By Rachel Abbott (Academic Co-ordinator, ABC School)
An issue that many language learners have is that the English they hear has to be processed in real time. There is very little time to pause and think about what has been said in a conversation and it is not possible to listen again and again to the content of real life conversations, unlike in a classroom situation where you can listen to a track on a CD as many times as you like. This is not an issue with reading because if you are reading a text and you miss important information, you can go back to it and read it again. I often hear students asking their teachers what they can do to improve their listening skills and there are some techniques which can be employed to help language learners improve in this area.
What are the challenges that students face?
Students of English can encounter many difficulties when attempting to understand a talk, lecture or conversation in the target language. Some of the potential issues include the speaker talking quickly, background noises, a lack of visual clues and having a limited range of vocabulary or background knowledge of the subject. While these challenges can be out of the listener’s hands, there are a few strategies that can help.
Predicting content
Thinking about the possible content of something before you hear it is a very important skill to try to develop when learning a new language. Quite often there are visual clues available before any words have even been spoken. For example, if you are watching TV and you see a woman standing in front of a large map containing weather symbols, such as heavy clouds and rain, you can be almost certain that she is about to provide a weather report. You can already start to think about the kind of language she will use, such as ‘windy’ and ‘rain’ and she will probably use some of the future tenses, such as ‘will’ and ‘going to.’ Our knowledge of the world helps us to anticipate the information we are likely to hear and by tapping into our background knowledge of a topic, situation or context, it is possible to interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next. For further practice with predicting content, you could watch or listen to a clip from YouTube. Pause after every few sentences and try to predict what is going to happen or what the speaker is going to say next.
Understanding the gist
The ‘gist’ of something can be identified as the main or essential information. When listening for the general idea, you are focusing on the main topic of a conversation. When listening, it is important to keep in mind your purpose for listening and to ignore language that is not related to the purpose. Whilst you are listening, information comes in a sequence. Within that sequence of information, there are content words (nouns, adjectives and verbs) that can help you form a picture. By focusing on this sequence of content words, you can understand the general idea of what is being said even if you have a limited range of vocabulary or if the speaker is talking so quickly that you can’t catch every word. For example, if you are listening to a conversation and the following words are mentioned 'food', 'friends', 'fun', 'park' and 'sunny day' even though they have their own meanings, when you hear the words in sequence, they help you to form the context of a picnic.
Practise listening for gist:
You could find a short video with subtitles on a topic that interests you and then, as you watch, listen out for the
content words. Go back, and listen again with the subtitles. How much did you understand the first time? Watch the video again a week later and try again. When you learn new words, try to group them with other words used in a similar context. You can use a notebook to record these words of similar meaning (synonyms) and can even have different sections of your notebook for words and phrases related to specific topics.
Inferring meaning from context
Imagine you are travelling in a country and you do not speak the language. You are in a café and want to pay by credit card. You hand over your card to pay for the bill, but the server seems to say something apologetic in response and they are perhaps frowning and/or shaking their head. Even though you don't understand his words, you can probably conclude that the restaurant doesn't take credit cards, and you need to pay by cash.
This is the technique of inferring meaning: using clues and prior knowledge about a situation to work out the meaning of what you hear.
In a similar way, we can infer the relationship between people from their words alone. Take the following conversation:
A: Anna, did you do your homework?B: I did, sir, but I lost it.A: That's a ridiculous excuse. You'll never pass your exams if you don't work harder.
We can infer from the use of the words 'homework' and 'exams' that this is a conversation between a student and her teacher. By using contextual clues and our knowledge of the world, we can work out what's being said, who is speaking and what's taking place.
Practise inferring meaning:
The next time you hear a word you don't understand, try to guess its meaning using the context or situation to help you.
To sum up, although I have mentioned just a few techniques that you can use to improve your listening skills, it would be a good idea to do some research of your own into further techniques. Also, remember that you are not alone! Listening comprehension is certainly one of the hardest components for most learners of English and you simply need to practise as much as you can.
Good luck!
