Listening Comprehension
- Niamaat
- Feb 6, 2024
- 3 min read
Do not be satisfied with guessing. Learn how to catch all the words!
The first step that you can do all on your own is to learn to shadow, i.e. get good at repeating what you hear, as soon as you hear it!
Choose a short audio recording of spoken English. By short I mean 10 seconds to 4 seconds in length. The shorter the better. The "easier" the better.
Choose a recording that has a voice that you like.
Choose a recording that has a voice talking about something that interests you enough that you'll be able to stomach listening to the same recording multiple times.
Choose a recording whose playback speed you can alter
Play.
Close your eyes.
Repeat what you hear, when you hear it.
Do not wait for pauses.
Do not wait for the ends of sentences
Do not look at written words, not even in you mind's eye
Try again. Try again. Try again.
If the speed, now, is just too fast for you to shadow, then go to settings and slow down the video.
Then do the entire exercise again, with the same audio. Now you see wy it is important to choose an audio that you don't mind, an audio that you even enjoy, listening to over and over again.
Catch the Words
What is shadowing? How to Shadow. Why Shadow?
Use shadowing, without seeing the text, to improve your ability to hear words, to capture words. Closing your eyes during the process of repeating everything that you hear immediately improves your ability to hear words.
Shadowing can also be used to improve pronunciation and intonation. And if you are using shadowing for those things feel free to use the text along with the audio/video. However, to train your ear to catch the words being said, do not look at text and keep your eyes closed.
Most adult English learners are consuming visual content and understand more or less, or so they think. As soon as the close their eyes, they realize how little they actually understand.
Before you understand the spoken words you mus have the ability to capture words with your ears. Watcing a movie, video or TV show with English subtitles is not significantly improving your comprehension of spoken English.
Think about the amount of time you now spend being entertained. How much of that involves English? How much of that do you honestly believe is improving your ability to understand spoken English--withour any visual cues?
It is not enough to "get the idea" or to understand a certain percentage of what is being said. If you are watchin video content in English, thinking that you understand what's going on, more or less, try closing your eyes, and watching! Communication is much more than words, however, the purpose of this post is to give you tips and resources to improve you comprehension of spoken English, independent of any written text, independent of all visiuals and removed from any believed circumstances.
Shadowing from Various Perspectives
Shadowing Technique in English: are you wasting your time?
Shadowing Technique - Fast way to English Fluency
English Speaking Practice & Listening Shadowing
Understand the Words
Of course understanding spoken English requires you not only to capture the words, but to understand what the words and word combinations mean! But first, you need to be able to capture the words. You need to be able to hear the words, to distinguish the words with your ears.
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