Do THIS to Improve your Speaking and Listening Skills

there is one thing you can do that will significantly improve both your listening skills and speaking skills in english in this video i'm going to tell you what it is and how to do it [Music] hello this is keith from english speaking success and if you didn't know i also run the website the keith speaking academy great so listen let's cut to the chase i'm going to tell you straight away the one thing you can do to improve both your listening and speaking skills and this is it you need to be using a combination of top down strategies and bottom up strategies it's as simple as that great so you can go now all right thanks for watching bye bye what are you still here what's the matter oh oh you want to know what top down and bottom-up strategies are okay fair enough and how to use them yeah okay let me tell you in this video in fact let me go the extra mile let me tell you also at the end i'll give you a bonus i'm going to tell you some of the best tv series that you can be watching to improve both your listening and speaking skills oh and a nice place where you can find lots of listing materials nicely organized easy to access it's one of my favorite mobile apps woodpecker learning more about that shortly let's dive in to those strategies okay let's begin with this top-down listening strategy so top-down strategy is a bit like when a bird is flying and they're looking down they can see everything that's why in english we say a bird's eye view to have a bird's eye view is to look down and see everything basically you're looking at the bigger picture or maybe i should say listening to the bigger picture okay it's really important you are not trying to pick up and understand every word just get the gist the gist is the general idea it's important because so many students try to understand every word and when they can't they get frustrated and often they just can't see the wood for the trees that's a good expression can't see the wood for the trees means they're looking at so many so many details they don't see the bigger picture they don't understand what's happening so the first top-down strategy is to just listen for the main idea okay let me show you an example i'm going to show you a very short clip from a new series and see if you can get the main idea let's have a listen but as each new day pummels us with a seemingly endless onslaught of fresh horrors we must not lose faith after all this is america where opportunity awaits around every corner can i get an amen yeah just put her in the coffin too they're both pretty small all right you get a feet uh we will take this from the top right so you may have got the main idea that here well there's a man speaking to other people trying to motivate them and get them to follow him somebody dies and there's a bit of silence and possibly humor now probably you're using two things to help you get the main idea you're using your existing knowledge maybe you know this man is a priest because of the the uniform and a priest well what do they do is they talk and give ideas to the the audience or the crowd the correct word is the congregation um they talk about faith and they try and get the crowd to follow him the second thing you may be noticing are some key words words like lose faith he's talking about faith america this is america maybe 100 or 150 years ago are men you may have heard that word amen is a word we use in the mass it just means i agree and coffin coffin is the box for the dead people so the woman falls over she dies he says put her in the coffin she is small as well so there's a bit of humor or comedy there it's very dry comedy but you may sense something funny is happening so you're getting the main idea using your existing knowledge using some keywords um and this it's really important i think using this strategy is important at the beginning of a listening and whenever the scene changes so when there's a new scene you just want to float up high look down listen for the bigger picture the other thing you can do the second top down strategy is use the context to give you clues so what do i mean by the context of the listening well it may be the title of the listening or some images or scenes things within the picture that can help you for example if we're going to watch a clip and we see this um this scene right have a look at this now this context you can see it looks like a hospital possibly a place of surgery um there seem to be two people in white coats probably doctors so this context is giving us some clues about what is probably happening what could they be talking about maybe a new medicine maybe a patient maybe an operation that's going to happen right so this context is kind of the top down we're looking to see how this can help us understand the main idea let's watch the clip and see if you can get the main idea what i want you to do is use the context your knowledge of hospitals and any keywords that pop up all three top down strategies let's try 104 well i made him a deal he's got a meeting with dr max from psychiatry at six we'll get the consent by eight you can operate first thing in the morning you did pass anatomy right dr brown problems in his heart not his head he's not psychologically ready for surgery he will be soon okay great so the main idea it seems to be two doctors talking about surgery for a patient basically so some of our guesses were correct some of the key words i heard were psychiatry consent which is an agreement to have an operation operate morning so maybe operate tomorrow ready for surgery surgery so i can get the main idea that they're getting somebody ready for the surgery i also sense there's a bit of maybe disagreement between the two doctors and my knowledge of hospitals tells me that often doctors may have different opinions right great so these are top-down strategies you can be using at the beginning or at the change of scene when you're watching something let's move on next right next bottom up strategies this is almost the opposite of top down this is more about listening for detail not necessarily every word but getting the details you need so this is really important if