How to Improve Your English Listening Skills

How to Improve Your English Listening Skills

At American English Language School, we emphasize practicing English conversations. That is why we maintain smaller classes for students to have as many chances to speak as possible. On the other hand, a big part of having a conversation is listening. If you cannot comprehend what someone is saying to you, you will have no idea what to respond or you may respond incorrectly. Speaking is found the most challenging by many students, so they tend to focus on that. However, you won't be able to improve your speaking skills without working on your listening skills. Here are a few tips and tricks to help you improve your listening. 

First, a crucial part of improving your listening skills is to listen attentively. You need to make sure you are focused; You won't be able to improve by just playing something in the background and not paying attention to it. After you have your material to help you practice, listen to it repeatedly. You should try to find materials that have transcriptions available, so you can check your understanding of the audio. 

A great method for improving your listening skills is microlearning. Instead of studying for hours at a time, you study for 15-30 minutes a day. You can study for about 20 minutes throughout the way anyway that you want. Pick a short audio clip to listen to a few times, and you can go back later during the day to review the clip again. Listen to the audio clip repeatedly until you know you fully understand everything in the clip. This is an effective technique for those who do not have the time to study for hours every day. Furthermore, sometimes when you study for too long every day, you tend to lose motivation and give up faster. 

Another way to help improve your listening is to practice conversations with yourself. Study conversations that you hear in movies, television, or anywhere else. After listening to them, practice saying and responding to them in the mirror. 

When you have downtime, use it wisely. Anytime when you are driving, working out, cleaning, or anything that does not require a lot of concentration, listen to some podcasts, television, or movies in English. This will make your downtime more efficient and help you improve. 

Finally, there is no quick way to improve your listening skills. It will take time to improve your English listening skills. However, that is no reason to give up hope. It may take some time to fully be able to understand conversations and respond accordingly, but it will get easier and easier the more that you practice.


Tagged: Language School in LA, English Language School in LA

Published on March 30, 2021

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