my goal in listening is to make sure i
get that exposure to the language hi
there steve kaufman here and today i'm
going to talk about listening this is
going to be the
third in my series of my hierarchy of
goals in language learning remember if
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so you may remember that i said there
are seven goals that i have when it
comes to language learning and i kind of
have a hierarchy of goals my first goal
is to acquire words the number of words
i know is the best indicator of my level
in the language my second goal was to
read a lot and i measure and i follow
the statistic we have at link on how
many words
i have read
now the third goal is listening
it's it's the third goal in the
hierarchy but in many ways
it's the most important because it's the
major activity
that i do when it comes to language
learning simply because it's so easy to
do
so i can get up in the morning and
listen
i can listen while doing the dishes i
listen while i exercise i listen while
i'm in the car or in the train or
wherever i am i can always listen i can
listen 15 minutes here 20 minutes there
before you know it i have an hour
of language learning done
the listening is how the brain gets used
to the sounds of the language gets used
to the structure of the language
we as as human beings we have been
listening for a lot longer than we have
been reading
and i think it's natural for the brain
to learn a language through listening
the reading helps and i said that in my
earlier video and i can reinforce that
by saying that
in fact if i look at my strategy in
listening
so i sort of have two types of listening
when i start in a language i need a lot
of repetitive listening that doesn't
mean that i listen to say one mini story
30 times at one sitting but it means
that i'll listen to that story a couple
of times then i move to the second story
even while i don't really understand the
first story that well
again remember the brain wants novelty
repetition and novelty as the great man
fred spitzer said we need them both so i
can repeat i can listen to that first
story two or three times but at a
certain point even if i don't understand
it i want something new and so typically
i'll go lesson one a few times less than
two less than three less than four back
to lesson one and eventually i'll end up
listening to that first story
20 maybe 10 20 times
in fact it'll end up being more than
that because
the mini stories are kind of the
sort of the gym i like to call it that's
where i work on my core capability in
the language so even
much later in the language when i have
acquired a lot more words i still like
to go back to listening to the mini
stories because i always discovered
things that i hadn't noticed before
in other words things that i'm now open
to because i've learned other things in
the language so i start to notice them
remember too
again when it comes to
because in in lang in listening i don't
really have a goal i want to listen to
so many hours i just want to listen it's
easy to do i do it whether that's 100
hours 200 hours i don't pay the same
amount of attention to the total number
of hours i've listened to
as i do to the reading or this the sort
of uh
you know linking and and adding to my
known words total
because the listening i'm just gonna do
it
and um but it's important to realize
that
when you listen
it's not important or you shouldn't
think you need to understand everything
you don't even have to focus every all
the time when you're listening it's just
getting the language in you
and so
my goal in listening is to make sure i
get that exposure to the language it's
not to make sure i understand anything
with enough listening the comprehension
will come
particularly
if i am if i have access now the many
stories are relatively simple and
there's a lot of repetition but as you
graduate from the many stories to more
difficult content you aren't listening
as often you're encountering more words
that you don't know
and so there i think it's very important
to recognize that
it may be frustrating that you don't
understand and make sure you have access
to transcript because to listen to
something that you totally don't
understand i don't think it's very
useful but if you have access to the
transcript and you can look up the words
on link say and you listen again
it may seem that every time you listen
you still don't understand the same
parts
and i have that experience all the time
however
if you keep going you will gradually
understand more and more and i've had
that experience many many times
with more difficult content my strategy
typically is to listen
uh and to to cover the material in the
sentence mode
so that with time stamps i can listen to
the sentence
and even there
the same words the same phrases i don't
understand them i can't pick them up it
goes too quickly it doesn't matter
gradually you will understand more and
i've had that experience so
the the goal in listening
is to
make sure you listen enough
that the brain will eventually get used
to it and make sure you have access to
the transcript so that you can actually
read it and have a chance of
understanding what you're listening to
you may still not understand it
but you're gradually building up to that
better level of comprehension and
listening comprehension is such an
important goal because it's the
condition
once you have that listening
comprehension you can watch movies you
can listen to podcasts you can engage in
meaningful conversation with people so
and all of those activities the sort of
higher level activities are going to
improve your ability to speak which is
where we eventually want to end up
but
the listening is is a such a key part
and
in terms of uh
time it's where i spend most of my time
between my you know different
opportunities to listen during the day i
easily get in an hour and then i only
need another half hour or so of reading
and linking if i'm using link
and i've got my hour and a half a day of
language learning time in so listening
is the easiest thing to do
it's
very important for forming new habits in
the brain
for getting you to notice phrases that
you will eventually want to use it's the
best preparation for speaking
so
i while i don't track the number of
hours that i listen
and but i can leave you
uh
again from my profile just in a couple
of languages you know the extent to
which my my listening activity has you
know grown progressively
but it's it's so key to do it and even
if you stop for a while
when you go back to listening all of
that listening activity that you have
done that has created new language
habits in your brain it'll still be
there you might
you know have forgotten a few words but
as you relearn these words and as you
listen to again to it again you'll be
back stronger than ever so make sure you
invest enough time in your listening
activities
and in the next video
uh i will talk about how
all of our input activity gradually
leads us to being able to speak well and
what the goal my goals are when it comes
to speaking so thank you for listening