How to Improve Listening Skills in English

Well, hello there! Welcome to the Speak English Fearlessly podcast. This is the place to learn how to speak English fearlessly. Every week I'll share tips, practical exercises, and inspiring stories from people just like you who are working to speak English fearlessly. So if you're wanting to grow your English skills and speak English fearlessly, then this is

the place for you. Today we're going to be talking all about how you can improve your listening skills in English. The first step or the first thing that I want you to consider is that you find audio,

find sources to listen to that you actually like. You don't have to be suffering more than what you need to in this exercise. That's not to say that you're going to be suffering as you do this. But I'll give you a warning right now.

What we're going to be talking about is not always easy, especially if you're just getting started. But you should definitely find audio. sources that you will be listening to that you actually enjoy.

Things that are fun for you, things that are interesting to you. That's what you want to focus on because you are going to be focusing hard on this material. So hopefully you're liking what you're hearing.

That's really important. If you don't find this interesting, if you're not excited about what you're listening to, chances are you're not going to stick with it long enough for your listening skills to improve. You'll feel bored and you'll give up and we don't

want that. So make sure you find audio that you enjoy listening to. And that can come from songs. It can come from a podcast like this one, Hint, Hint. It could come from watching your favorite TV show or movie. The point is, make sure you're finding something that you love to listen to. Next, don't bite off more than what you can chew. Have you

ever heard that phrase before? Don't bite off more than you can chew. It simply means don't take on too much. Don't try to do more than what you actually can. Just like choosing the wrong kind of audio, things that you're not interested in will cause you to get bored and give up. Biting off more than you can chew

will frustrate you to no end and you'll end up giving up. You won't want to continue because it will feel too overwhelming. So don't bite off more than what you can chew. Start small. And this is especially important if this is the first time you've been working or focusing on developing your listening

skills in English. If you're just getting started with this, focus small. Even though the audio source you chose might be long, like a 30 minute TV show or a 20 minute interview on a podcast or a three minute song even, even though that audio might be long. The good thing is you can still use it as long as you focus on a smaller portion of that content.

So for example, in a song that might be three minutes long, if you're just getting started, you might lose interest in trying to figure out what's going on inside the song, listening to the words, if you make it your goal to listen to the entire three-minute song without stopping. That's going to be really tough at the beginning.

So focusing small in the example of a song would be maybe taking the first three or five seconds. Maybe the opening line of your favorite verse of the song. Just focus on that.

Focus small. Next, as you listen, listen with focus. an important word. We've talked about this in previous episodes, but you can hear something and not pay attention to it, right? I've had times in school where that happened to me a lot. I

remember if I found the teacher to be boring or I was thinking about something else in the moment, I could totally be in the room with the teacher talking and not be paying attention. The words are just going over my head or in one ear and out the other. Maybe you've heard that expression before when something goes in one ear and out the other.

It means you're not paying attention to what you're hearing. We don't want that kind of listening, not in this exercise. This this exercise requires intense focus. And that's why focusing small on just a small bit of audio to begin is really a good idea.

Because if you struggle to hear what's going on, you can at least know that it's okay. I'm not going to be struggling with a whole 30 minute TV show or a whole three minute song. I'm caring about is the first five seconds or the first ten seconds. That's all I'm focusing on.

And as you focus, what I want you to do is bring a piece of paper with you or your laptop or something that you can use to write with or type with. As you listen to your small portion of audio, what I want you to try to do is write down the words that you hear. Even if you're not sure exactly what the person or the singer or the actor is saying,

write what you think you are hearing. And of course, if you actually hear certain words, write those down. Even if you're like if you pick up one word, maybe the first thing that the person says, if you hear that but the next two words you don't hear, that's okay too. Write down that first word, then maybe draw two spaces

on your paper. Meaning there are two words that are missing in this line. Write down what you hear, even if it's not the complete section of audio yet. That will come over time. But first, focus on writing down what you hear or what you think you hear. The next thing that you need to do is to be repeating. Remember, you're listening on a micro level. We're not trying to

listen to the whole entire program or the whole entire song at this point. We're just repeating like that five seconds or ten seconds of audio and we're repeating it over and over again until you can get exactly what is being said or what is being sung. That on your paper as you're writing out word for word what

you're hearing, you are filling in those blanks if there were words that were missing for you, the first few times that you heard it. Your goal is to write completely what you heard. So I call that micro listening. Maybe there's an even better word than that, but think micro