LANGUAGE TRAINING CENTRE - GERMAN | ENGLISH | FRENCH | CHINESE | SPANISH | SWAHILI | KENYA SIGN LANG
Title: LANGUAGE TRAINING CENTRE - GERMAN | ENGLISH | FRENCH | CHINESE | SPANISH | SWAHILI | KENYA SIGN LANG
Secret Tips to Drastically Improve Your English Listening (ESL)
I know how you feel. You’ve studied English for a long time, you understand the rules, you can read, write, and even speak. But when you watch TV, listen to podcasts, or find yourself in a group of native speakers, YOU ARE TOTALLY LOST!
We speak too fast, we cut words, we use too much slang, and we break nearly all the grammar rules. This is not what you learned in school, and your English class will do little to help you develop this extremely important skill for fluency.
If this sounds like you, this article will reveal the best and most effective tips, strategies, and techniques to drastically improve your ESL listening ability. If you follow at least a few of them, these tips can dramatically improve your listening in a question of just a few weeks.
First of all, it’s important to note that listening difficulties are very common. What’s not common, however, is a proactive attitude, or good strategies to fix this. Fortunately, once you start consistently implementing these tips, your listening skills will improve faster than you ever imagined.
What a lot of frustrated learners don’t know, however, is that BECAUSE you are having this problem, it means that fluency is close. Learning to listen and understand native speakers in a relaxed, fun way is the biggest step you can take toward making English part of
We’ve recently written articles on the other main areas of English, too. It’s important to master all of these in order to be an exceptional English learner. Check those out here:
- Reading
- Speaking
- Writing
Make Listening a Fun Daily Habit
“We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle
Whatever you do in life, to be awesome at it, you need to do it every day. I’m sorry, but twice a week is okay for amateurs, but most learners expect (and need) to be highly proficient.
For ESL learners who want and need permanent, life-long fluency, mediocrity is not an option.
The most effective, interesting, and convenient way to do this is to create a lifestyle that transforms your contact with English into something convenient and enjoyable. Most of us live busy lives, and we value our free time, so to do it every day, we need good strategies, and we need to make them into habits.
Usually thirty days is enough to build a strong habit. These resources will help show you how to efficiently build habits: How to Guarantee Language Learning Success (30 Day Trial)
Take advantage of convenient moments (transit, exercise, etc)
Whether you drive a car, take the bus, or walk, the most convenient time for you to practice your listening skills is usually in transit.
Everybody I talk to about this complains that they don’t have enough time to practice. My response is always the same: find convenient, easy moments to do it, and make them into fun, daily habits. No matter what your level is, you don’t have to be intently listening to learn. You just need to do it every day.
If you don’t understand, your mind and brain will adapt to the native rhythms pretty quickly, and you’ll soon start understanding and spontaneously using new words and speaking more like a native.
Besides transit time, here are a few convenient moments for most people:
- Getting ready in the morning
- Cooking/cleaning/organizing your house
- When you’re exercising
Listen to Native English Speaking Podcasts & Online Radio
The world is getting smaller every day, and technology is making it possible to be connected to every culture and language from your internet connection and MP3 player, anytime you want. This is great news for your English!
Podcasts are limitless and if you haven’t started listening, START NOW. If you haven’t, you are missing out. You don’t need to depend on traditional media sources for your news, information, and professional development.
There are native English speaking podcasts about EVERY TOPIC under the sun, from professional topics like business and entrepreneurship, to spirituality, fashion, art, culture, travel, and basically any topic you can imagine.
Online radio is another great resource. You can live stream radio stations from all over the world with an internet connection. Read More About Podcasts (What is a podcast and why you should care).
ESL Podcasts/Podcasts for English Learners
There are many, many podcasts for English learners too. ESL (English as a Second Language) podcasts are made specifically for people learning English. There are teachers all around the world providing FREE ENGLISH RESOURCES.
In fact, here at Real Life English, we just started doing a weekly podcast to help you guys learn. The weekly podcast, hosted by Trevor and Chad is released EVERY SUNDAY. It covers the FIVE EXPRESSIONS that we post in the RLE International Facebook Community during the week (as sort of a review).
If you haven’t already, we recommend that you join the Unikcolors Media Training Institute International community. This is a great chance to learn not only from thousands of English speakers from around the world, but also the daily expressions, and weekly podcast.
