowering, that puts you in the driver's seat. And here's the key idea of today. Language skills improve faster when they overlap.

When you listen or read and then speak or write about it, you're not just understanding English, you're training your brain to actually use it. Now that's what we're going to explore,

listening and reading as inputs, speaking and writing as outputs, and how combining them helps you to remember more and speak with confidence.

So without further ado, Let's jump in. First, we'll begin with listening. As you know, I'm obsessed with the skill, watching shows, listening to podcasts.

I mean, it can be entertaining and practical. Plus, I've personally experienced the power of it. being completely lost in conversations to actually understanding people and communicating. It's exciting to feel that progress. I don't need to tell you if you're listening to this episode,

you know the impact listening can have. But, and this is important, there are three things we should keep in mind. Number one, when finding audio content, make sure it's at your level or just above it. In the 1980s, there was a linguist named Stephen Crashing, and he proposed what's called

the input hypothesis, which suggests that learners acquire language when they are exposed to understandable input slightly above their language level. In simpler terms, we acquire language, we learn it when our learning material is just a little bit challenging.

For example, if I tell you a story and there are three to four words you don't know, you can probably guess the meaning of the new words from context and understand what's happening. Let me give you an example of this. Last year, I went hiking with my cousin from Spain. And halfway up the mountain, we stopped at a small brook. The water was clear and cold,

and we sat down next to the brook to drink some water and rest our feet. Even if you don't No, the word brook, B-R-O-O-K. You can probably guess from context that it means a small stream or river

because there's clues. There's water, you're sitting next to it, you're drinking, you're resting. This is comprehensible input.

So make sure other material you consume is not too difficult, otherwise you won't learn from context. The second thing that I think is important to recognize is that our memories aren't perfect.

So let me ask you a question. I mentioned that a brook is a small river, like a stream. Do you feel confident using the word brook right now? Maybe. It's not too complex. But would you be ready to use that word next week? Like after just hearing it in this episode?

Probably not. And it's not your fault. As we say in English, it's in one ear and out the other. In other words, you heard something, but you didn't retain it.

The new information is gone. It went in one ear and out the other. Now this is common according to studies in cognitive psychology. One famous statistic often cited in language research is that learners typically need to

encounter a word between six and 20 times before it becomes part of their usable vocabulary. Between six and twenty. So naturally, we're not sponges for new information, which is important to know, right?

You'll stop beating yourself up when you don't remember something. It also raises an important question. How can we increase our chances of remembering new words?

Just listen or read them six to 20 times? So, that brings me to my third point. According to Crashin, yes, we can listen to large amounts of comprehensible input and it will allow you to learn vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation naturally.

Right? The point is it just needs to be a lot of information coming in. So, if you're listening to this podcast, listen to a lot of episodes. Many teachers will tell you, repeat the audio, repeat what you hear a second time or a third

time. It does help with retention. Your brain will soak up patterns and pronunciation and grammar, and it will retain vocabulary after repeated exposure, but you can do something more efficient.

When you listen or read and then speak or write about it, something magical happens. Using a new word dramatically increases retention. So yes, you can just listen over and over again or you can use the new word and learn it faster.

elaborate. Studies show that when you use a word in speech or writing, you force your brain to retrieve it from memory. And that retrieval process strengthens learning.

There are two psychologists, Robert Bjork and Jeffrey Karpik, who demonstrated this in a very famous study. One group of students simply re-read material. When tested a week later, they remembered 40% of it.