“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”

-Ernest Hemingway

The listening process involves five stages: receiving, understanding, evaluating, remembering, and responding.

Listening is a skill that is very important  in all aspects of our lives–from maintaining our personal relationships, to getting our jobs done, to taking notes in class, to figuring out which terminal you should go to when you are in the airport.

So from an unconventional teacher, here are some of the things that might work for you.

Always listen with a purpose.

While “improve listening comprehension” sounds like a good purpose, it’s not. You need to set specific exercises as to why you want to improve your listening skills. Listening to a podcast helps you with the purpose of recognizing some trends. Listening to a conversation with the purpose of knowing the speaker’s holiday plans. There should always be a purpose to any listening exercise.

Transforming listening into a fun daily habit.

“We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle

As someone who wants to take part in conversations you have to be able to listen, understand and respond.

A large part of that listening involves reading a speaker’s facial expressions and body language, which can vary from culture to culture. So, most of the time, we need to practice our “listening” skills by watching videos, or watching someone talk or tell stories.

Everyone loves a good movie, this will surely help you listen to the different words, expressions and everyday conversational language.

Music is another excellent way to listen in English, and it’s a lot of fun! The cool thing about music is that most people already listen to music in English. I strongly recommend that you print up the lyrics, read them, and look up any words you don’t know.

If you make this into a daily habit, you will build a repertoire of songs that you know and understand. You’ll listen to them again and again and burn the vocabulary into your brain! Trust me! It works!

Listen whenever you can.

Whether you are walking, in a bus or a driving a car, the most favorable time is when you are in transit.

Most of the time, we don’t do a lot of practice for our listening skills.

Don’t worry about your level, you don’t have to be intently listening to learn. You just need to do it every day!

You can listen to something when you are getting ready for school or for work. When you are cleaning or cooking in the house. It’s fun to listen to something when you’re exercising. Any time can be the best time.

Your brain will be able to adapt to the different patterns and  rhythms, soon enough you will be to understand words spontaneously and speak like a native.

 Never translate.

As I will always tell you, never translate. Translating can create a barrier between yourself and the speaker. We are always tempted to translate something immediately into our native language. And yes, the temptation is just really strong! Never give in!!!

It is innate for us to automatically translate something we do not understand. This is only natural as we want to understand everything that is said. However, when you try to translate words into your native language, you are taking the focus of your attention away from the speaker and concentrating on the translation process taking place in your brain. That is why NEVER DO IT!

Call to action.

You can start improving your listening now. Yes, now will always be the best time for you to do it. Stop procrastinating and just do it. If you think that you have difficulties in your listening skills then keep on practicing.

Use keywords or key phrases to help you understand the general ideas. Regardless of how we’re engaged with listening, it’s important to understand that listening involves more than just hearing the words that are directed at us. Listening often is the most important way to improve your listening skills.

Enjoy the listening possibilities offered by the Internet and remember to relax.