4 Unique Ways To Improve Your IELTS Listening Scores

everyone Chris here from IELTS advantage com hope that you're all doing well today and today we're going to focus on listening many many many of you have been emailing me over the past few months saying that you need an 8 and listening a triple 7 so you need an 8 listening and 7 in the others and so normally we don't really focus too much on listening but as we've been receiving so many emails and messages like can you help me get to a band aid I thought that I would make a lesson on listening and it's the lesson that is 4 unique ways to improve your IELTS listening scores so the reason why I put unique in there is because all of you or 99% of you are just doing the same thing and normally when a student comes to me they say one of two things or both of these things when it comes to improving their listening they either say can you give me more practice tests or can you give me tips so the very first thing the unique way is stop doing so many practice tests and stop looking for tips alright so let me explain why these do not work my answer when somebody says can you give me more practice tests or tips is have they helped you in the past and they think about it and they say actually no I think Einstein was he said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting the same result many of you are just doing practice tests after practice test after practice test and hoping that that's going to boost your score it's not why not because it's not improving your listening skills it's not improving your English it is a English test it is a test of your listening so in order to move up to the score you need you need to improve those things listening tests are not going to help you improve I'm learning boxing at the minute would it be a good idea instead of me working on the principles and the techniques of boxing to just try and start a fight with someone everyday would that make me a good boxer no a it would be illegal but be I would get my head kicked in and it wouldn't be very productive and I wouldn't you know continue on with boxing another analogy is that I always use when it comes to listening and reading and is learning how to drive a car could you learn how to drive a car by getting a car and just driving in a run to track around and around and around or write as much practice as you want would you learn how to drive a car would you pass your test no because you're not learning how to improve as a driver you're not learning how to drive the car you're just driving it around in a run same with the practice tests they are not improving your ability you're not improving your listening they're not improving your vocabulary your grammar the things that you actually need so stop doing them and also another reason to stop doing them is they are extremely boring if you're doing something that is boring you're going to give up or you're not how your brain is not going to be as receptive when you're doing something that you hate I don't I've never met anybody who thought that doing lots of listening practice tests was a good thing you know a fun thing to do so number one stop doing that so what can you do instead to improve your listening skills to improve your English number two read for part not read listen for pleasure listen to things that you enjoy listening to there's two main reasons for this number one consistency if you enjoy doing something you're going to do it every single day in order to get a band 8 and listening you're going to have to listen to English every single day think about what you're trying to do bond 8x9 you are close to native level of you know native level listening skills in English you're not going to do that by listening to a little bit you know once a month you should be listening to English every single day and that is so easy to do if you're watching this video you have the Internet you probably have one of these if you have the internet and one of these then there is an unlimited number of resources and unlimited array of videos and podcasts and YouTube clips and all those different things there's no excuse to not focus on things that you like doing the second reason to listen to things that you find pleasurable that you enjoy doing is your brain is going to enjoy and happy brains just learned better think about when you were a kid in school did you do better in the classes that you enjoyed or did you do better in the classes that you hated I hated French I hated my teacher I hated everything about French I failed French I loved history I got one of the highest marks in the country in history not because I was really good at history because I loved history and I did I read about history every single day I wrote about it every day it was my passion so I was well I wasn't good at it because I was born and you know everyone said all that baby's going to be really good at history or anything like that I didn't have an innate ability just I did it a lot same with reading same with listening if you listen to things you enjoy you will consistently do it and you will learn from it what are some good sources podcasts amazing I listen to podcasts every single day there is no excuse why you can't download a podcast why you can't find it use Google and you'll be able to find a podcast that you really enjoy listening to because they are on every single topic in the entire world you'll find cooking podcasts history podcasts cricket podcasts probably you know podcast on Birds of finest kind of particular part anything it really are YouTube is the same there's there's a video on absolutely everything TED talks movies songs listen to music if you want to listen if you really love music listen to something you enjoy doing so that's the first step however does that mean that you can just you know listen to you know one direction every day on your way to work and get really good at English no because that's just listening passively to it in order to take things to the next level remember you're trying to get a bound a tip on line something like that in your IELTS listening which is a huge challenge you need to do a little bit of work so listening for pleasure is the first step listen to something you enjoy but you when you're doing that you must actively listen to what your your life - not possibly just laying back you know watching a movie you know right before you go to bed that's not going to magically improve your listening skills and you need to be focusing on one or two things while you're listening so you could be