Practice Listening In English

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Speak with Others. I’m sure you know that speaking will help your English speaking skills. But having conversations is a great way to get more listening practice. In fact, I think that speaking with others is the best listening practice you can get. Jul 31, 2020 Learn English naturally by listening to over 300 speakers from 100 countries with over 2,500 free video and audio lessons! Extensive listening, listening practice. Listening is an important part of communication. If you do not understand what the other person is saying, then you will not know how to respond. This section was created to give students daily practice on listening. In this English listening section, students can constantly listen to the audio files provided here. Listening is an important part of communication. If you do not understand what the other person is saying, then you will not know how to respond. This section was created to give students daily practice on listening. In this English listening section, students can constantly listen to the audio files provided here.

“Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk.”

This Doug Larson quote is great life advice, but it’s also helpful for anyone who wants to improve English listening skills.

Listening is one of the most important aspects of communication. It’s how we relate to one another. It’s just as important in English as your native language.

Unfortunately, learning how to listen to a foreign language—and actually understand—can be tough.

However, it certainly isn’t impossible to master! We put together a guide full of tips, practice exercises and audio to show you how to improve English listening skills.

Before we get into these great pieces of English listening comprehension advice, let’s talk about some benefits that improved listening skills can provide in the real world.

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Surprising benefits of improving your English listening skills:

  • You’ll be able to understand English speakers with different accents.English is incredibly diverse. The way people speak English in the U.K. can be wildly different than the English spoken in the U.S. Even individual English-speaking countries can be home to many different ways of speaking English. Because of this, good listening skills can help you figure out what people are saying in an unfamiliar accent or dialect.
  • If your listening skills are very sharp, it’ll be easier for you to quickly hear and comprehend English that’s spoken very far away. This can actually be a survival skill in the case of a natural disaster, violent attack or other emergencies. You’ll need to be able to listen actively to what’s being said around you, not just directly to you.
  • Improved listening skills mean improved relationships. Any friendship you have with an English speaker will likely become much better because they feel like you’re actually listening to and comprehending them.

Let’s take a look at some tips for improving your English skills, how to execute them and why they work.

1. Be active in your listening, not passive.

There are two forms of listening: active and passive.

Active listening is focused listening. You’re trying to truly understand the meaning behind what’s being said. Passive listening simply involves hearing what’s being said, but not really attempting to understand every word.

Practice listening skills in english

For example, when you’re playing English music or podcasts and not really focusing on them, you’re listening passively.

There seems to be an idea that you can improve English listening through passive listening. Unfortunately, this isn’t true. In my experience, passive listening doesn’t help me retain vocabulary words, comprehension of words, etc. Without taking the time to really try and understand the language I’m listening to, I don’t memorize anything new.

You’ll have to be listening actively all the time, even when doing casual listening like enjoying music or a TV show. Aside from simply focusing and rewinding when you don’t understand something, the rest of the tips in this list will help you listen to English actively to improve your comprehension.

2. Watch English TV and films with bilingual subtitles.

Start watching English TV and movies with subtitles in both English and your native language. This can be helpful because it allows you to quickly find the meaning of an unfamiliar word that you hear by reading the subtitles in your native language. It’s also helpful to have English subtitles displayed so you can improve your ability to match spoken English with written English.

Changing the subtitles of a video usually isn’t that hard to do if you have a membership with a streaming service. However, having two sets of subtitles displayed at once is a bit trickier.

Listening

It can be difficult to find videos with simultaneous English and native language subtitles, but it’s totally possible. The video below will show you an easy little YouTube trick:

If you use Google Chrome to browse the web, you can get an extension that gives you bilingual subtitles for YouTube and Netflix.

There are also online guides available that show you how to have two sets of subtitles displayed simultaneously.

3. Play ESL listening games online.

English listening games provide a fun, interactive experience for learners who are struggling to improve their listening skills.

A few great ESL listening game sites include:

  • ESL Kids Lab: This site is filled with simple listening exercises for beginners. Practice understanding basic vocabulary for school, jobs, everyday objects and more.
  • TeachThis: These games are designed for English classrooms, but if you have a group of friends to practice English with you can try them, too!
  • Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab: This site is an absolute goldmine of English listening tests and quizzes. They’re organized by level, with something for everyone from beginner to advanced.

Listening games also give you an incentive to “win”—you’ll stay motivated and want to keep practicing English listening.

4. Guess meaning from the context of the conversation first.

Sometimes, we just don’t have enough time to study a language in its entirety before having to relocate to a country where that language is used.

Plus, the sooner you start having real English conversations, the better!

