Doing English Listening Practise

Doing English listening practise takes a lot of work and discipline, but if you practise with poor materials, then a lot of that time is wasted. Perhaps money too. Who wouldn’t ask the question, “Where can I find Good materials for Listening practise?”

But, this question is really difficult to answer. That’s because you have the answer.

“What?” I hear you saying. “If I had the answer, I wouldn’t ask the question!”

Well, that’s only partly true. YOu wouldn’t ask the question if you knew you had the answer. you have the answer, but you don’t know it.

My job now is to help you find the answer that you already have. Let’s find the answer by asking the right questions.

The first question is, “What are your needs?”

This means what kind of English do you need to learn? A university professor going to work in an English university needs quite different English than a tour conductor taking customers on a tour in an English speaking country.

You have to predict where you are going to use English in the future. Since you know you want to do listening practise, you already know part of this question. Try to answer a few more questions. Questions like what vocabulary do you need? And, what kind of English will you be listening to most? English in seminars, on video in large meetings, or person to person. Will you be listening to English to learn facts and figures, or people’s thoughts and feelings?

Now, do a few searches on the internet for this target language, and places where you might find it. For instance, look on youtube for specialized videos that you can use. You may consider making your own materials using some of the language you find on sites that come up in your searches.

The second question is, “What are your skills?”

This can be restated as what are your strong and weak points? You will learn and grow more if you find materials that help you strengthen your weak points.

Some students understand grammar, but cannot hear the sound combinations in English. Other students can hear all the words, but understanding the meaning is difficult. Each type of student needs a little different English listening practise.

If sound combinations are difficult, then you want to really find sources of recorded English conversation. Youtube and other video sites like it are great places to start. If you need to work on grammar and complex sentences, you might still choose youtube, but you would look for instructional videos instead, since they give grammatically correct but more complex sentences.

The third question you might find useful is: What are you interested in?

Aside from learning the specific vocabulary and expressions you will need, you should listen to other recorded materials as well. There are several reasons for this. One is that it will help you develop your ‘English personality’ or exressing your self personally. Another reason is the wider range of general expressions you can hear. You will also be more motivated to listen and learn.

After coming this far, you will be ready to answer the next question. Are you planning to do mostly intensive listening practise or extensive listening practise, or a mixture of both?

Simply put, intensive listening practise helps you develop listening skills. Extensive listening practise helps you build experience, and build a wide range of vocabulary and epxressions you are generally familiar with. Most students need to work on intensive listening practise, and certainly this is the kind of study to begin with.

In the case of intensive listening practise, you will be looking for shorted recordings that have the scripts available for you to study with sometimes. Extensive listening practise requires longer recordings and scripts are not necessary.

So now you have answered all these questions and you still ask, “Where can you find these materials?”

A great place to start is the English Listening World website. Lots of free materials are there already and the selection is growing. If you cannot find the exact materials you need or want, you might consider making your own, or having some custom made recordings. Making your own listening materials takes lots of work but it is not impossible, and you will be studying even as you make them.

Making your own materials invloves selecting the target language (vocabulary or grammar or expressions), writing the script, editing – or getting it edited – and then recording. The last two steps you can have done for you by native speakers, so this is clearly not impossible for you.

There are numerous sites that will help with editing. In fact, if you don’t want to write the script at all, you can supply the target language and have it written for you at a site such as eWrite.com.

Getting the script recorded would be a bit more difficult, except English Listening World has a few pages where scripts can be submitted for editing and recording. Your script will be available to the public on the internet, but the service is free.