focusing on vocabulary grammar accent connected speech intonation sentence stress ideas idea development there's so many different things that you could focus on so which things should you focus on so here's a little thing that I would like you to do I'd like you to get some practice tests I know that I said stop doing and but just just bear with me get one or two listening practice tests either ones that you've already done or do them under exam conditions and analyze your mistakes look at where you went wrong and why you went wrong don't just look at them quickly but really think about why you made that mistake so vocabulary was it because you didn't understand the word or you didn't understand the difference between two or three words connected speech was it because you know the signs were all connected together and you couldn't really hear what they were saying was an accent because the person was speaking in an unusual I'm not unusual accent but unusual for you a strange accent that you didn't understand see if there's any patterns there I had one student who kept getting six or 6.5 and listening and we figured out that it was just spelling their spelling was terrible and whenever they fixed their spelling they moved up to about eight point five I think they jump massively because they had really good listening skills they had really good English but they they were actually from Holland which is a very similar but different spelling for many words so they were using a lot of Dutch Spelling's and getting them mixed up and that's why they were getting a low score will you be able to do that no because your problem might not be spelling it might be one of these but the key is to try and figure that out and then focus on your weakest area first so imagine you have no problem with accents you've no problem with grammar but vocabulary is your biggest challenge focus on that first actively listen to what you're listening to could be you know a movie TV show song a podcast and when you hear some words that you don't understand underline them underline them and then write them in a book or put them in an app record them at all lots of information like synonyms and antonyms and pronunciation and example sentences of meaning of course and then review them and you will really really improve your vocabulary by doing that by actively listening imagine it's accents you could actively find let's say you have a problem with the Irish accent or the Scottish accent or the Welsh accent there are a hundred thousand Welsh podcasts and there are a million Irish podcasts listen to those and and learn how those speak people actually speak English all real English is actually spoken and they're you know lots of different ways that you can't do that but you must actively listen takes a little bit of work but like everything else things that are difficult ly to progress things that are difficult ly to success if you're just doing practice tests and listening to you know the Backstreet Boys every day you're not really going to improve but if you're listening to the Backstreet Boys and you're focusing on the vocabulary that they're using and you're you are going to improve okay so fourth thing is something I call micro listening so it's something I used to do with my students all the time when I when I used to teach in the classroom I don't teach you in the classroom anymore I just focus on online and but it's a really really useful activity that you can your teacher can do with you if you're a teacher you can do this with your students or you can do this at home so what is micro listening so instead of listening to a thirty minute podcast listen to thirty seconds or 20 seconds or 10 seconds so I'm going to use connected speech as an example of this so imagine you're watching your you're listening to a podcast and you hear this one sentence and they say did you want some salad with that did you want some salad to that and the first time you hear it you're like what what did they say so you might have got solid you might have just got one word so write that word done then listen to it second time you might get that at the end but listen to it multiple times and try to write out the sentence and then focus on one thing at a time so in this one we focus on micro listening so you might listen to this sentence 10 times to try and figure out what's happening with the connected speech so what's happening here these are these words are connecting up did you connect up want some connects up with that connects up and this is how real English speakers real English signs so instead of did you it'll be did you did you it might other accents it might be did yeah my accent is did yeah so this signs here changes to yeah and then the new changes to yeah so instead of did you did you so if you've never been to a native English country or in or native english-speaking country or you've never listened to real English and you go to London sometime and listen to people speak and they say did you hear what what did you say because they're not going to change how they speak because you're an English Learner they don't care they're just going to continue to speak the way they speak and you are going to have to learn that and these so instead of want some disconnects together want some want some all right so this in some accents this might change to one some want some other accents it might be once it's once some depends what where you you you know where you're listening to it but it's most places and where all places is going to connect together and with that you really are deleting this with that with that all right so this sound the first sign kind of joins together all right with that so did you want some solid with that did you want some solid with that and you can do this micro listening with intonation and you could mark the intonation just basic arrows you could mark the stress so you could say which word is stressed you want some solid with that and you can do lots and lots and lots of things especially to do with pronunciation and listening because pronunciation and listening are so linked together and in order to improve your pronunciation you have to understand all these features connected speech sentence stress word stress intonation all of these different things and in order to improve and do those things you have to understand them first so and you can do micro listening in many many many many different ways so if you really want to improve your listening skills you want to improve your listening scores stop doing this do