How To Practice Your Listening Comprehension the RIGHT WAY

hey student watch this video and learn how to improve your listening skills the right way coming up [Music] hey friends teacher prix here to help you talk to anyone anywhere anytime in english first and foremost thank you so much for joining me on this lesson i hope this lesson can help you improve your listening skills if it's your first time here that is awesome i hope you subscribe so that you don't miss any of my weekly videos now my friends improving your listening skills you know in this lesson i'm going to share with you three elements that i believe you need to implement and you need to consider if you are on the journey to improving your english if you're trying to improve your listening skills better understand native speakers no native speakers better understand movies tv series podcasts audio materials that you enjoy and you feel like you still have some problems so these three elements are important and i believe they are key if you're trying to improve your listening skills now as i said at the beginning of the video i'm going to teach you how to practice your listening the right way because perhaps you're already familiar with these three elements but if you are not following specific guidelines and strategies that could explain why your listening skills are not improving so let's dive into the content the first element is length what is that supposed to mean forget the very long audios if you're trying to improve your listening skill this is something that i always tell my students in my online program the real english academy and i have them follow this recommendation because all the audio materials i give them inside the academy are short because if you're trying to improve your listening skills you need to shorten the listening activities you do but here's the catch i'm not saying you are going to decrease the number of minutes the time you spend practicing your listening it's quite the opposite okay you will keep practicing your listening for quite some time you know if you if you if you dedicate one hour to your listening practice you will keep doing that it's just the way you use that time it's the activity it's the material you use to practice your listening that is going to change and here on youtube you have a free source of videos and audios that will help you achieve that and why short why do i want you to focus on short audios instead of long ones instead of a 45 minute podcast or tv show episode or a two-hour movie in a nutshell by using a short source of material you know an audio you're going to be able to pay more attention to the material you're listening to because if you think about it in an audio that is 45 minutes long it is very difficult for your brain to focus 100 percent of the time and what happens here very often students will finish listening to a podcast a 45-minute podcast or perhaps a an episode of their favorite show with the impression that they didn't understand most of it that they understood very little when in reality if you were practicing or listening if you were not just watching a show as an entertaining activity you know as entertainment in reality what happened was your brain was not paying attention because your brain has a very short attention span and in those kinds of activities if your goal is to test your listening and improve your listening skills exposing your brain to a very long material will actually have the opposite effect you will get tired you will change the focus you will remember something that happened to you and all of that while listening to that material while watching that show so it's not that you are not able to understand everything it's just that that kind of material is not designed for that purpose for improving i'm not saying you are not going to get to the point when you finally understand that's my goal but to get there you shouldn't focus on using that kind of material because it's going to have the opposite effect another very important point that you need to take into consideration is your listening practice should be the moment for you to feel motivated and encouraged not the opposite listening to long audios may make you feel like nothing is working because if you think about it you are listening to a podcast about something you enjoy and at a certain moment the speaker says something that you really agree with and you feel wow i understood that part and as you are in the process of analyzing that part and feeling proud of yourself wow i understood this part that is awesome yeah he said that the listening is still playing and you're not paying attention anymore because you're focusing on that previous part of information where you felt really good about yourself or where you connected with you clicked with that moment as a result you were not focusing on the next part and the next part so be careful with very long audios because this is always going to happen whenever i am listening to a podcast or a video with a lecture if i catch myself in that moment oh my god i agree with you this is so cool i stopped paying attention when i catch myself doing that i pause the video i pause like oh okay i think about all i want to think about and then i move on okay but here the catch is are you practicing or are you just listening this is a question you need to ask yourself are you listening to something every morning just for the uh pleasure of listening to something or are you listening because you're sitting down and you're studying and you're practicing because these are different moments okay in addition to the points i mentioned before there is also the problem of time itself i imagine you have all the responsibilities you have a busy life you have appointments you have family members you have things to do so imagine using a one-hour audio for you to practice your listening if you think about it it's not very productive because you have other activities to do connected with english because english if you want to become a confident english speaker if you want to eliminate your fears if you want to feel good about your english only listening is not going to get you there so there are different kinds of activities you need to do if you want to achieve that result analyzing a 40 minute audio source if you have a very busy life it'll be difficult for you to do different activities with that listening material and that's the point many students think they only have to listen to the material and that's it no if you want to master your listening improve your vocabulary more naturally and speak with more confidence because listening will help you with your speaking skills you've got to do more than simply listening you will need to interact with the material you will need to use other english skills while listening to that material so that you can really improve and have a very productive listening practice and another point is when you listen to a 40-minute audio and i'm going to talk about this because this is one of the other elements it is more difficult for you to repeat and listen again more importantly listen again with the same attention because your brain already knows it's a long material so listening to it again and pay attention again will be a difficult activity for your brain to digest to accept so when you use a shorter audio it's easier for you to repeat and pay attention and moreover you are able to do different kinds of exercises which i'm going to talk about in a little bit the second element is the subject let me ask you a question do you want to understand native speakers and your favorite movies and your favorite shows be able to talk about a variety of subjects and understand different things so you gotta focus on the subjects you study in english day in day out so a few days ago i watched a