Listening is a skill, not a gift!
While learning English, many people face difficulties in understanding and listening to English. Moreover, a person can read and write perfectly without errors.
Today I will share with you some tips for developing your English listening skills. As mentioned in the previous article, the skill of listening to English speech is one of the main ones in the entire process of learning a foreign language. Since listening encourages a person to speak, that is, it develops another basic skill - speaking.
The most important thing is to remember that listening comprehension of English speech is a skill, and your task is to develop it! Remember, no one was born with this “gift”, but acquired it through constant training! The only way to improve your listening skills is to train your ears to distinguish and understand words in a sentence.
When we listen to an unfamiliar text, our brain receives new information and new neural connections are formed, which can be compared to “bridges.” If you listened to the text once, such “bridges” formed in your head, but they are still fragile and fragile. As you listen to the same text more and more, the “bridges” become stronger, and the text itself no longer frightens you with its complexity. Therefore, just a quick listen is not enough. We need to work with the text.
The following rules will help you work with text and develop listening skills:
1. Listen regularly! Even if you have a very busy schedule, set aside just 30 minutes a day for listening. The main thing here is regularity.
2. Before you start listening, get ready for work, disconnect from the world, and concentrate. Promise yourself that for the next 30 minutes you will do only listening.
If you listen to recordings of lyrics on an MP3 player, stop the recording every time you hear a new phrase. Then say the phrase 2-3 times.
When starting to learn English, choose listening texts that match your level of language proficiency.
Remember that all the words you hear may be spelled differently. No wonder they say that 70% of English words are not read according to reading rules. Therefore, it is very important to have the text of what you are listening to and refer to it. First, you listen to the text 2 - 3 times without a script, trying to understand the main content, and then turn to the script, read it, paying attention to the spelling of unfamiliar words. Finally, you listen to the text again along with the script.
3. For listening, choose only those texts that you like and that you would listen to in your native language. This is very important, as it enhances the state of success!
Today there is no shortage of material for listening: podcasts, radio programs, audio books, films, songs, that is, everything your heart desires.
Listening skills are best developed while watching TV programs in English. This can be explained by the fact that you not only listen to a text that is interesting to you, but also see a picture that helps you understand the content of the program.
4. Communicating in English will also help you develop your listening skills. After all, before you say anything, you listen carefully to your interlocutor.
5. Remember that colloquial speech is replete with abbreviations, such as “gonna” (going to), “wanna” (want to), “hafta” (have to), “needta” (need to).
6. The most important thing is to have fun while listening!
Useful resources:
English songs:
- www.amalgama-lab.com - website with translations of English songs
Audiobooks:
- etc.usf.edu/lit2go/ - a site with a large number of different audiobooks
- www.thoughtaudio.com - another resource where audiobooks are presented
- www.booksshouldbefree.com - also has a great variety of audiobooks
- www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_world_service - radio resource, current news, “live” English
- http://www.adonline.id.au/radio/ - another radio station, this time Australian. The resource will be especially useful for those who are planning to take IELTS
- www.voanews.com/english/news - Voice of America, live news
- http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ - Radio Canada
- www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/programmes/genres/drama - radio plays in English from the BBC
Material:
- www.esl-lab.com/ - a site with materials distributed according to levels of English proficiency.
- www.dailyesl.com is a site that is most suitable for those who are starting to learn English
- www.elllo.org - interviews with people from all over the world
Greetings, friends. In this lesson you can practice your listening comprehension of English. In the lesson you will find 5 very simple English texts. Each text is voiced by a native English speaker. You can print out these texts and practice listening comprehension using them.
To do this, you need to listen to each of the texts in English several times. In the beginning you need to listen and follow the text. Your next task is to learn to understand every word you hear without looking at the written text. For some, this is not easy to do. But if you practice, you will gradually begin to hear spoken English. And as motivation, I give you a commentary on one of the video texts on my channel on youtube :
“Elena Viktorovna! Thanks for the texts! I printed it out, recorded it on a tape recorder, and listened and read it on the way to work. When I got home, I listened and understood more and more what was being said. Thank you!"