more of this and it's actually quite fun it's quite interesting and you can do these things at any time you know first thing in the morning when you wake up listen to the news alright and on your way to work put in your headphones and listen to a song or listen to a podcast at lunchtime go for a walk and listen to something else you know in the evening what's the news or listen to or watch a movie or whatever you want to do you're constantly being surrounded being fed English but you need to capitalize on that opportunity by improving your listening skills improving your English at the same time so hopefully that was useful and nearly all the students that I work with if they do those things they do move up to the score that they age and the students who just look for tips or just look for can I do more practice tests they normally are just spinning their wheels they're just staying in one spot to spinning their wheels they're not improving and it takes a little bit more work but as this already said like anything the more work you put in the better it's going to be okay so let me check out your questions and many of you complain that I don't answer your question I can't answer every question but a I don't understand all of them and be a lot of them are not useful for the audience and so what I try and do is just pick the questions that are the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people and so that's what I do so sorry I just I'm not Superman I can't answer every single question um hi Chris I suppose concentration is what matters a lot that's a very very good point both for reading and listening many of you the first time that you've ever read in English for one hour will be the IELTS test the first time you've ever listened to anything properly like focused on what you're doing in English for more than 30 minutes will be the IELTS test that's kind of like if I want to run a marathon and I only run you know two miles a day and then I try and run what's at Martha twenty-eight miles or something on the day of the marathon and like any skill you need to get used to reading for long periods of time in English I'm listening to long periods of time in English I'm focusing on what you're doing there's no point in practicing listening by watching a TV show and you're on Facebook and you're chatting to your friends and you know looking at the window focus on what you're doing and I'm not you know not all the time sometimes we need to just relax and you know and chill I but you know don't be one of those people that says complains about not getting a mandate but also does nothing about it like doesn't like don't be one of those people kindly tell me how to write date of birth what date of birth your name your doesn't really what I don't understand that question do you mean the difference in American and don't listen you Americans just do it the normal way day month year that's how you do it and a lot of you are asking about maps questions and multiple-choice listening questions and those types of questions and go to my website Isle to advantage calm you can put that in your browser or google it and on the home page you'll see writing reading speaking listening click on listening and you'll get lessons on multiple choice and because it's really difficult to do a lesson or give explanations about multiple-choice or maps without having it all up on the board first so go and have a look there and you'll get an lessons there thank you for putting up the thing that looks good sir I'm having a problem with British and American accents so listen to more British and American accents it's really really simple does watching English movies help to improve listening for IELTS yes and no and you must actively listen to those movies and many people this is a subtly a lazy way to learn English is like oh but I watch you know 17 different English movies every every week I'm improving my English no you're not you're being lazy and it would be better to watch one movie actively and try and improve you know your grammar your vocabulary then watch a hundred movies possibly it's very very very effective and it is complete waste of time if you do it possibly not a waste of time if your goal is to relax if your goal is to relax then you know watching possibly but again don't be one of those people that complain that they can't get a high IELTS score but then watch 17 movies a week don't you know that's insane what is intonation your voice naturally goes up and goes down or stays flat listen to her native English speakers speak their voices change in tone and it conveys meaning conveys feeling listen to listen to a podcast or a movie or TV show you'll hear that do we need to write answers in capital letters you can if you want you don't have to okay so come find any other good questions and I'm gonna sneeze live on YouTube so I'll leave it there before I sneeze so and if you sorry if I didn't answer your questions and you can't answer every single question but if you go to my website alt advantage com you'll find everything you need ninety-nine percent of your questions are answered there so go there if you have other questions or you need help with your preparation feel free to email me Chris a tile to Vantage comm Chris a tile to advantage comm and if you know you have any other questions feel free to get in touch anything else if you're watching this video and you you have a question you're watching the recording put it in the comments and I I regularly check them try and check them every day so if you have a comment put it in the comments below the video and I'll try and get back to you this is a free video so we don't ask for any money or anything like that all we ask for in return is a like or hit the subscription button or just say thanks in the comments and thank you very much guys it was a pleasure teaching you and get listening bye-bye

Channel: IELTS Advantage

Views: 379,242

Rating: 4.9204497 out of 5

Keywords: IELTS, IELTS Advantage, IELTS Test, English, Pronunciation, Band 7, www.ieltsadvantage.com, IELTS Writing, Chris Pell, lesson, 4 Unique Ways To Improve Your IELTS Listening Scores, IELTS listening, Practice tests, improve your listening skills and your scores, ielts listening test, ielts listening, international english language testing system, listening, ielts tips, IELTS Listening Most Important, IELTS Listening new practice tests, IELTS Listening tips, how to crack ielts listening

Id: LXXiOCjBqWw

Length: 21min 53sec (1313 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 11 2018