How to improve your English listening?

Difficulty understanding spoken English?
How to improve your English listening?

If you have difficulties in listening, you’re not alone – this is one of the most common problems for English learners.

It’s frustrating and embarrassing when you can’t understand spoken English – but in this lesson, I’m going to explain why it’s so difficult and teach you how to improve.

Listening to English and successfully understanding it is difficult for 3 reasons:

#1 – Many English words are pronounced differently from their written form.
We have words with silent letters like thought (silent GH), island (silent S), and muscle (silent C and silent E). Also, many letters can be pronounced in different ways, like the A in apple, father, and game.

#2 – When native speakers talk fast, we “link” the words together.
Native speakers often “connect” the words when speaking fast; we don’t pronounce every individual word clearly.

“How are you feeling today?”
Sounds like: “Howrya feelin’ today?”

“I’m going to have lunch.”
Sounds like: “I’m gonnahav lunch.”

This “linking” happens in all spoken English sentences – and it’s one BIG reason that it’s so difficult to understand.

#3 – Too little practice.
Most students read too much and don’t listen to enough English – but remember that babies and young children learn English by listening FIRST and reading later – so English listening practice is essential!

OK, now that you know WHY listening is difficult, here is HOW to improve it. There are two ways: practicing every day and practicing the RIGHT way.

English Listening Tip #1 – Practice Every Day
Create the habit of listening to English for 15 minutes daily. Even if you’re busy and you don’t have much time, you can listen while

Driving to work or school
Taking public transportation
Exercising
Doing housework
What should you listen to?

Here are 3 sites with great audio (and accompanying text):

VOA Special English – American English news
BBC Six-Minute English – British English news & lifestyle
Elllo.org – Dialogues and conversations (many different accents of English)

English Listening Tip #2 – Practice the Right Way
The second tip for improving your listening is to practice listening the RIGHT way.

What does this mean? Well, there is a “right way” and a “wrong way” to practice English listening.

The WRONG way to do English listening practice:

Try to listen once
You don’t understand every word and you get frustrated
Give up and stop practicing after the first try
To do English listening practice the RIGHT way, the first step is to relax and know that it’s completely normal to have limited understanding the first time you listen.

Effective English Listening Practice:
Listen the first time for the general topics. Don’t try to understand every word; just try to understand the main ideas.
Listen again and now try to understand some more specific details. Again, remember that it’s OK not to catch every word.
Listen the third time while reading the transcript (text). Now you can pay attention to the individual words and see if your previous understanding was correct.
This type of listening – from more general to more specific – is the most effective way to practice and improve your English listening ability.

If you like this post, then comment below & let me know about it. I always appreciate your support. Thanks a lot for being with us.