Remember that understanding spoken English is not magic or mysticism. This is regular training for your brain, which learns to process an unfamiliar language. The speed of work is different for everyone. But if you train, the result will be inevitable! Good luck!
9 A description of a family
This is a photograph of Miguel and Glenna da Costa from Rio de Janeiro.
They are in New York. Miguel is from Brazil, and Glenna is from Toronto in Canada. They are married. Glenna is a doctor. Her hospital
center of Rio. Miguel is a teacher. His school is in the center of Rio, too.
10 David and his family This is David Arnot and his family. 'We're from Wales. I have a small farm. My wife’s name is Megan, and she has a job in town. She's a shop assistant. We have one child, Ben, and two dogs, Dylan and Dolly. My sister, Sally, and her husband, Tom, have a big house in London. They have two children. Tom has a very good job.’
11 A call to the hotel
A Good morning. The Grand Hotel.
J Hello. The manager, please.
A Certainly. And your name is?
J Jose Gonzalez.
A How do you spell your surname?
J G-O-N-Z-A-L-E-Z.
A Thank you.
S Hello. Sam Jackson.
J Mr Jackson, hello. This is José Gonzalez.
12 How to make a phone call
B Good afternoon. The Edinburgh English School.
M Hello. The director, Annie Benton, please.
B And your name is?
M Mayumi Morioka.
B M-A…
M M-A-Y-U-M-I M-O-R-I-O-K-A.
B Thank you... I’m sorry, she isn’t in her office. What's your phone number?
M Japan 3 5414 5443.
B Thank you for telephoning. Goodbye.
M Goodbye.
13 SALLY'S FAMILY
This is Sally Milton. She's married, and this is her family. Their house is in London. She's a teacher. Her school is in the center of town. Tom is Sally's husband. He's a bank manager. His bank is in the center of town, too.
‘Our children are Kirsty and Nick. They're students at Camden College. We're happy in London.'
The ability to understand English by ear is one of the key skills if you plan to communicate with native speakers live or watch films or TV series in English. At the same time, it is the listening skill that many students lack the most. Problems with understanding English by ear arise even among students with a good knowledge of grammar and a good vocabulary. Fortunately, regular practice helps improve this skill and make significant progress in your knowledge of English in general.
Today we offer you cool resources for listening training that will be useful for both beginners learning English and advanced students.
ESL Fast
A good site where beginners and intermediate level students can practice listening to English speech absolutely free. The resource with a simple design is very easy to use. The recordings here are arranged by sections and levels, there is audio for children who are learning English. All audios come with text, so if just listening is still difficult, you can read and translate unfamiliar words at the same time. Please note that the For Begginers level is also suitable for the Elementary and Pre-Intermediate levels.
EnglishClass 101
A site with a user-friendly interface that even those who have just started learning the language can understand. Here you will find various videos, podcasts and audio lessons. The site contains both free and paid materials. In order to access training materials, you must register. When registering, please indicate your language level. If you wish, you can receive the word of the day with examples of use and voiceovers for free every day. By purchasing a subscription, you will be able to create a bank of words and exercises for memorizing them.
ESL Cyber Listening Lab
A very interesting and, most importantly, useful site for those who want to learn to perceive English by ear. The site has several sections, which in turn are divided into three levels of difficulty. For example, the levels in the first section look like this: Easy (simple), Medium (intermediate), Difficult (difficult). Depending on your goal, you can choose a section with general topics, where there are dialogues on everyday topics, you can choose a section with academic English, or for replenishing your vocabulary.