One of the best ways to understand English while you’re still learning the language is to use context clues. When having a conversation or listening to English audio, try to pick out key words that you know. You can use these to get a basic idea of what someone is trying to convey, and figure out the meaning of an unfamiliar word.

You can also pay attention to tone of voice (is the speaker happy, confused, serious or laughing?), body language and your surroundings. If someone is trying to communicate with you and is pointing at a map, there’s a good chance that they need directions. If you’re reading a red traffic sign, that sign probably means “stop.”

Even if you don’t live in an English-speaking region, you can still apply this method to improve your conversation skills. Watching FluentU videos is a great way to do this (more on FluentU below). You can also try it when listening to an English podcast.

5. Use FluentU to practice English listening with authentic videos.

FluentU is a perfect tool to improve English listening skills actively. You’ll listen to English the way native speakers really use it—and never worry about missing a word.

The videos on FluentU include movie trailers, music videos, inspiring speeches, news reports and more. But FluentU isn’t just a video player. Every video comes with interactive subtitles. Hear a word that you didn’t understand? Just click it for an instant definition, clear pronunciation and useful examples.

The “loop” feature makes it easy to replay a fast or confusing segment simply by clicking.

There are also fun audio and written quizzes to make sure you remember everything you learned, as well as vocabulary lists and full transcripts.

The videos are conveniently organized into six levels (beginner through advanced) so it’s easy to find the ones that work for you. FluentU suggests new videos based on what you’ve already learned so you keep moving towards fluency.

Best of all, you can take this fun, authentic English listening practice everywhere you go with the FluentU mobile apps for iOs and Android.

6. Don’t be afraid to eavesdrop on the bus, at work, at coffee shops, etc.

Okay, this might seem a little rude. However, if you live or work somewhere with English speakers, this is a really helpful trick when you’re trying to actively listen and improve your English comprehension.

“Eavesdrop” simply means listening to the conversations of people near you. By eavesdropping, you can try and pick out words that you’ve learned or are trying to learn. Focus on the meaning of the conversation. How much can you understand? Could you write a summary of the conversation?

Take note of how people pronounce things when they have different emotions. Something that’s said in anger and something that’s said in passing (quickly, casually) sound very different.

7. Try to interact with different types of English speakers.

When we say “different types” of English speakers, we’re talking about southerners, city people, rural people, West Coast people, Scottish people, British people, South African people, etc. Like we mentioned earlier, there are a lot of different English accents and ways of speaking!

To truly improve your English listening, you shouldn’t just practice with one type of English. Do your best to surround yourself with a variety of accents and types of English speakers. This way, you’ll improve your ability to listen to English words that may be pronounced in various ways. Realistically, this is probably the best way to become a fluent English listener.

Don’t live in a place with a lot of varied English speakers? We get it. Unless you live in a huge city that’s already full of English speakers, this could be hard to do. Instead, try surfing (searching, browsing) YouTube for videos in English from YouTubers around the world. You can use keywords such as “Australian vlog” or “Chicago vlog” to experience different accents.

8. Remember that you won’t understand everything (even if you become very good at English!).

Learners of any language tend to hear the word “fluent” and think of native-level proficiency. This is a tough goal, which can certainly lead to disappointment.

Realistically, even if you’re extremely hard working and studying English for years, you’re never going to stop learning. Ten years into your language journey you may have to ask someone to slow down or repeat what they said because you didn’t understand. This is normal.

You can get extremely good at English through improving your listening skills, but give yourself a break when it comes to perfection.

What do you think about these tips to improve English listening skills? With a little time and a lot of practice, you may be surprised at how quickly your ability to understand English will improve!

Em Casalena is a published author, freelance writer and music columnist. They write about a lot of stuff, from music to films to language.

Esl listening practice exercises

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Ready to exercise your English listening skills?

Many people think that listening is one of those language-learning skills that you’re either good at or you’re not. And for this reason, a lot of students get nervous when they think about the listening portion of exams.

The truth is that mastering the listening portion of your test isn’t as difficult as you think, as long as you’ve got the right resources to help you prepare. But in order to do that, you might want to do more than just listen to English conversations.

For many students, it also helps to get comfortable with the test format and the style of questions, so that you’re able to respond accordingly. And we’ve got a mixed list of sites that do a little bit of both.

Whether you’re looking to pass an English exam like TOEFL, IELTS or TOEIC, or you just need to get in a little more listening practice, these eight websites can help you practice your listening skills or mentally prepare for your test from the comfort of your own home.

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Exam English

If you’ve got an upcoming English listening test and need some extra study material, Exam English can help. Here, you can find useful resources to help you practice your listening for a number of tests, including the following:

Exam English also has resources for business English exams as well, but currently only study material for the reading components.

