How to improve your listening skills
A lot of trainees feel that their listening comprehension is not very good and very often one of their main objectives is to improve their listening skills! Although listening comprehension can be challenging, the good news is that there are ways to practise listening comprehension outside the classroom! Here are two great ways to improve your listening:
- Watch movies or TV series: this is a great way to improve your listening skills! Choose something you’d like to watch and watch it in English. If you don’t understand absolutely everything, don’t worry. It’s more important to understand the context rather than the medical or legal jargon in Grey’s Anatomyor the Good Wife! If you use streaming services like Netflix, you can also have subtitles in English to help you with the vocabulary. So next time you sit down to watch a movie or an episode (or two?) of your favourite series, try watching it in English!
- Listen to podcasts: the best thing about podcasts is that not only can you listen to them any time and any place, they are also free. There is a huge variety of podcasts to choose from online; you can listen to podcasts on current affairs, cooking, psychology, business … the list is endless. A lot of them can also be downloaded, so you don’t need to be online when you listen to them. Some good podcasts for English language learners are 6 minute English, This American Life, Global News BBCand Luke’s English Podcast. And remember, if you have trouble understanding the vocabulary, most podcasts come with transcripts that can be downloaded so you can follow what is being said!
You can also check out our post on Eclat’s top series to watch on Netflix!!! (Link)