The big advantage of this site is that working with recording is divided into 5 stages. The first is Pre-Listening - here, before listening to the recording, you are given a question to think about. We recommend answering these questions out loud to practice your spoken English. Then comes the audio recording itself and a test for its understanding. After which you can do exercises to improve your vocabulary. The fourth stage - Post-Listening Exercises - consists of a list of questions for the recording that you listened to. This stage is interesting because you need to record your answers in audio format. The fifth task is to find on the Internet answers to audio questions asked on the topic, which will help improve reading skills and enrich your vocabulary.
6 Minute English
Audio English lessons from the BBC, each lasting 6 minutes. The recordings are designed for students with an intermediate level, although even those who speak English at an above-average level will find interesting vocabulary on various topics. Each lesson explains interesting English words. Under each entry there is a text where the words that were explained in the lesson are highlighted. If desired, recordings with text for them can be downloaded to your phone to listen to later.
Ez Slang
The purpose of this resource is to help students improve their spoken English, expand their vocabulary and improve their listening comprehension of English. Before listening to the audio, you are asked to warm up by answering a question on the topic, then there is a recording and text to it. After you have listened to the recording, take the test to check if you understood everything. Each entry comes with a mini-dictionary of interesting expressions, as well as interesting information about the origin of the idiom in the entry.
Ello
A fun resource for listening practice. Entries are sorted by difficulty level: from Beginner to Advanced. The flags of the speakers' countries are drawn next to each recording, so you can select audio with the accent that interests you. There is also a Mix section, in which several people from different countries answer the same question. Under the audio there is a text to it, and on the side there is an exercise on working with words and understanding what the speakers said. All entries come with a dictionary, where you can listen to the word/phrase itself, as well as examples of its use in context.
Repeat After Us
The site contains poems, stories, and fairy tales voiced by native English speakers. On the main page you can select your level of English proficiency, and you can also search for posts by author or genre.
TalkZone
This resource is suitable for students who speak English at the Upper-Intermediate level and above. There are several channels dedicated to different topics, so you can choose the channel that will be most interesting to you. You can listen to the radio online, or you can download the app to your phone.
Do you think that it is impossible to learn a foreign language without immersion in the language environment? You can immerse yourself in the world of English-speaking communication not only by moving abroad, but also thanks to good listening resources. Learn to perceive English by ear, improve pronunciation and increase your vocabulary thanks to the TOP 5 listening resources.
A few words about listening
We perceive and understand what we hear thanks to the performance of various logical operations: comparison, concretization, abstraction, analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction. That is why this ability is extremely important for the formation of language competence. Not surprisingly, most include listening as a required part of the test.
The skill of listening to English-language information can be trained. By listening, watching films and listening, you develop the ability to perceive foreign speech by ear. Thanks to this skill, you not only become a full-fledged participant in communication in a foreign language, but you can also develop other communication skills: reading, writing, speaking. We recommend quality resources to develop this skill.
elllo.org
A resource through which you can listen to interviews with a variety of people from around the world. It is thanks to this resource that you can learn to perceive speech and understand people with different accents. Elllo is a rich audio library with all kinds of materials in English for listening and training your ability to perceive English-language information by ear.
The spoken language of the people being interviewed is more lively and natural than the audio materials offered in courses or all kinds of textbooks. The resource also offers a selection of video materials with subtitles.
The portal presents a collection of various games that also help improve listening comprehension skills. In addition, Elllo will help you remember the pronunciation of individual words, especially those that have many different meanings and are most often used in speech.
eslgold.com
If you are just starting to learn English, this resource will be useful for you: here you can listen to the most commonly used spoken phrases, starting with the simplest ones. Phrases that are said when meeting people, useful phrases for traveling, simple questions, phrases for events, presentations, situational phrases, expressions for expressing gratitude and many others. By listening to the materials of this portal every day and learning standard phrases by heart, you will be able to navigate standard situations and participate in conversations in English on familiar topics.
