How to Listen for Details & Improve Your Skills

hello and welcome to our live lesson today we're having a gorgeous Saturday and a super super useful lesson this lesson is going to be useful for everyone and I think we always always need to improve our listening skills so it's going to be a great we're going to have a great time if you are just joining I'd like to welcome you to our class to our global classroom please write down your name where are you writing from welcome Kira welcome ahead you're welcome Ozma thank you for for joining us today on this wonderful Saturday so yes please hi Diego welcome welcome welcome if I don't see all of you please forgive me sometimes things don't sync up the way they're supposed to but I would like to welcome you so listening for details this is such an important skill listening is on more than one account I've heard from students that listening is one of the most difficult difficult language skills and it is so because many times when we just have to listen we can't see the person who's talking or we can't read their body language and sometimes things get muffled people speak too fast and it can be very very difficult so in the comments please write down is listening difficult for you do you have trouble with listening and if you're just joining hello and welcome and thank you so please write down do you find listening difficult what do you think could your listening skills improve and [Music] listening for details I put here details are just one of the skills that we can improve we can listen for more than just details we can listen for things like main ideas or for to try to infer what's happening and there's so many different skills but details are some of the most important skills and why what are details okay is my question for you guys today if you didn't know now it's a good time to listen and pay attention it is very specific information that you hear and many times this information is important to communicate to pass on to other people so good morning everyone or evening or whatever so in listening can be again very very important for for those details because it's it's important information now why why should we want to improve our listening for details why is this important how can it be useful well for all of these reasons that I've listed here that I'm going to talk about plus more first of all communication right if if we can't understand especially if you've noticed if you've traveled into an english-speaking country and you've heard people speak very very fast sometimes you can say you're having trouble understanding and that's where this is very useful if we listen for details we can understand what's happening not just in other countries but even on TV or we can hear on the radio music lyrics movies all of those things it's so important to be able to catch to understand to see what's going on now even for people who are having to take some exams oh my goodness yeah there's always a listening component in English we have exams like IELTS and TOEFL and I know that a lot of our students are interested in these listening is a huge part and I've prepared with my students with these four over the years and they this is kind of a hard it's a hard one for them they don't always catch all the details and of course in everyday conversation so it's one those things that the more you practice the easier it becomes so you just have to keep keep at it it's very very I think it's a very useful skill but it can be very difficult and I'd say if you think watching TV or something is easy for you make it more challenging by just listening don't watch don't look for somebody's body language just listen no subtitles and see how much you can understand that way okay because that will really really help so it's great to see your answers yeah it is difficult because some people sometimes speak too too too fast and I think that that can be very difficult and also because maybe we don't catch the same words or we don't have all the vocabulary so it can definitely be be a little bit harder now I have a little tip for you if you can't catch all the details how can you do this so here's here are a couple tips that I would like to share with you the first one is to focus make sure you're not your mind is not kind of going all over the place I just try to focus on the conversation imagine it in your mind put a picture and just see what is happening try to envision and make your make sure that you are focused on what is happening and catch as much as possible try that and make sure that that you do it so this is a little bit of a tip yeah see so and and you know what it's it if in the beginning you don't understand a hundred percent it is not too bad don't worry about it keep doing it because maybe next time you'll understand because I saw somebody wrote I understand only like 30 percent maybe next time you'll understand thirty five percent maybe next time time after that forty percent and so on we are focusing on progress here it's a good thing so details what should we listen for this is very important usually when in in in listening exercise there are some very important cues as to what you're supposed to listen for and those are names dates places very important because these tells us you know who and why colors age feelings sounds very specific either now's or adjectives but that are descriptive when something is descriptive it really that's the time to pay attention because it's communicating very important information any date is typically going to be important okay a name a place those are details that you should you really should pay attention to so pay attention to that very important okay now what I'm going to do without further ado we're going to do a listening exercise together and what I am asking from you is to pay close attention to these details that I'm going to read but I'm not going to make it easy on you because this is this is learning we're trying to make it a little challenging so you cannot see you won't be able to see me you'll just hear what I'm going to read we're going to do a practice and I want you to focus on these things I want you to focus on the names the dates and the places colors age feelings anything that you see that that you here sorry that you think is going to be important focus on those okay and I'm going to read a text to you I'm going to read the text to you two times and then I will ask you some questions so please please please please pay close attention are you guys ready is everyone ready you guys excited I'm so excited hello welcome everyone who's joining us okay ready for some great listening practice here it goes so I'm going to read it twice Nelson Mandela was a famous politician and to vist in South Africa he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and he was elected as South Africa's first president in 1994 he is regarded as a hero and champion of hope he died in 1999 at the age of 95 okay I will read it again Nelson Mandela was a famous politician and activist in South Africa he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and he was elected at South South Africa's first president in 1994 he is regarded as a hero and champion of hope he died in 1999 at the age of 95 okay now let's see how much you remember here are my questions this is my first question and if you know the answer please write it down in the comments remember I told you to focus on those names I told you to focus on the dates and the years those are important that's very very important information so my question to you and please write it down in the comments in what year did Nelson Mandela become president if you know the answer write it down I want to check your comprehension okay and what here okay so we have some years here a lot of responses for 1994 some