you're watching a series or a film when do you use this if for example there's a new character in the story you may need details if there's a change in plot or there's a new idea being introduced you may need the details or if there's a name or numbers have come up these are typically when you need to get the details and for me i want to share with you three of the most important things you can do here for these these bottom up strategies excuse the laughter it always makes me laugh bottom up so first noticing stressed words second noticing intonation patterns third noticing chunks let's take these one by one first of all noticing stressed words now you may know that in english we don't pronounce every word equally the same right take this sentence we don't say caffeine was an amazing aid to the rise of capitalism that's not how we speak what we say is caffeine was an amazing aid to the rise of capitalism we stress the nouns the adjectives the verbs the adverbs most of the other words get reduced or swallowed they almost disappear right but you only need the stressed words you only need to get caffeine amazing aid rise capitalism to get the detail that you need so getting into the habit of noticing the stressed words will help you pick out the details you may be thinking that's a strange sentence keith why did you choose that i chose that because i was watching this video the other day um and it's about food michael pollan great guy talking about coffee have a look at this contributed to the enlightenment and the age of reason and the industrial revolution all of which required us to think in much more focused linear terms caffeine was an amazing aid to the rise of capitalism you can go and check out that video later let's move on number two noticing intonation patterns now intonation in english is challenging difficult no no no no intonation is fun it's exciting it's changeable it's really interesting to use intonation i know that there are no fixed rules about it but there are some intonation patterns that we often use that it's worth knowing let me share three of those intonation patterns you can be looking out for open questions that's a question that is a yes no question right do you like it do you live here do you often go jogging it's a rising intonation when you have open questions another one two clause sentences for example if i did this i would do that if i ate less i wouldn't be so fat if i had a lot of money i would buy a house that rising and falling intonation before i go to work i have breakfast that's another common pattern let me show you another clip it's going back to the caffeine and the coffee video which i really liked have a listen to this before caffeine basically people started work when the sun came up and stopped when it went down can you see that can you see that pattern excuse me can you hear that pattern another common one is lists where you have a list of something and it often goes i like coffee tea and butter butter no i like coffee tea and beer it goes up and up and on the last one it comes down very common again let's have a look at an example spreading slowly from africa through the middle east and into the west interesting right so those are some intonation patterns you can be noticing number three was to notice chunks and i talk a lot about chunks chunks are basically a few words together that sound almost like one word so for example instead of saying did you like it we would say did you like it did you like it it's a chunk did you find it did you enjoy it right you're pronouncing it almost like one sound now my tip here is that this is something you can do when you're watching videos is listen to just one sentence and try and repeat it and try and listen to where there are chunks these sounds right then go and look at the subtitles and see if you can see the words that are making up the chunk and then practice repeating again let's take an example here's another video this is a comedy video it's a comedy zoom call with some famous people let's just have a listen and i'm gonna repeat or get the the video to repeat this sentence and try and identify the sound okay the food how did you end up opening up food spots i mean you start with the food how did you end up opening up food spots i mean you're so i can hear how end up food spots or how end up opening food spots and then when i look at the subtitles i can see how did you end up opening up food spots and if i listen some more start with the food how did you end up opening up food spots how did you end up did you end up did you end up how did you end up how did you end up that's the chunk how did you end up it's how did you end up it may help you to actually write out the letters like this how did you end up how did you end up opening up food spots and picking out just that one chunk and practicing it is really useful for your speaking skills as well as your listening skills now you may be thinking where are you watching this that's not youtube and how do you get it to repeat all that that sentence again and again well this is one of my favorite apps right this is the woodpecker app and i love it because it brings together all of these videos um from youtube but they've curated them into different playlists around entertainment education food talk shows documentaries science space lots of stuff even teachers of english which is ideal and you can go in there and this is the beauty as you've seen is as you're watching right if you want to repeat a phrase or a chunk you can put it on automatic repeat and it just goes around repeating it you've got the transcript for every video if you want to watch it you don't have to and what's more it gets better if you don't understand a word you just press the word and it tells you for example if we're not sure about end up i can press that phrase and look it comes up end up to conclude turn out sometimes unexpectedly you can even add it to your history save the word and then export them to have a word list from the shows that you've been watching it's an amazing app and i think it makes learning english well fun and exciting you can learn whilst watching your favorite shows you can learn new words you can