Along with grammar, reading and vocabulary-building, Exam English also has listening components to all of their test prep material. The listening exercises contain monologues and conversations between English speakers, as well as a series of questions covering content in the listening exercise.

Another awesome thing about Exam English is that they also offer mobile support, so you can download their Android or iOS app for the particular exam you need and practice listening exercises when you’re away from the computer.

FluentU

English Speaking And Listening Practice

FluentU is an online immersion platform that takes real-world videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.

Videos are organized by difficulty (beginner to native), topic (arts and entertainment, health and lifestyle, etc.) and format (video blog, news, shows, etc.)—so you can easily browse and find something perfect for your level and interests.

Every word comes with an in-context definition, image, audio and multiple example sentences for easy learning and understanding. You can even click on a word to see how it’s used in other videos across the site.

With such a wide range of resources, you can spend hours practicing your listening with the help of fun activities and detailed explanations to give you the full English immersion experience.

The British Council

The British Council website has a wealth of free resources to help English language learners improve their English skills. While the study material available on the website is almost exclusively in British English, the comprehensive exercises and detailed explanations are helpful for British and American English students.

The British Council has a lot of useful information related to listening tests, including tips to help you prepare for your English listening exam and detailed listening exercises. The listening exercises are broken down into five categories: A1 and A2 (beginner), B1 and B2 (intermediate) and C1 (advanced).

Also, each exercise comes with a worksheet to complete after every activity, as well as an answer key and audio transcript to help you check your answers.

While the exercises on the British Council website aren’t designed with a specific exam in mind, the activities are detailed enough to help you sharpen your listening skills as you prepare for test day.

Cambridge English

If you’ve been studying English with textbooks, you’ve probably used a book by Cambridge English at some point. Along with producing excellent classroom study material for students and teachers, Cambridge English is also home to a number of free resources to help you sharpen your English skills.

Cambridge English is also the same company that created the Cambridge English exams, which people from around the world take for employment or immigration purposes. And like most exams, the Cambridge English exams come with a listening component, which you can prepare for by working through some of the listening activities on their website.

Every lesson is assigned a difficulty level following the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) levels. They contain various exercises, like gap-fills and comprehension questions related to the listening material, that let you improve your listening skills and vocabulary. And since the activities aren’t too specific, you can use them for Cambridge English test prep or for general listening practice.

Pearson

Pearson is another company that makes a lot of ESL textbooks used in the classroom. Along with creating ESL classroom material, the company also made the Pearson PTE exam, which is an assessment that a number of ESL students take before studying or working abroad in an English-speaking country.

If you’re planning to take the PTE, you’ll need to pass a listening portion of the exam that usually takes between 45 minutes to an hour to complete. And while Pearson’s website doesn’t have a lot of free material available to help you prepare for the test, they do offer an offline practice test with audio files and worksheets that can help you practice your listening, reading and writing skills.

And if you’d like additional listening prep for the PTE exam, you can also take a version of the online practice exam. Prices range anywhere between $9.99 to $59.99 depending on the version of the test, but each one will test your listening skills, as well as your speaking, reading and writing skills.

Educational Testing Service

Educational Testing Service, or ETS, is the company that developed the TOEIC exam. This exam is commonly used in a number of countries, including Japan and South Korea, to evaluate the English skills for employment or educational purposes.

If you’re taking the TOEIC, you’ll also need to complete a 45-minute listening section in order to pass the exam. While the ETS site doesn’t have a lot free listening resources available, you can take a look at the sample listening questions so that you have an idea of what you should prepare for.

The company also sales a study guide for the TOEIC listening and reading test, which comes with listening activities, test-taking tips and practice tests.

Oxford Online English

If you’re looking for some one-on-one assistance to help you boost your listening skills before an upcoming test, take a look at Oxford Online English.

They offer a range of affordable prices that give you the opportunity to study with an actual English teacher who can help you fix those weak points in your listening.

You might also want to look at some of their free lessons covering listening, grammar and reading, as well as their 24-question listening assessment test—also free.

Seminole State College

If you’re not preparing for a specific exam and just want to work through some challenging listening exercises, take a look at the ESOL PETT Project on the Seminole State College website.

There, you can choose from a number of listening quizzes designed for beginner, intermediate and advanced students. The questions come with a short to medium-length audio clip and multiple choice answers that test your vocabulary and listening comprehension.

As you can see, there are a number of premium and free listening resources online to help you prepare for test day.

English Listening Practice Mp3

It might seem intimidating, but with the help of these sites you can get the practice you need to pass.

Practice Listening English Alphabet

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Free Esl Listening Exercises

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