hello this is jack from tofluency.com
and in this video i'm going to teach you
how you can improve your English
listening so keep watching
before I go into the specifics of how
you can improve your listening it's
important to know that you need to work
on other areas of your English too so
for example if you're reading a book and
you learn new words and phrases this
means that when you hear these words and
phrases being used you'll be able to
understand them so work on your general
English in addition to your listening
but in order to improve your listening
you're going to have to listen more most
English learners that I talk to they
don't do enough listening in fact I
surveyed my audience and asked them how
much time do they spend listening in
English and the vast majority spend less
than one hour a week and this is not
enough you're going to have to listen
more in order to understand how people
use English sounds how these sounds
connect together how people use stress
rhythm and intonation so get as much
listening practice
as you can the good news with this is
that you can listen while doing other
things and this is going to be
beneficial so listen while you're
commuting to work while you're washing
the dishes while you're walking the dock
there's so many opportunities in our
lives where we can do more listening so
listen as much as possible you might be
asking what should I listen to why it's
going to be the most beneficial thing
for me to listen to in order to improve
my skills so the important thing is is
to make it relevant to you make it
relevant to how you're going to use your
English in the real world so if you are
a business person and you deal with
people from America then learn business
English and learn American English make
it relevant to you in your situation
it's also important that you make it fun
listen to things that you enjoy
listening to for example I love soccer
so I listen to so many
Cass in Spanish about soccer and for me
this is just enjoyable I don't feel like
I'm studying but I'm getting the
practice that I need so think about what
you enjoy listening to and listen to
more of that a potential problem is that
what you want to listen to might be too
difficult so for example you might want
to listen to conversation or podcasts
talking about politics but they're
speaking too quickly or they're just
speaking about things that you don't
understand now if this is a case then
you can actually start listening to
something that is easier and build up
from there I want to give you two things
that you can listen to if you struggle
with really fast conversation so the
first thing you can do is listen to the
news this is because the news reporters
speak in a very clear way and also
they're talking about current events and
most people are up to date with current
events so you'll understand what they're
talking about the second way you can do
this or the second option is to listen
to graded readers and these are books
and audio books that have been adapted
specific to certain levels of English so
I made a video where you can evaluate
your own level of English you can
evaluate yourself and then you can get
the readers the graded readers specific
to your level starting with those two
things will help you get more adapted to
the way English is spoken and then you
can move on from there repeating what
you listen to is also going to benefit
you so for example if you listen to a
podcast and you don't understand 50% of
it listen to it again because what
normally happens is the second time you
can understand more words because the
first time you listen to it you get the
general idea of what they're talking
about but then the second time you know
what they're talking about and therefore
you
fill in all the different words and
phrases that they use so repeat a
podcast two three four or more times
because you'll be amazed at how much you
can understand the second and the third
time of listening to it we can also get
smart repetition by doing narrow
listening so this is where you choose a
topic and then you listen to a podcast
on this topic watch the news report on
this topic
what's your documentary on this topic
and you'll get in the vocabulary and
phrases repeated again and again
this last tip might surprise you working
on your pronunciation is going to help
your listening so there was a study done
that took two groups they tested the
groups before the study they both did
the same things except for the
experimental group had extra
pronunciation training and that training
led to a higher performance in listening
comprehension and I think this works
because once you know how to make the
sounds how to use a correct intonation
and rhythm and stress then you'll be
able to recognize this when you listen
to it so work on your pronunciation in
order to improve your listening I have
given a lot of advice here on how you
can improve your listening if you're
only going to remember one thing
remember to get as much practice as
possible take your smartphone or your
music player wherever you go take your
headphones and listen to English at
every opportunity you get and enjoy it
enjoy what you're listening to so thank
you for watching this video and I'll see
you next time