One problem with acquiring listening skills in English is that if you’re listening to a native speaker talking in English, you can only listen to what they say once -- unless you ask them to repeat it. Now that’s okay 2-3 times in a conversation. But you can’t ask them to repeat themselves three or four times (or more) for everything. They will politely (hopefully) make their excuses and leave you to talk to someone else. So where can you find opportunities to practice listening outside of the classroom?
Thankfully, these days we have the internet. On the internet, you can find millions of videos. However, choosing the right ones for yourself can be difficult. Also, people from around the world have access to TV shows in English.
If you listen to English on podcasts (a topic for a future blog post), understanding can be difficult because you can't see the people speaking. However, if you watch a TV program or movie, you can see their faces and bodies. Furthermore, if you can see a character’s action, you can guess what they are saying even if you don’t understand their English.
Many of my students watch TV series and films to improve their English. However, there are difficulties to this. First, actor and writers don’t speak in English with a view to helping English students. This can make it very hard to understand them. Second, if your English is C1 level, you will still hear things that you don’t understand. In fact, you should never watch a video expecting to understand everything – you will be disappointed. Finally, it’s very difficult to concentrate on a story in a different language, understand it, AND get enjoyment from it.
There are several steps that I recommend you take when watching videos to improve your English. First of all, choose videos that are short. Movies are very long, and using my method wouldn’t be useful. You can choose one step for a movie and just watch it once with that method. (Which step you choose depends on your level of English).
If you choose to watch a comedy TV show, these last 18-30 minutes. Also, this means that you can watch more of them in your free time. TV dramas last 42-59 minutes. I suggest you watch a show that your friends watch. As a result, you will be able to discuss episodes with them and remember the new vocabulary. These are some shows that my students enjoy watching: Big Bang theory, Young Sheldon, How I Met Your Mother, Prison Break, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
These are the steps. 1) Watch the whole video with subtitles in your language. This guarantees that you understand the whole story. Then, immediately after… 2) Watch the video with English subtitles. This will show you the spelling of new words. If the characters use a new word many times, it is probably a good idea for you to learn this word. In addition, as you watched it in your language first, you may remember the meanings of some of the new words. This will save you time and you can watch the video for longer without stopping it.
If the second step takes a long time, watch the next episode or two only with subtitles in your language for enjoyment purposes – you will still learn some words perhaps, but also, you will get used to hearing American or British accents. This is also important when improving your listening skills.
When your English is much improved, you can start from step 2, then, for your second viewing move onto step… 3) Watch the video with no subtitles. See if you can remember the new words and their spellings. If you can’t, then (for some of them only!) pause the video, go back, then watch with the subtitles. If this becomes too difficult or slow, you should stop. Move onto the next episode. You’ve already seen that episode and so going through it with difficulty will be boring. Watching videos should be fun. You may only be able to do 10 minutes of step 3. That’s okay. Next time it might be 11 minutes. Then 12, etc.
YouTube videos are generally much shorter and therefore can be more pleasurable to watch. However, be careful with the closed captions (the English that appears when you press the “CC” button). Mostly they are created automatically. Computer software listens to the English and creates the script with what it thinks the people said in the video. Very often there are mistakes.
One more thing to think about when watching videos or listening to podcasts concerns grammar. If you don’t understand the grammar of someone’s speech, write it down and ask somebody – like your teacher, for example. Don’t try to learn that grammar while listening. It takes away the fun.
My last word is on the subject of accents. I’ve heard English learners claim that they only learn US English because it’s more important. That is only maybe true to a certain extent. But can you guarantee that in your personal life and your business life you will never need to understand what a British person or Australian person says to you? Understanding many English accents is an important skill. So you must try to listen to as many accents as possible. There will always be people whom you don’t understand, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.
On that topic, here is a joke based on a line of dialogue in The Godfather:
What’s the difference between the New York mafia and the Glasgow mafia?
The New York mafia will make you an offer you can’t refuse.
And the Glasgow mafia will make you an offer you can’t understand!
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