An interview about listening skills

Listen to the English teacher talk about listening to practise and improve your listening skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Preparation

Transcript

Presenter: So, today's expert teacher is Gabriella, a university English teacher from Leeds. Gabriella, hi and thanks for joining us today.

Gabriella: Thanks for having me!

Presenter: So, I have to confess today's topic is something I am really bad at: listening. Most people say speaking is the most stressful part of learning a new language but, for me, with my B1 German, speaking isn't so bad. At least I'm in control of it. But listening … woah … people speak so fast and it's like my brain just shuts down. Am I just really strange and bad at listening? Tell me, honestly, I can take it.

Gabriella: No, you're not strange. In fact, it's really common. You know, in exams most people do pretty well in speaking compared with listening. Of course, exams are a different situation from real life because in an exam you can't ask for something to be repeated or explained. You usually have just one or maybe two opportunities to listen to the dialogue and then it's gone.

Presenter: Right, but in real life I feel stupid always saying, 'Sorry, can you repeat that, please?', especially if I still don't understand even when they repeat it. And people out there listening, I hope you don't do this – quite often the person just repeats what they said equally as fast and I'm still lost!

Gabriella: They do, don't they? In real life, you've got two strategies. One is to pretend to understand and get out of the conversation as fast as you can.

Presenter: Yep, sounds familiar!

Gabriella: But, obviously that's not going to help if it's a conversation with high stakes. It might have important consequences. I mean, if you're just chatting with a stranger at the bus stop, it doesn't matter. But imagine you're at a government office or a bank, trying to find out what paperwork you need to get your ID or open a bank account. What can you do then?

Presenter: I hope you've got the answer, Gabriella, because I'm coming out in a cold sweat just thinking about either of those situations!

Gabriella: The other strategy is to summarise what they said.

Presenter: But how can you do that if you didn't understand what they said?

Gabriella: Ah, well, you only start the summary, so you might say, in German in your case, 'OK, so the first thing I have to do is …?' and make it a question. Or, for example, 'And which office is that again?' Break it down into smaller questions and the other person will naturally start answering them. That way you're controlling the conversation a bit more.

Presenter: I get you ...

Task 1

TrueOrFalse_MjMzNjg=.xml

Task 2

Matching_MjMzNjk=.xml

Discussion

What do you do to help with listening?

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Worksheet79.35 KB

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Language level

B1 - Intermediate

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Hi Bakeer,

If you're using a computer, you can right click on the grey audio player, then choose 'Save audio as ...'. I hope that helps :)

Jonathan

The LearnEnglish Team

I discovered on my own that the best way to further improve listening skills is to expand your vocabulary as much as you can because when you listen to another language, you are making an association in your mental library of words. all at the same time between the word, its meaning and especially its pronunciation.

To improve my listening skills I often play dictations in English and transcribe what I heard. Also, I always put the movies' audio in English with the subtitles, to help me to get more familiar with the sound of the words.

i think we must practice. practice make perfect!

To help listening skill, I practice watching videos and series in English. I listening to music too and I like to learn new words and write them to remember and improve mu vocabulary.

I usually listen to the BBC news on the television. Also, I listen to some audios and youtube clips from the internet. I have a keen interest in listening to English speakers in order to improve my skills.

For helping my listening, I usually watch the same TV series episode three times. At first, I watch it without subtitles. After that, I watch with subtitles, linking what I've just listened to with the words. Then, I watch without subtitles, and this time I can understand better. If you want to try, you have to make sure that you like the TV series, after all, you will watch it three times.

I think listening is the most difficult skill of three other fundamental skills (reading, speaking and writing). For improving this skill the best method may be living in close contact with people vho speaks the language we want to learn.