5 Strategies to improve English Listening skills

Frustrated of not been able to understand naïve English speakers in real conversations? Do you find native English speakers too fast when they speak? Or are native English accents hard for you to pick up? Or is the English slang and idioms used by native English speakers too confusing?

These are all common challenges faced by English learners around the world. Improving listening skills are an extremely important part of learning English – the better you can listen and understand native speakers, the better you can be in overall English communication skills.

Good news is, there are a lot of smart ways to improve English Listening skills. So whether your goal is to improve the TOEFL Listening score or whether you just want to be an advanced English learner, the tips we share today will help you get to the next level.

Listen to audiobooks

At Spoken English Practice, we are huge advocates of listening to audiobooks. Audiobooks are not easy to follow as there are no sub titles or body language cues. In order to follow an audiobook you really have to listen carefully. Hence, audiobooks read by native English speakers are a great tool to improve English listening skills.

Also, using audiobooks to improve English listening skills is a great way to make your commute to work more productive. Most of our English language students are working professionals and practicing listening via audiobooks is an activity that allows them to be more productive while driving to work.

Learning tip: Pick an audiobook to fit the accent you want to learn. For example if you want to learn/improve an British accent, pick a book narrated by a British native speaker.

Practice with real Native English speakers

Practicing with real native speakers (or teachers) is the best way to improve English listening skills. Native English speakers have a specific rhythm and speed to speaking English, which is vastly different from ho non natives speak. Also, native English speakers pause, stress and break sentences differently from non native speakers. The best way to get used to these little nuances is to practice having real conversations with a native English teachers a few times a week.

As we have discussed in the past, learning vocabulary and grammar will only make you an elementary level English speaker. If you want to go to an advanced level in English communication skills, you have to start practicing with a native English speaker.

Watch movies without subtitles

Watching movies is a great way to improve English listening skills. Once you have developed your listening skills to a certain extent, turn off subtitles and try to understand just by following the story. Pay close attention to how the characters enunciate certain words. Listen closely to how they stress and de-stress certain sounds. All these little cues will not only allow you to developed advanced listening skills in English but will also help improve your pronunciation and accent.

Think in English

The biggest barrier for ESL students to speak English fluently is that they think in their native language and translate before speaking. This process, know as mental translation, makes your speech seem slow and unnatural. This is the main reason you are identified as someone who is not fluent in English.

The only way to overcome this is to practice English speaking with native English speakers, at least 3 times a week. Don’t think too much of mistakes you make. Instead, just have real conversations without too many interruptions. This process will help you immerse in English and think in English.

If you can get to this level, and starting thinking in English during conversations with native English speakers, you will have no trouble listening and understanding what they say.

Familiarize your self with slang and idioms

A main reason that native English speakers are hard to understand is because they use a lot of slang and idioms when speaking. If you only learn English through traditional methods such as textbooks, you will not capture real English spoken by real native speakers.

So a in direct strategy to improve English listening skills is to familiarize yourself with contractions and colloquial expression used by native speakers in daily conversations. In our blog, we write a lot of learning one idiom or slang word a day. This is a great way to expand your vocabulary and improve English listening skills at the same time.