video about a specific type of bird you know a specific species of birds uh viri yes very birds that fly all the way from delaware united states to brazil in specific times of the years and after a lot of study and research the researchers discovered that those birds fly all the way to brazil during hurricane seasons but how do they know that it was a hurricane season that's the mystery that's what they are studying because they don't know how those birds can know that there is a hurricane season coming it's like it's in the future yo so they fly all the way to brazil before the hurricane season starts and why am i telling you about this weird video i watched about birds flying all the way from delaware to brazil subject you don't need to watch things about birds okay it's okay it's fine but you need to expose yourself to different kinds of subjects to a variety of subjects one thing that i always do with my bsa my students in my online program the real english academy i give them different sources subjects of things they can listen in english and they all follow the first element okay they are short audio materials and then combining with element two it's always about a different subject i always find a way either inside the academy with the modules that i give them with the listening activities and exercises following these three elements and more because there are more things that i give to my students in the academy but they also have the challenges in our private facebook group because there i can share uh interesting videos from youtube focusing on the things that i want them to study focusing on specific listening strategies that i share with them so that they can explore a variety of subjects because when we're studying alone sometimes it is difficult to think about things to watch and to see a good starting point would be things you're interested in but as time goes by you may get too comfortable with the things you enjoy and always watch things you enjoy i'm not saying you should watch something you don't like i'm saying that you need to give it a chance to see if you may like okay i'm honestly not very interested in birds per se but this caught my attention okay and then i kept watching and watching and i learned quite a lot of vocabulary after watching that documentary so this is something that you need to implement so two important elements here the length of time and the subject get out of your comfort zone explore new things so that you can learn about new things you may like okay and speaking of like how about hitting the like button my friend when you hit like i understand you enjoy this lesson that this lesson is good for you so that i can keep working keep making more videos for you guys and it also helps the channel grow and if it's not much to ask how about sharing this video with your friends i'm sure you can help someone by sharing this lesson now guys it's still on the subject i'm gonna give you an exercise okay i want you to get out of your comfort zone and start exploring different subjects so here i'm going to give you a challenge in the description of this video i'm going to give you a link to a video talking about the phases of the moon okay i will give you more instructions because first i have to talk about element three because then it'll make sense okay then you will understand what you need to do because it's not just hitting play watching okay i like it oh no i don't like it no that's not the go the goal is to improve your listening the goal is to expand your vocabulary expand your knowledge so that you can speak with more confidence and understand a different variety of subjects and conversations okay so stay tuned because i'm gonna show you in a few minutes what you need to do about this video regarding the phases of the moon the next element is practice the theater yo this is so obvious not to some students if you keep listening but not testing your knowledge or exploring new words how do you know your listening is not really going to improve you may have this illusion this false sensation that your listening is improving because you know a word here you got a word there [Music] but you need to combine the different skills so that you can talk about what you listen can you talk about what you listen can you explain what you listen just as i explained if i could continue talking about the birds the very birds i could give you a lot of extra information but that's not the goal but this is something that i'm always doing in english i'm always doing in italian i'm always telling my bsa in the academy to do as well the practice because only hitting play is not listening you need to test your listening comprehension and to do that it is easier when you use a shorter audio because you build up this skill you're not going to be listening to a short audio forever but you need to have a starting point okay and the starting point for you to improve your listening practice is by listening to short audios and as you evolve as you begin to master the ability of paying attention getting information you can keep increasing the number of minutes but always keeping in mind that you need to do other kinds of activities while using that material source so what do i mean by practice well do you take notes do you highlight phrases and vocabulary expressions do you summarize ideas do you listen to an audio and then you explain oh okay he talked about this this this this and that in his opinion this should happen this shouldn't happen all i learned is expression oh i checked the pronunciation of this new word do you do this kind of practice every time you listen to something do you practice your english speaking when you're after listening to an audio material describing what you feel about it if you agree if you disagree what you learned this is the practice this is gonna help you build up the confidence so that you can speak so that you can understand it's a combination of activities and that's why the first element and the second element are so important okay now as i said in the descriptions of this video you will find a link to a video talking about the phases of the moon for the purpose of the exercise you are going to watch it three times and as you watch no pausing no maybe after you finish once then you can pause wait check your notes then when you start again no pausing watch it all then when you when you finish the second time then you can wait a little before you start the third time and then you can listen again okay and as you watch the the lesson about the phases of the moon you're going to take notes you're going to write an explanation about what you understood you're going to pay attention to possible words you may not know and check those words and you see that if you do this practice and you follow my recommendation you will have a much more productive exercise you will be able to repeat it more times you can even repeat more i actually uh with the bsas i give i give them even more strategies of things they can do after they finish doing the the exercise itself the listening comprehension exercise but this is going to help you improve and as you do this on a regular basis you will begin to feel the difference okay other than that my friends share this video with your friends and let me know what you thought about this activity here in the comments i'll see you next time bye

Channel: Teacher Prix

Views: 6,971

Keywords: listening skills, learn english, listening comprehension, improve your listening, listening practice, how to understand native speakers, listening practice exercises, listening exercises, listening exercises for beginners, how to improve listening skills, teacherprix, english lessons, lessons in english

Id: KOjyJIktLZc

Length: 16min 59sec (1019 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 23 2021