How to Improve Your Listening Skills for ESL Exams

Listening comprehension has been one of the hardest skills to develop in language learning. Listening is a skill that involves more than just hearing. Listening is a skill that occupies 45 percent of the time we spend in communication, that’s why it’s important that we improve our listening skills.

Let us first understand the importance of listening. Listening is a crucial factor in maintaining productive relationships, and sometimes the only way to establish communication. In short, it is the key to all effective communication. Here are some of the benefits of listening:

• It helps you become a better student.
• You become a better friend.
• People around you will perceive you as intelligent.
• Good listening can help you improve your public speaking skills.
• It enhances your ability to absorb and pass on the data you just heard.
• It helps you understand issues better and formulate solutions.

Now that we have an idea of why listening is important. Here are some tips on how to improve your listening skills for ESL exams:

1. Listen to Audio

One of the easiest ways to find out if your listening skills need improvement is to listen to a new piece of audio. This will help you to know the areas you can’t hear or understand properly. While listening, take note of the words you don’t recognize and take the time to understand everything.

2. Invest In A Good Headset

A headset optimizes the quality of sound for both ends of the conversation. Headsets make it easier for us to listen because of having high-quality speakers. Using a headset when listening to audio helps you to focus more on what you are listening to.

3. Be Attentive, But Relaxed

The most important aspect of listening is being attentive. Focus on what you are listening to. Screen out all distractions, like background activities and noise. Be relaxed, don’t get distracted by your own thoughts and feelings.

4. Listening For Gist

What is a gist? The gist is the most important piece of information regarding something or general information without details. In language learning, the gist is the general meaning or purpose of a text. Try to understand and pick up keywords, intonation, and clues then make a guess of the meaning.

5. Detect Signposts

Identifying signposts can help improve comprehension. But what exactly are signposts? Signposts act like guides, they guide the listener throughout the stages of a talk. It helps a listener predict what is going to be said next. Here are some common signposts used:

• Firstly – indicates the beginning of a list of points
• Like, such as – introductions of examples
• While and whereas – show a comparison between two or more ideas.
• In other words – it unfolds rephrasing information that has been said or putting ideas in another statement.
• Moreover, furthermore and what’s more– introduce new information.
• However – it shows contrast or an exception.
• As I said earlier – it refers to the point that has been made earlier.
• Moving on – also indicates new points or ideas.
• Finally – it reveals the end of the speech or a monologue and states the conclusion.
• Let me elaborate on that, expanding on that idea and in-depth – determine more details and information about a specific topic in the monologue.
• Let me digress, as a side note and going off on a tangent – state something off the topic for a moment.

6. Listen Attentively To Details

There are instances wherein we listen for some specific details and ignore the rest. Listening for details can be tough. We sometimes feel like the listening passage is too fast or has too many details to keep track of all of them. Other times, it could be difficult to pick out specific details from the passage. Here are some ways to help you listen to the details:

• Relax and make yourself ready to pay attention.
• Use keywords and phrases to help you find information.
• Take bullet-points to help you remember everything.
• Practice rephrasing, this will help you not get overwhelmed by different phrasing.
• Ignore words that you think are not important.
• Find out the meaning of the words or issues that you don’t understand. If you still don’t understand something, using a dictionary or asking someone else for help would be useful.
• Try to think ahead.

7. Understand The Meaning

Oftentimes, when we hear a word we don’t understand, we tend to ignore it. When listening, it is important that we understand the meaning of the words. This will help us in remembering what we heard. Well defined words allow us to assess the situation better.

8. Listen To What You Enjoy

Understanding what you are listening to is a fundamental step to improving your listening skills. Be selective, and make sure that most of your practice time is spent with audio materials that you look forward to listening to, and align with your goals and interests. If you enjoy what you are listening to, it is more likely that you will be more motivated. This will also help you to be resistant to stopping and losing focus.

9. Listen and Re-Listen at Different Speeds

Listening to a recording allows you to play it back at a variety of speeds. Take any audio file and listen to it over and over again. Adjust the speed until you can comprehend what is being said. Slowing down the audio can help your brain have more time to think. Try listening to the audio at a slow speed for repetitive times. Once you are comfortable understanding everything, you may increase the speed.

10. Remember What You Heard

Remembering is to recall the information you just heard or listened to. The easiest way to remember is to retain keywords of a message from short term memory into long term memory.

Like any other skill, listening skills take time to develop and grow. Listening depends on a wide variety of factors, none of which are accomplished by shortcuts. Being consistent is an effective way to improve your listening skills. Make practicing a habit and have a variety of materials to review. If you are determined and consistent with your routine, you will soon find that your listening comprehension has grown.

Listening is a skill that anyone should not take for granted. It is common to mistake listening as a passive task. But it requires so much more than the skill to digest information. Check here for more reviews at Karaoke Bananza.

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