for 1993 are you ready to see the answer okay so 1994 is the answer and I did throw a 1993 over there too to throw you off a little bit because it's good to pay attention to the details in connection to the context so you have to pay attention to both but great job you guys are you guys are giving some great answers good job good job are you ready for the next one here it is how old was he when he passed away please write it down in the comments now notice that I asked the question in a different way and this is because we have I have to make sure that you understand the main idea how old was he when he passed away so this expression was not in the in the listening but I want to see if you guys got it so I'm getting some different numbers but mostly people say 95 95 95 let's see if you guys are right that is correct you guys are you guys are great no hurry oh who knew jr. Vivian Aziz great job Wang wonderful yes so he passed away so the reason I put passed away over there and I didn't say died is because you should expect these kinds of questions many times we don't use the same phrasing in the question that we use in the text okay so that's something that you need to get used to but it's the same main idea he passed away at the age of 95 in 1999 okay so please keep that in mind you guys are doing amazing amazing amazing ok now that we've gone all warmed up I'm going to give you a more difficult one are you ready for something more difficult and if you're just joining what we are doing right now is we are doing a listening practice and I am not showing you the text okay I am just reading it to you and you have to answer okay so the second one is one of my favorite subjects I could talk about this all day but I won't I promise just for the listening purpose here it goes I will read it two times Nutella is a famous chocolate hazelnut spread created by an italian company called Ferrero Nutella has five main ingredients sugar and palm oil make up over 50% the spread is 13% hazelnut followed by cocoa solids and skimmed milk approximately 50 hazelnuts can be found in each jar of Nutella although delicious it's not very healthy a 2 tablespoon serving contains 200 calories and 21 grams of sugar ok I will read it again Nutella is a famous chocolate hazelnut spread created by an italian company called Ferrero Nutella has 5 main ingredients sugar and palm oil make up over 50% the spread is 13% hazelnut followed by cocoa solids and skimmed milk approximately 50 hazelnuts can be found in each jar of Nutella although delicious it's not very healthy a 2 tablespoon serving contains 200 calories and 21 grams of sugar who's hungry no just me ok after ok so I am going to show you my questions right now and then see if you guys can write the answers in the comments please please do so my first question is around how many hazelnuts are in each jar and if you've noticed this one was a little bit more difficult I tried to read it a little faster and it has more details so I'm very curious if you guys got the answer ok so some people are writing let's see I'm seeing some 50s Mahmoud says 50 Vivian's is 50 KS is 50 let's see if you guys are right tada yes good job 50 hazelnuts approx so again here in the text I use approximately but I asked you in the question around how many that is again emphasizing that sometimes the wording will be different in the question and this is specially important in a question exams like the IELTS or the TOEFL they will ask you in different wording ok ready for the next one you guys are amazing ok not 50% so if you guys answer 50% that is not correct the answer is 50 hazelnuts the number is right but the percent is not correct ok my second question is what are the two main ingredients in Nutella what are the two main ingredients in Nutella let's see what you guys are answering the two main ingredients see if you guys remember [Music] somebody said sugar sugar and palm oil palm oil yeah that's let's see let's see yeah so you who you guys are correct sugar and palm oil are them two main ingredients of in Nutella now these are the most the first mention and and the most prominent and the third question how many tablespoons contain 200 calories how many tablespoons contain 200 calories let's yeah you guys are killing this wow great job yeah sugar palm oh no sugar not chocolate but good thank you for answering yes um yeah great hmm yeah mark oh yeah exactly so everyone so how many the question is let's see how many tablespoons contain 200 calories let's find what you guys are saying I'm seeing some mixed answers some people say 21 22 the correct answer is 2 so 2 tablespoons contain 200 calories and 21 grams of sugar but the correct answer was 2 so great job to everyone to everyone and um well that's you know you guys you guys are doing amazing this was actually a little bit difficult because of all the numbers I threw at you I actually want to do kind of a bonus one do you remember the percentage of hazelnut and Nutella I'm very curious percentage of hazelnut and Nutella let's see who gets this right it's not on my thing but I'm just curious if you guys remember let's see well while you guys are writing that I do want to tell you of a little tip and that I have to improve your listening and this is if you want more listening practice you could join for a free trial on audible and here you can find things like podcasts or audiobooks just a lot of resources that can really really really help you with your listening skills and they're doing a free trial right now and we're going to leave a link in the description so you can sign up it's it's actually very very useful because like I mentioned before there is a special skill that we develop when we listen without being able to see somebody so you can check for details so you can improve just the the the your oral skills without the context of what's happening without seeing what is going on so let me look to see if you guys have answered some people said 30 30 30 30 and unit was asking 13 yeah so that's one it's it's hard to hear it was 13% hazelnut 13 so not 30 but 13 but great job for a lot of you catching those numbers um okay well thank you guys very very much this was a really fun lesson yeah a petition now yes it is it is there's a free trial that you can join for so we're going to leave the the link in the in the description well thank you guys so much for watching you can do a lot of these just make sure that every time that you practice to do it to do it often try to do it if if you can't do it every day maybe do it every other day but make sure to make a habit out of it because that's the only way that I think you can improve again if you thought this lesson was useful please share it and like it any questions that you have that maybe I missed today we're going to answer later so make sure to leave them in the comments thank you again and I would like to thank all of you who are here Thank You Patricia thank you for a Thank You jr. thanks for answering and for practicing with us today Thank You Giselle Mahmoud thank you Luke and again if you have questions please please please write them down and we will answer thanks and have a great day

Channel: Interactive English

Views: 33,396

Rating: 4.8760653 out of 5

Keywords: interactive english, learn english, advanced english lesson, intermediate english lesson, Practice English, how to improve your listening, english listening lesson, english listening practice, how to listen in english, escuchar ingles, english lesson listening, listen to english, improve listening skills, i want to listen to english, listening practice, listen for details, how to listen for details, listening for details, IELTS listening, TOEFL listening

Id: JqBRd_gL_oo

Length: 20min 57sec (1257 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 21 2018