2 ways to improve English listening skills

Being able to listen to advanced and native English speakers is surely one of the top English language skills you can master. Why? Because if you listen well, you respond well; and if you respond well, you ensure a smooth communication. Plus, in order to enjoy your favorite English shows without having to read the subtitles all the time, you need to do the hard job first. In this blog, I am going to teach you 2 GREAT ways in which you can improve your English listening skills. Let’s get started!

Tip# 1: Create your own transcriptions

You know those annoying horrible listening tests where you have to fill in a gap and write what you hear, unfortunately they work. However we want to do something that is relevant to us. So, if you are particularly interested in an activity or have a hobby, create your own listening exercise because it won’t be so painfully boring.

How to do it

This exercise is all about listening blindly which means you are not looking at any visuals nor are
you looking at the speaker’s mouth movements, facial expressions, or subtitles.

1. Listen blindly to a sentence once or if you are feeling more advanced, take a couple of
   sentences
2. Listen blindly once more
3. Write down exactly what you have heard or you think you have heard
4. Look at the subtitles and compare your transcriptions to the video subtitles
5. Make sure that you have selected a video that have accurate subtitles NOT auto-generated
   ones

Getting into the habit of writing down what you are listening will help you analyse words and ideas
from a listening perspective and strengthen this ability.

Tip# 2: Listen in chunks

I am sure that like countless other English learners, you also must have heard this tip of listening
to English shows, movies, news, etc. to improve English. However, being organized in this regard will
ensure you are going one step further and learning faster. For this technique, you need to first
learn parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, adverbs adjectives, and all the basics which are not
difficult to learn.

How to do it

1.  Pick a ‘part of speech’; it can be verbs, adjectives, adverbs, or nouns
2. Select any English video. Ted talks are best for this exercise
3.  Play a part of the video and write down ALL verbs you hear in the speaker’s speech
4.  Continue this on for the next part and until you reach the end
5.  You may stop the video to write down, look at the subtitles, or simply write as you hear
6. Once you are done with one part of speech, repeat this exercise for the others

This is one of the most helpful ways you can identify speech patterns and increase your
vocabulary. Granted this is time-consuming; however, you polish your skill with each video as you
progress. After doing this exercise for a number of times, you will have widened your vocabulary
bank and buttress your listening skills.