Therefore, you want to improve your English listening skills. Listening is such an important skill to be developing English fluency. As you already know, to be able to speak English fluently, you have to be able to understand English speakers. Therefore, you if you cannot understand English speakers, then you are not a fluent English speaker.
Let’s go through 7 tips to help you improve your English listening skills…
Listen to natural English conversations on a regular basis…
Sounds pretty simple huh? I know that is probably the most logical step, though if you are not listening to English on a regular basis, you will never improve your English! 10-15 minutes daily of regular and consistent listening practice will see results in the long term.
Find resources to listen to in English…
You could listen to…
- A song.
- A YouTube video.
- A podcast.
- A film.
- A TV show.
- An audiobook You can listen to ANYTHING IN ENGLISH.
Listen to something you LOVE…
You need to find a topic that INTERESTS YOU! Not your friends, not your neighbors, not your family… something that interests you. For example…. Bob is a mechanic and he loves cars. He has decided to listen to people on YouTube talking about different cars Mary loves cooking, she has decided to watch cooking TV shows.
Be positive!
It is important to stay positive when listening to English. Is, you may not understand every, yes there will be new words, different accents, BUT STAY POSITIVE!
Listen to different people…
How I pronounce words differs to that how those in America, the UK, New Zealand, and even other parts of Australia speak. It is important to listen to different accents, as English is spoken in many different countries, and we all speak with different accents. It’s important to expose yourself to different accents.
Listen for context…
Listen to phrases as a whole and not word for word. If you do not understand one word, don’t get stuck on that word, try to understand the whole context
Speak to REAL people…
As you see, you can practice your listening skills in different ways. You can listen to natural English conversations as much as you can, listen to all different English language sources, speak to real people only in English, and listen to topics that truly interest you.