What's up everyone? Can you understand TV shows and movies with subtitles in English,
but find it difficult to understand them when you turn off the subtitles?
Don't worry, you're not alone, lots of people get stuck at this stage. Their
vocabulary allows them to understand media through reading subtitles,
but their listening skills aren't quite there yet. So in this lesson I'm going to be giving you some
tips and tricks on how to bridge the gap between your reading and your listening comprehension.
In this lesson first I'm going to share a method that's going to help you to understand
your favorite TV shows and movies without needing subtitles. Then we're going to talk
about different types of listening and finally I'm going to share two big ideas
based on studies that have been done, which are of great relevance to your goal of watching your
favorite TV series and movies without subtitles. Because here at Learn English with TV Series we
help you to learn fast English without getting lost, without missing the jokes
and without subtitles. Just like Hazmath, who says he adores our teaching methodology.
So be sure to hit that Subscribe button and the Bell down below so that you don't miss
any of our new lessons. Now, let's get into it!
Let's start with a simple 3-step method: watch without-with-without. What this basically means is
you're going to watch a scene or a clip first of all without subtitles. This is going to give you
a general sense of what's going on in the scene: where it takes place, who the characters are,
what their emotions are, etc. This alone will give you a pretty complete understanding of
what's going on in the scene, even if you're not actually understanding many of the words.
On the other hand it will give you an idea of how much of the scene you actually understand,
so if when you're doing this for the first time you understand around 30%
then by the time you finish trying this method you might end up understanding around 70%.
If in the first watch you understood around 60% of what they were saying
then by the time you complete this method you'll probably understand around 90%.
So now let's move on to the next step of watching with subtitles.
This will help you fill in the gaps of what you didn't understand in the first viewing.
You might or might not wait to pause to check some definitions in the dictionary,
it depends on how you approach the exercise. By this I mean you could have an 80%
of enjoying watching the show and 20% of English practice. In this case you want to simplify the
process and not interrupt your viewing too much. If your mindset is to use the clip for practice
and less so about enjoying the clip, you might be more motivated to stop it and do some research.
Agai,n it depends on your goal and style. Finally you'll watch it a third time without
subtitles, you'll be surprised at how capable your mind is of capturing the meaning and remembering
it all from the second viewing so you're going to understand it a lot better by this point.
It's important to note that this system is highly customizable to your goal, needs and style,
and also your level of understanding. You could do it in the way that I mentioned earlier:
watch without subtitles, watch with, and then watch without subtitles. Or you could 1. watch
without, 2. watch with native subtitles, 3. watch with English subtitles, 4. watch without.
Or watch without, watch with, watch without x2. And finally watch without, watch with dubbed
version, watch with subtitles and watch without. You can move things around in a way that works
best for you. You have the choice here, however if you do choose a more complex system then I
highly recommend choosing a shorter clip to make this a little bit more simple.
If for example you decide to apply this method to a whole episode of friends
you'll want to keep it more simple. Do also keep in mind that if by the end of this you
don't quite understand 60% don't worry! You have to have patience and be consistent.
There are different types of listening, and knowing this information is great because it
will help you to understand better what you are doing. Listening for gist is when you
are listening just to understand more or less the main idea. This is what gist means: the main idea.
So if you're watching a TV series, if you're watching a clip, you don't need to
understand specific details. You just want to get an overall idea of what it's about.
When you're listening for specific information you actually want to note down specific details,
for example keywords. After you've become more familiarized with a particular clip
you're going to start to understand more of what the character has said.
When you listen for detailed understanding you want to understand everything involved,
everything that you hear, so this is mostly irrelevant to watching TV shows.
You listen for detailed understanding, for example if a friend is giving you instructions on how to
get from one place to another, you really have to focus on the details so that you remember them.
However if you can't catch a particular word or phrase for the meaning of the clip
then you'll probably want to repeat that part a few times.
Did you know that Friends is actually known as one of the best TV series to learn English with?
This is why if you're struggling to understand fast speaking natives, our Fluent with Friends
Course would be perfect for you. In this 48-week course you'll learn with the first two seasons of
Friends. You'll receive PDF Power Lessons every week. Vocabulary memorization software, access
to our Fluency Circle Global Community and so much more! And the best part is you can try right now
for FREE with our 3-Part Masterclass. All you have to do is click up here or down in the description
box below to learn more and sign up now. Now let's move on to big idea number one.
Stephen Krashen is an American linguist that has made many publications in the
field of second language acquisition. He's most famous for his theory on Comprehensive Input.
"And now I'm going to share with you the most important thing I have learned about language.
Probably the best kept secret in the profession. We acquire language in one way and only one way:
when we understand messages."
This mostly applies to real life situations. If your teacher makes you scared, you're not
really going to learn a lot from them. The same can be said for watching TV shows and movies.
If you're not really interested in them, then you're not going to learn from them. You have
to enjoy watching them. Similarly you're going to learn more by watching or reading topics of
interest. This is also related to another big idea put forward by Krashen: Narrow Listening.
Narrow Listening is the activity of listening to audios, or watching videos,
based on a topic of your interest. If you're interested in a particular sport,
a certain artist or an area of science, for example, you're going to have more knowledge
of this subject. You're going to know more words related to that topic, so what you actually listen
to you'll be able to understand more of.Aand in Krashen's terms this is Comprehensive Input.
If you're a Friends fan and would love to try learning English with the series, then I highly
recommend you check out this playlist where we have a ton of lessons that you can choose from.
You can click up here or down in the description box below to choose your next lesson.
Big idea Nº2 is Zone of Proximal Development. This idea was introduced by a very influential Russian
psychologist, Lev Vygotsky. Zone of Proximal Vevelopment is the gap between problem solving you
can do on your own and what you can do with the help of a teacher or a more experienced learner.
This has a very direct relation to the method of watching without subtitles, with subtitles and
then again without subtitles. Let's see why. First you watch the clip without assistance:
subtitles. This is the problem solving you can do on your own. Understanding what is said in a clip
is very much a form of problem solving. Then when you watch the clip a second time you're not doing
it with the help of a teacher, you're watching it with subtitles and that's a very different
form of assistance. Once having engaged in an assisted activity, when you finally do it alone
you're more likely to do it successfully without help. This is why watching without subtitles,
with subtitles and without again is so effective. It fits in with how your brain is wired to learn.
I hope you found this lesson useful and that it's improved your awareness of how to improve
your listening comprehensio,n and break free of subtitles. I'll see you guys soon, take care!