LISTENING STRATEGIES
Listening is a very important skill since we spend almost 60% of our time listening. However, it is not always easy to understand spoken English so it is important to practise your listening skills. Here you will find some strategies that you can use to improve your listening skills. But first you need to understand the difference between interactive and noninteractive listening.
Interactive and Noninteractive listening
Interactive listening happens when you are having a conversation. Sometimes you listen and sometimes you speak. Noninteractive listening happens when you watch the news, listen to the radio or go to lectures (although these can also be interactive). If you want to improve your listening ability, it is important to understand the difference between these two types of listening.
It is probably a good idea to try to improve your noninteractive listening skills first. You will find a lot of materials in the Language Learning Centre that you can work with to improve your noninteractive listening skills. There are videotapes, cassettes, graded readers with cassettes, satellite TV and CD?Roms covering many different topics and levels. Interactive listening, on the other hand, is difficult to practise by yourself. The best advice is to speak English as much as you can with native speakers. You will find some specific tips on how to make your listening practice easier below.
Noninteractive listening - watching TV and movies:
Watching TV and movies are fun ways of learning to listen. Sometimes, they can be quite difficult though. Here are a few tips. They all relate to prediction, i.e. trying to prepare yourself to understand what is said by using knowledge you already have.
use visual clues: try to get as much information as you can from people’s facial expressions, their gestures, and from the situation. Are people angry, happy, afraid?
use background knowledge: ask yourself what you know about the topic. What do you think they will talk about?
focus on what is relevant: not all information is relevant. If you are listening to an interview, concentrate on questions like who, what, where.
listen to familiar elements: concentrate on what you know, rather than on what you don’t know. If you hear words, or names that you know, use these to guess what the words and names that you don’t know will mean.
listen for familiar sounding words: many words sound alike in different languages. Maybe you can understand them even if you don’t know them.
numbers: try to learn numbers and proper names (names of cities, important people) as soon as you can, because they are used very often.
Interactive listening - listening to and speaking with people
When you speak to people it is sometimes difficult to understand what they are saying. Here are several things you can do to help you understand better:
let the speaker know you’re having trouble: don’t be afraid to tell your conversation partner that you’re having problems understanding him or her.
ask for repetition: ask the speaker to repeat what (s)he said.
ask the speaker to slow down: native speakers do not always realise that they speak fast, so ask them to speak more slowly.
seek clarification: if you are not sure what the speaker means, just ask him or her to explain. For example, you can say “What does the word “X” mean?”
rephrase : if you are not sure what the speaker means, tell them what you think they said. For example, you can say ‘Do you mean that..’
repeat: if you are not sure what the speaker means, repeat the sentence word for word in a questioning tone.
pay attention to intonation and tone of voice: these may help you work out the meaning of what is being said and tell you if it’s a statement or a question
focus on question words: question words are very important because they tell you that the speaker wants you to give him or her information, and also tell you what kind of information (s)he wants. There are only a few question words in English. Remember them and focus on them while you are listening.
assume that the ‘here and now’ are important: mostly when you speak to someone, the conversation will be about something related to where you are and what you are doing. This helps you predict what is being said.
Finally: don’t stop listening!
concentrate on familiar elements: try to focus on what you know, rather than on what you don’t know.
concentrate on important elements: you don’t need to understand everything in order to understand what is being said. The context will help you understand. Don’t panic if you miss a word.
Just keep listening! Good luck!
