hi everybody I'm Gabby Wallace and this
is a go natural English lesson this
video is a sneak preview of my full
video course online that's available for
instant viewing as soon as you sign up
on my website gonaturalenglish.com the
class is called
17 secrets to improving your listening
skills in English and yes there are
really 17 secrets plus five practice
videos there is also a bonus video so
you have a few hours of course materials
that will improve your listening skills
and you can ask me questions there as
well but in this video I want to share
five of these strategies or secrets for
improving your listening skills so let's
get right to it number one your mindset
the way that you think whether it's
positive or negative makes a huge
difference in your abilities to take
action or to understand what you're
hearing so if you go into a situation
with a negative mindset trust me you
won't do as well and you won't feel as
confident if you go into a situation
with a positive mindset yes I can do it
I am able to understand what I hear in
English I do have the skills and I have
the motivation to improve my skills I
see myself improving every day these are
the kinds of phrases these are the kinds
of ideas that I want for you to have in
your mind as you approach situations in
English where you want to understand
what you hear so my first tip is to
start with a positive mindset I believe
you can do it you can understand what
you hear in English and I'm here to help
you so that you can even improve even
more and build your confidence so that
you
interact with success in any English
speaking conversation
all right that's why we're here let's
take a look at the second strategy
listen read speak when you listen it's
very helpful if you can use other
activities to develop your listening
skill I would compare this to
cross-training
for a sport let's say you want to be
really good at soccer
right and the rest of the world football
but in the u.s. we call it soccer so you
might play a lot of soccer to get good
at soccer
of course that's obvious right but some
people will encourage you to cross-train
maybe try a different sport that would
increase your endurance or your
breathing your your lung capacity maybe
you'd want to try swimming it's a
totally different sport but it should
help your overall physical capabilities
so I recommend finding materials where
you can listen and read them so this
video is a material that you can listen
to and you can read the subtitles right
so you could start by listening only
don't read the subtitles and then the
second time that you watch the video you
can listen and read so pay attention to
those subtitles other materials you
could use include my podcast project all
ears English you could use the Voice of
America news they often have listening
and reading that you can do together
alright the third is speak so what I
want you to try with this video or with
my podcast is to first listen then
listen and read then try a speaking
technique that's called shadowing I have
another video that describes how to
shadow but I'll quickly describe it here
what you do is you listen and as soon as
you can possibly repeat what you hear I
want
to say it okay so you're going to be
mimicking what you hear as fast as you
can right after you hear it alright so
in these three ways you're going to
develop your listening skills because
reading will help you identify the
connection between what you hear and
what you read okay and speaking well if
you can say a sound you'll be able to
hear it better I hope that makes sense
but trust me that this kind of
cross-training will really help your
listening skills next diversity I
encourage you to listen to a diverse set
of materials try some listening
materials that are short two minutes
three minutes five minutes and then as
you advance try materials that are
longer twenty minutes thirty minutes a
full movie of an hour or two so a
diversity of lengths of materials and
shorter length materials are better for
repeating over and over if you have a
three minute video you could repeat that
five times and you've still only studied
for 15 minutes so it's very easy to do
another point about diversity is I
encourage you to begin listening to
materials that are interesting to you
that fit within your interests so if
you're interested in soccer listen to
material about soccer or listen to an
actual soccer game with English sports
casters or announcers but I want you to
push yourself to go outside of your
interests and listen to a diverse range
of materials okay if you are an artist I
want you to find science materials to
listen to you could listen to the NPR
radio that's the National Public Radio
or the BBC radio the British
Broadcasting
what does C channel I think
there you're going to find topics on
science technology business health all
different kinds of topics that you can
explore to listen to our diverse range
of materials why should you do this
because of vocabulary I want you to be
familiar with a wide range of vocabulary
so again begin with topics that motivate
you that you're really interested in but
when you're ready for a challenge try
materials that you wouldn't naturally be
drawn to maybe something in a different
field or a different topic then you
would usually choose and that will keep
things fresh that will challenge you
okay next guess first why would you
guess first we want to be sure we want
to have concrete 100% confidence in what
we're hearing right well actually no I
want you to guess what you think you're
going to hear based on the situation or
the materials that you expect so let's
say you are listening to one of my video
lessons I want you to look at the title
first and take three seconds to guess
what you are going to hear in that video
this activates your brain and you start
thinking about vocabulary that you can
expect and that way that vocabulary is
fresh in your mind and your brain
doesn't have to work so hard to dig it
up so before you enter a conversation at
a specific event or a specific place
with a certain person I want you to
guess what do you think that person
might want to talk about that will help
you to be prepared mentally for that
conversation
or for the material like my videos last
point understand the big ideas what I
mean by this is I want to help you to
understand what's special about the
structure of English and the way that we
speak what are the pad
if we can start to identify the patterns
of English then when you want to
understand a specific conversation a
specific phrase or a specific word
you're going to be able to place that
within the framework or the structure of
English and you'll be able to organize
these new learnings much more easily
you'll have a place to put all the the
new ideas the new vocabulary and the new
phrases so the first thing that I want
you to think about is the big picture or
the framework of English and in my
course I describe this in more detail
but what I mean is we have to get used
to things like the rhythm of English how
we chunk phrases together and sometimes
it has nothing to do with punctuation
like periods or comments although
sometimes it does we have to get used to
the stress that we put on certain parts
of a phrase the stress that we put on
certain syllables in a word we have to
get used to how in English we have key
content words and we have weaker
function words I'll explain all this in
my full course we have to get used to
also the sounds that we're going to hear
within the words that maybe you don't
have in your native language like the th
sounds or the R or the L or maybe the P
or the B sounds I know in other
languages these may not exist so this is
what I call getting used to the big
picture or understanding the big picture
so that you have a framework to
understand how English is special and
when you learn new ideas or new words
you can organize all of these things in
your brain and when we organize it helps
us to remember all right so these are
five secrets for listening success I
would love it if you would come join me
for my full course the 17 secrets
to improving your listening skills in
English which you can find on my website
at go natural English dot-com under
courses I can't wait to see you there so
come join now