edition.englishclub.com
Every week the portal offers you an overview of interesting news in simple English. By listening to the news and doing various exercises, you will not only learn a lot of useful information, but also learn to perceive English-language information by ear. Dedicate at least 20 minutes a day to the resource - and you will be surprised at the results you will get in a month.
eslfast.com
The resource presents a collection of short stories for the Intermediate level. You can listen to stories regularly and also complete all sorts of tasks. Mainly on the portal, in addition to listening materials, dictations and crosswords are presented. Thanks to such exercises, you can check how well you understood the text you listened to.
puzzle-english.com
A good portal for watching English-language films and TV series with a selection of additional materials for developing speech skills for each episode. we already told you earlier.
Train your ability to perceive English-language information by ear, improve your English with Enguide!
How changeable this world is! What once seemed almost a luxury is now available to everyone. When I started learning English (more than 13 years ago), there was not much choice of materials. We could rely on material from Russian-language publications, and foreign books (for example, publications Oxford University Press) received only to order for a lot of money. Of course, we are not talking about any Internet, because then it was just beginning to enter our lives. We also used paper dictionaries and audio tapes. This has its own advantage; we did not rack our brains over choosing which course to take for our classes.
Now the situation is completely opposite. You can find and purchase educational materials from almost any English-language publishing house, as well as use electronic versions of printed publications. You can listen to audio materials and watch videos in unlimited quantities on various sites. Any theoretical material is available from Internet resources dedicated to learning English. I'm not even talking about online dictionaries and electronic translators.
Such availability of material, as well as a rich assortment, help make the process of learning English interesting and exciting. But the question arises: how not to get lost in all this variety of resources? After all, there are tens of thousands of them... And you may like a large number of sites, but you must understand that it is impossible to embrace the immensity. How to choose exactly those sites that will be most useful in mastering the English language? This is what we will look into.
We bookmark resources that help us:
Learn and practice grammar
If your visual memory works well, use picture dictionaries ( picture dictionaries) to expand your . Here are some interesting resources:
- – a thematic picture dictionary with voiceovers for each word.
- – there are a lot of topics, the words are voiced. Moreover, you are asked to perform several exercises of different types after studying a particular group of words.
- – a thematic dictionary with definitions of words in the form of animated pictures.
Are you interested in business vocabulary? Become a frequent visitor to the site and learn words by watching videos on various topics in the field of business relations.
Practice correct pronunciation
Excellent exercises for practicing correct English sounds are located on the website. If you are in doubt about the pronunciation of any English word, you can listen to its sound on the resource already mentioned above or on the website. And, of course, don’t ignore the “ Pronunciation tips» site.
Train your listening comprehension skills in English
Having studied English for a long time, many people notice that it is almost as difficult to perceive English speech by ear as it was at the very beginning, when you became acquainted with this language. It is this skill, like speaking, that is the last to develop, since it depends on many factors, including a rich vocabulary and knowledge of grammar, knowledge of the features of the language and coherent speech in particular, familiarity with the idiomatic side of the language, etc. Therefore, I recommend both You can listen to English-language speech more often and more in order to gradually get used to it. But you can not only listen to it, but also work with audio material. How? Choosing podcasts! You can work with them both on websites and off the computer by downloading and uploading them to any of the media devices you use.
- – I really love this resource, which is updated every two days. Authors upload a new podcast, which may belong to one of the existing sections ( entertainment, health&medicine, business, daily life, relationships etc.). The podcast consists of the following parts: voiced dialogue at a slow pace, explanation of all difficult moments and unfamiliar words in English, voiced dialogue at the pace of normal speech. The text of each podcast is attached. However, you can practice each podcast even better by receiving a 12-page material with exercises and additional information. But only those who have paid for their membership in the listeners’ club have this opportunity eslpod.
- – excellent podcasts with exercises divided by level of English language knowledge.
- – podcasts on all sorts of topics.
- – podcasts of different levels of complexity with a detailed analysis of all the nuances of the language.