practice your listening skills and your speaking skills as well they have at the last count i think over 300 000 videos all of them with the transcripts it's absolutely brilliant what a great way to be learning english so go and check them out there is a link down below you can download the app for free start using it straight away if you're on an ipad you can access your netflix account and you can be using the transcript feature for netflix series as well it doesn't get any better great woodpecker learning guys fantastic app well done thoroughly recommend it to all of my students now let's move on now next as promised this bonus is me suggesting some of the best tv series that you can be watching to improve your speaking and listening skills now i've chosen these partly um because i think they're good for learners and partly because i actually loved watching them they were really good what i do suggest is try not to watch the same kind of thing all the time now even though you love action movies don't just watch action movies you need to be watching different kinds of clips videos films series you want to be listening to different accents looking at different contexts different genres because all of that will give you a much wider range of language which you're going to need to become a better speaker of english so let's kick off first with action series right i mean action series are great because it's often simple language and there's lots of visual support to help you learn so apart from the marvel series like iron fist which is good but very very american others that i like are killing eve a british spy thriller with suspense drama and unexpected twists in the plot also his dark materials which is a fantasy drama based on the books by philip pullman recommended to me by my daughter next we've got two sitcoms and sitcoms or situational comedies are great because you've got very natural everyday english cultural references and you get to learn the sense of humor of english i recommend ted lasso it's the story of an american coach who comes to the uk to train a premier league english football club and the hilarious adventures that come that come about from the culture clash between american culture and british culture then there's mythic quest it tells the hilarious adventures of the staff of a company that creates the biggest multiplayer video game in the world next up we've got the news and two news programs which i think are good because well the news gives you lots of rich vocabulary as well as idiomatic expressions i would recommend good morning britain which is a light-hearted look at the daily news or panorama and if you like investigative journalism but not too sensationalist that's for you next a couple of drama series and drama is good again for the natural conversation but also the kind of colorful language you may get lots of slang as well although do not use slang in ielts speaking but it's always useful to know first of all little fires everywhere absolutely brilliant this is a reese witherspoon who is the head of a picture-perfect family and whose lives get turned upside down by the arrival of an enigmatic mother and her daughter then we've got the handmaid's tale which is i guess the more horrific end of the drama spectrum and this is about really a futuristic dystopia where the role of women is turned upside down if you can bear it go and watch it it's great next i would strongly recommend documentaries um because they cover a wide range of topics and a huge range of vocabulary as well as great ideas for your ielts speaking i would recommend the social dilemma it tells you how social media really works and also cowspiracy which tells you about the real culprit of climate change the elephant in the room that nobody is talking about it's really worth watching i do also recommend you go and check out curiosity stream it's a paid for service i think it's twenty dollars a year but some amazing high quality documentaries well worth checking out finally chat shows are brilliant because you get again natural conversation it's everyday life popular topics i would recommend the ellen show what more can i say pure genius and the late show with um stephen colbert and i think the late show is nice you can see interviews very candid conversations with celebrities and also of course stephen colbert's rather elegant wit and humor that's it lots of tv series you can use to go and practice your listening and speaking skills and your top down and bottom up strategies so remember i think in order to really develop your listening and speaking skills you need actually a combination of these top down and bottom up strategies at different times you may be using different ones but use them both i hope all of this helps and also have fun with the suggestions around the tv series go and explore something new look at lots of different types of programs to help improve your listening and speaking skills and finally remember woodpecker learning what a great app a place where you can find easy to access videos some well organized playlists that you can go and study with and it's fun and exciting and with all of those built-in tools to help you follow the transcript practice repeating chunks check words you don't know access netflix come on it's well worth checking out the the links are down below in the description you can go and download the app for free and let me know in the comments what you think of the app what are you watching to learn english and practice your listening and speaking skills great it's been a pleasure as always i can't wait to see you very soon in the next video take care my friend see you later [Music] you

Channel: English Speaking Success

Views: 826,127

Keywords: ielts speaking, ielts speaking success, ielts keith, keith speaking academy, how to improve listening skills, english listening skills, improve english listening skills, improve english listening by movies, improve english listening and speaking, improve english listening skills online, ielts listening skills and strategies, ielts listening skills tips

Id: 52MSH5pmHk0

Length: 24min 21sec (1461 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 18 2021