How To Practice And Improve Your Advanced English Listening Skills in 30 Days
You are an intermediate or advanced
English learner. But for some reason your
English listening skills don’t seem to
be improving. You listen to English music,
you listen to English news programs, and
maybe even listen to English podcasts.
But for some reason your English
listening skills don’t seem to improve.
Well don’t worry. Today I’m gonna teach
you how. Welcome to Speak English with Tiffani.
I’m teacher Tiffani. Let’s jump
right in!
Alright this English listening skills
plan is broken down into three different
sections. Each of these sections will
cover a ten day period.
Over this ten day period you will learn
exactly how to improve your English
listening skills each time you study a
section. Alright now each of these
sections has nine different phases and
we’re gonna look at each different phase.
So let’s look at phase number one. Find
the main idea. The main idea refers to
the point of what you are listening to.
It is the most important thought or
topic. So this is your focus for day one
okay. You’re gonna listen to the five
audio files you chose. Yes that’s right.
Each day you’re gonna pick five
different audio files. Now you can choose
how long or how short these files are.
Okay? Now you’re only gonna listen for the
main idea. This is imperative. This is key.
Don’t try to listen for the vocabulary
words or anything else. Just figure out
the main idea for day one. Alright so
the next thing you want to do is move on
to part two or phase two. Answer the five
W’s. The five W’s refer to finding the
who, what, when, where, and why of what you
are listening to. This is your focus for
day two. That’s right.
Day one was just for the main idea and
then you move on to day two you’re gonna
listen for the five W’s. Now when you
listen to the five audio files you chose
again you can pick new audio files or
you can use the same ones from the
previous day, you’re specifically
listening for pieces of information that
answer the five W’s. You may have to
listen more than once and that’s okay.
Okay? Now after you find the five W’s
stop. Don’t listen anymore. Now I know
this is gonna be a little bit
interesting or different because you’re
used to listening over and over, but
remember you’re training your brain to
actually increase its ability to listen
well. Okay. Alright now moving on to
step three or phase three. Imitate what
you hear.
Imitating refers to trying to copy the
sound, speed, and exact words that you
hear as you listen okay. This is your
focus for day three. This is your only
focus for day three. You’re gonna listen
to the five audio files you chose. Again
they can be brand new files or the files
in the previous day. It’s up to you okay.
And what you’re gonna do is you’re going
to use intervals. That means stopping and
starting. Now you can choose how short or
how long your intervals are. So for
example, you may choose to do ten-second
intervals. You can listen for ten seconds
and then try to repeat exactly what you
heard. And if that’s too hard you can
listen for five seconds, push stop, and
repeat what you heard. These are
intervals okay. So day three you’re only
practicing intervals by imitating what
you hear. Alright now moving on to the
next phase, summarize. Summarizing refers
to simply writing three to five
sentences about each audio file you
listen to. Okay this is your focus for
day four. Again you’re gonna listen to
the five audio files you chose, whether
they’re brand new or they’re the ones from
the previous day, and again you may have
to listen more than once because you’re
gonna be summarizing them okay. Your goal
is to be clear and concise. Now if you
need help with learning how to summarize,
click the link in the top right of your
screen. I have a video where I explain in
detail how to summarize anything in
English. Okay? Top right of your screen.
Alright, so again day 4 you’re just
focusing on summarizing by using three
to five sentences okay. Now when we move
on to the next phase
recognizing vocabulary is our focus.
You see recognizing vocabulary refers to
listening for new vocabulary words in
each audio file you listen to. This is
your only focus for day five. So I don’t
want you to get to day five and try to
find the main idea, find the five W’s,
summarize…No, you have to follow this
plan exactly and I guarantee it will
improve your listening skills. So on day
five only listen for vocabulary. Okay? So
again listen to the five audio files you
chose but this time you’re only
listening to each file one time. That’s
right, one time. And your goal is to hear
new words. So what’s happening is, instead
of listening over and over, you’re
telling your brain to think quickly and
you need to hear what words you don’t
recognize and just write them down. Later
on you can check your spelling okay. This
is the focus for day five. Now moving on
to the next day, day six. Okay, you’re
going to write questions. Writing
questions refers to coming up with
possible questions about the information
you listen to. This is a very, very
helpful phase or step when you’re trying
to improve your listening skills. Okay. So
again this is your focus for day six.
Listen to the five audio files you chose,
whether they are new or the ones from
the previous day, and again with this one
you can listen as many times as
necessary. Okay. Your goal is to also
answer the questions. So you’re gonna try
to write between five to ten questions.
Okay as you’re listening write down the
questions. Don’t write the answers. Write
the questions.
Once you’ve stopped the audio file then
go back and try to answer the questions
without listening again. Okay.
Very good practice for listening and
answering and being able to remember
information. Okay so that’s part six or
phase six. Now moving on to phase number
seven. Determine the emotion. Now this is
probably a phase that maybe you all have
never practiced before but it’s
excellent. It’s a great way of improving
your listening skills.
You see determining the emotion refers
to analyzing the main feeling of each
audio file you listen to. Okay this is
your focus for day seven. You’re gonna
listen to the five audio files you chose,
whether they’re new or the ones from the
previous day, and your goal is to relax
and just feel the mood. What is the
person trying to express? What is going
on in the audio file? For example is it
something happy or angry or sad or scary
or disgust, like hatred or something you
don’t like, surprise or anticipation? So
feel the mood of what you’re listening
to. Why is this key? Because sometimes
you’re not going to understand all of
the words, but if you understand the
emotion you can guess part of the
meanings of other words and other
situations. This is another key to
improving your listening skills.
Alright now step eight or phase eight,
listen and paraphrase. Listening and
paraphrasing refers to analyzing small
portions of each audio file you listen
to. So again this is your focus for day
eight. You’re gonna listen to the five
audio files you chose but your goal is
to quickly get the general idea. Now for
this one you can pick one two or three
minute intervals. Okay so what you’re
gonna try to do is after you listen to
one or two or three minutes of
information, you push pause and you’re
not imitating - not like the previous
phase - instead of imitating you are
trying to put in
your own words what you heard. You’re
paraphrasing. Again this is helping with
your English speaking ability as well.
This phase is very important. So remember
only focus on this on day 8, okay. Now on
day nine, or for phase nine, interval
listening. Interval listening refers to
taking time to process small portions of
each audio file you listen to. This is so
key because sometimes as students you
want to listen to a lot of things
without pausing to actually take the
information in. So this is your focus for
day nine. Listen to the five audio files
you chose, okay. But your goal is to take
time to process the info. So maybe go to
a quiet room or go somewhere where you
can relax. Put your headphones on or turn
the music up loud or whatever file
you’re listening to. Just relax and
listen and pause if necessary. But listen
and try to accept and understand the
information, okay. You can do that in
intervals as well. Alright now day ten.
Yes, I always love a rest day. As a
teacher, I always tell my students it’s
important for you to have a day to let
your brain rest. So this is what’s gonna
happen. Day one to ten is what we just
went over.
But, you see day eleven to twenty and day
21 to 30 are just mirror images of the
first ten days. The only difference is
you will choose different audio files.
But you’re practicing the same nine
phases, okay. And remember always on the
tenth day you’re giving yourself a rest.
After this thirty day period I guarantee
that your advanced listening skills will
have improved beyond your imagination.
Now if you want to keep studying with me,
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Tiffani Academy”. I have tons of monthly
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