How To Practice And Improve Your Advanced English Listening Skills in 30 Days

By following this lesson, you will be able to improve your English listening skills in only 30 days. 

You are an intermediate or advanced English learner. But for some reason your English listening skills don’t seem to be improving. You listen to English music, you listen to English news programs, and maybe even listen to English podcasts. But for some reason your English listening skills don’t seem to improve. Well don’t worry. Today I’m gonna teach you how. Welcome to Speak English with Tiffani. I’m teacher Tiffani. Let’s jump right in!

Alright this English listening skills plan is broken down into three different sections. Each of these sections will cover a ten day period. Over this ten day period you will learn exactly how to improve your English listening skills each time you study a section. Alright now each of these sections has nine different phases and we’re gonna look at each different phase. So let’s look at phase number one.

Find the main idea. The main idea refers to the point of what you are listening to. It is the most important thought or topic. So this is your focus for day one okay. You’re gonna listen to the five audio files you chose. Yes that’s right. Each day you’re gonna pick five different audio files. Now you can choose how long or how short these files are. Okay? Now you’re only gonna listen for the main idea. This is imperative. This is key. Don’t try to listen for the vocabulary words or anything else. Just figure out the main idea for day one.

Alright so the next thing you want to do is move on to part two or phase two. Answer the five W’s. The five W’s refer to finding the who, what, when, where, and why of what you are listening to. This is your focus for day two. That’s right. Day one was just for the main idea and then you move on to day two you’re gonna listen for the five W’s. Now when you listen to the five audio files you chose again you can pick new audio files or you can use the same ones from the previous day, you’re specifically listening for pieces of information that answer the five W’s. You may have to listen more than once and that’s okay. Okay? Now after you find the five W’s stop. Don’t listen anymore. Now I know this is gonna be a little bit interesting or different because you’re used to listening over and over, but remember you’re training your brain to actually increase its ability to listen well. Okay.

Alright now moving on to step three or phase three. Imitate what you hear. Imitating refers to trying to copy the sound, speed, and exact words that you hear as you listen okay. This is your focus for day three. This is your only focus for day three. You’re gonna listen to the five audio files you chose. Again they can be brand new files or the files in the previous day. It’s up to you okay. And what you’re gonna do is you’re going to use intervals. That means stopping and starting. Now you can choose how short or how long your intervals are. So for example, you may choose to do ten-second intervals. You can listen for ten seconds and then try to repeat exactly what you heard. And if that’s too hard you can listen for five seconds, push stop, and repeat what you heard. These are intervals okay. So day three you’re only practicing intervals by imitating what you hear.

Alright now moving on to the next phase, summarize. Summarizing refers to simply writing three to five sentences about each audio file you listen to. Okay this is your focus for day four. Again you’re gonna listen to the five audio files you chose, whether they’re brand new or they’re the ones from the previous day, and again you may have to listen more than once because you’re gonna be summarizing them okay. Your goal is to be clear and concise. Now if you need help with learning how to summarize, click the link in the top right of your screen. I have a video where I explain in detail how to summarize anything in English. Okay? Top right of your screen. Alright, so again day 4 you’re just focusing on summarizing by using three to five sentences okay.

Now when we move on to the next phase recognizing vocabulary is our focus. You see recognizing vocabulary refers to listening for new vocabulary words in each audio file you listen to. This is your only focus for day five. So I don’t want you to get to day five and try to find the main idea, find the five W’s, summarize…No, you have to follow this plan exactly and I guarantee it will improve your listening skills. So on day five only listen for vocabulary. Okay? So again listen to the five audio files you chose but this time you’re only listening to each file one time. That’s right, one time. And your goal is to hear new words. So what’s happening is, instead of listening over and over, you’re telling your brain to think quickly and you need to hear what words you don’t recognize and just write them down. Later on you can check your spelling okay. This is the focus for day five.

Now moving on to the next day, day six. Okay, you’re going to write questions. Writing questions refers to coming up with possible questions about the information you listen to. This is a very, very helpful phase or step when you’re trying to improve your listening skills. Okay. So again this is your focus for day six. Listen to the five audio files you chose, whether they are new or the ones from the previous day, and again with this one you can listen as many times as necessary. Okay. Your goal is to also answer the questions. So you’re gonna try to write between five to ten questions. Okay as you’re listening write down the questions. Don’t write the answers. Write the questions. Once you’ve stopped the audio file then go back and try to answer the questions without listening again. Okay. Very good practice for listening and answering and being able to remember information. Okay so that’s part six or phase six.

Now moving on to phase number seven. Determine the emotion. Now this is probably a phase that maybe you all have never practiced before but it’s excellent. It’s a great way of improving your listening skills. You see determining the emotion refers to analyzing the main feeling of each audio file you listen to. Okay this is your focus for day seven. You’re gonna listen to the five audio files you chose, whether they’re new or the ones from the previous day, and your goal is to relax and just feel the mood. What is the person trying to express? What is going on in the audio file? For example is it something happy or angry or sad or scary or disgust, like hatred or something you don’t like, surprise or anticipation? So feel the mood of what you’re listening to. Why is this key? Because sometimes you’re not going to understand all of the words, but if you understand the emotion you can guess part of the meanings of other words and other situations. This is another key to improving your listening skills.

Alright now step eight or phase eight, listen and paraphrase. Listening and paraphrasing refers to analyzing small portions of each audio file you listen to. So again this is your focus for day eight. You’re gonna listen to the five audio files you chose but your goal is to quickly get the general idea. Now for this one you can pick one two or three minute intervals. Okay so what you’re gonna try to do is after you listen to one or two or three minutes of information, you push pause and you’re not imitating – not like the previous phase – instead of imitating you are trying to put in your own words what you heard. You’re paraphrasing. Again this is helping with your English speaking ability as well. This phase is very important. So remember only focus on this on day 8, okay.

Now on day nine, or for phase nine, interval listening. Interval listening refers to taking time to process small portions of each audio file you listen to. This is so key because sometimes as students you want to listen to a lot of things without pausing to actually take the information in. So this is your focus for day nine. Listen to the five audio files you chose, okay. But your goal is to take time to process the info. So maybe go to a quiet room or go somewhere where you can relax. Put your headphones on or turn the music up loud or whatever file you’re listening to. Just relax and listen and pause if necessary. But listen and try to accept and understand the information, okay. You can do that in intervals as well.

Alright now day ten. Yes, I always love a rest day. As a teacher, I always tell my students it’s important for you to have a day to let your brain rest. So this is what’s gonna happen. Day one to ten is what we just went over. But, you see day eleven to twenty and day 21 to 30 are just mirror images of the first ten days. The only difference is you will choose different audio files. But you’re practicing the same nine phases, okay. And remember always on the tenth day you’re giving yourself a rest. After this thirty day period I guarantee that your advanced listening skills will have improved beyond your imagination.

Now if you want to keep studying with me, please join the “Speak English With Tiffani Academy”. I have tons of monthly English study journals, courses, ebooks and even audio series – just with myself and other native English speakers. So please join the “Speak English With Tiffani Academy” now.