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naturegirl321 · Joined: 04 May 2003 Posts: 9041 Location: home sweet home

After being asked for the umpteenth time by a random person "HOw can I improve my oral/listening skills?" I've decided to post my rant here.
Why is it that people think that we have some magic secret to learning English?!!?

Whenever I'm asked this I answer be around English as much as possible. DOn't just stick your nose in a book. LIsten to the tv, radio, music. And put the captions on the tv when you are watching it.

Then they answer "but my ENglish is poor". I'm just so frustrated! Really, if you want to imporve your listenign skills, you MUST listen to English.

And I'm sick of those, "I' want to be your friend, so I can improve my English." NOt that I"ve got anything against language exchagnes, I've done them before and think that they can be great. But I don't want to look over your homework, explain obscure grammar, or have you read to me and after every 3 word have you ask, "I say that ok, yes or no?"

Ok, I"m done. Maybe there is a magic secret to learning a language and no one has told me yet. But I've learned languages by being around them as much as possible.

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

Actually, I can sympathise with the students who ask me this. I tell them that there are two keys to listening. One is vocabulary (and by this I mean, and my students know I mean, lexical phrases - not just wordlists) and the other is prosody i.e. connected speech, weak forms, elision and a whole host of other features of what is usually reserved for specialist pronunciation courses. Personally, I shift them in my classes from pronunciation courses to listening courses.

So, there's something you can tell them.

been_there · Joined: 28 Oct 2003 Posts: 284 Location: 127.0.0.1

Yes, points to shmooj for his excellent post.

Naturegirl,
I call it "The Magik English Button." Some days it seems as if people think that there is a secret button located somewhere on the body that you just press, and Viola! you speak English.

When I get stopped in the street and asked that question, I ask the person, "How did you learn (insert their native language here)?"
They usually have to think a bit, but come up with something like, "Well, everyone around me spoke it."
So I tell them to do the same thing. Immersion and practice.

If time is short and I'm not in the mood for extensive language acquisition theory, I go for the bicycle analogy.
Them: "HOw can I improve my oral/listening skills?"
Me: "How do you learn to ride a bike?"
Them: "Practice."
Me: "Same way. Sorry, I have to meet Carmen Electra in 5 minutes. Good luck!"

Wolf · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 1245 Location: Middle Earth

I get asked this question all the time. I tell my students that they already know the answer to this question. Listening practice, reading practice, watcing TV or DVDs in English with English captions on, having a job or being in an enviornment where using the language is needed, etc.

That's how.

It cannot be sucked out of me, so please don't try that.

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

Wolf · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 1245 Location: Middle Earth

struelle · Joined: 16 May 2003 Posts: 2372 Location: Shanghai

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

I started a new adult class today. The programme is based not on a textbook but on a compilation of phrases. Not a bad idea, but the students...
Among other things I did, I asked each and everyone in turn to the front and to introduce themselves. No, not sitting standing up at their desks - come to the front, expose yourself (so to speak), address your compatriots in English. Why is that so difficult with CHinese? Mental inertia!
Anyway, I did get them to talk, although...
The first girl: "My name is Tashi (or some name like that - a corruption of some real name), I am so happy to see you here...English is an important language..." All in relatively fluent English. Then she hesitates.
I had instructed them to tell us HOW LONG HAVE YOU STUDIED ENGLISH.
I repeated this two times. Tashi (or whoever) doesn't know how to address this question. "Maybe one year." As a matter of fact, she had studied it at primary school, middle school and through college. 9 years. But she could not hazard a straitforward answer. God alone knows why. They don't seem to count the years from year one. They seem to start at different levels, repeating the same stuff and counting the same stuff twice over, then divide it by two. Six years = 3 years.
The next girl is considerablyw orse: She says what her name is, then "ga ma ye-a?" (sorry for my outlandish tansliteration). Someone tells her in Cantonese that she must add a statement to explain how long she studied English.She scratches her head, mumbles something under her breath, some of the students get restless... Finally, she emits "chatgo nin!" Seven years, in Cantonese. Is that an adult response???
A girl aged 11 years, the daughter of one of my "students", actually gives the brightest self-introduction:
"My name is Li something. I am 11 years old. I like MacDonald's..." (She is not a student in my class!). But clearly, she spo9ke with the most competency! QWhat a shame for these "adults".

Lynn · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 696 Location: in between

Hey Naturegirl,
I totally feel for you. I had the same exact thing just happen this morning. It is frustrating. I told him the same thing: practice. I told him quite honestly, that just coming in for a private lesson twice a week for an hour each is only going to be really beneficially if he takes what he learns and applies it. I also told him about listening to tv, radio, cds...He didn't seems satisfied.

guty · Joined: 10 Apr 2003 Posts: 365 Location: on holiday

dln · Joined: 02 Nov 2003 Posts: 11

For what it's worth, I'll throw in a specific suggestion that I have given to students who have access to television in English.
Choose one sitcom, 30 minutes. Watch it every day. Pretend to be one of the characters. Repeat what that person says. Don't worry too much about the meaning - just repeat, repeat, repeat. After one month, you'll understand a lot more - and you will have learned a lot of useable (hopefully) words and phrases in context.

Personally, I like "Friends" for this exercise, but of course tastes vary.
If this is a "homework" exercise, students could be encouraged to watch the same sitcom and discuss what's going on every day/week in class. They can ask each other about things they didn't understand, too.

Also, for more advanced students who need specific vocabulary, newspapers can be used in a similar way. Choose one daily column. Read it every day. You'll find (particularly in business or finance) that the strange metaphores and phrases used are repeated fairly regularly - so, again, after thirty days of this, student has learned relevant, current language in context.

Neither of these exercises takes longer than 30 minutes daily, but they have worked for me (in my second language) and I've had many students who said this was quite beneficial for them. They seem to help break some barriers, perhaps because they introduce language in context and in a familiar format.
Not a magic bullet- but maybe helpful in some cases!

KarenMarie · Joined: 14 Nov 2003 Posts: 60

guest of Japan · Joined: 28 Feb 2003 Posts: 1601 Location: Japan

For intermediate level and above (I'm not teaching any right now) I do something very similar to din. I have them choose one movie, preferably something with very clear useful English (something like Sleepless in Seattle), and on DVD. I recommend they watch it in ten to fifteen minute segments. First I tell them to watch it with the Japanese subtitles, then the English subtitles then none. By the time they finish learning to understand all the spoken English in the movie they will make a substantial improvement in their listening. If they repeat as well then spoken fluency will also be much better.

kimo · Joined: 16 Feb 2003 Posts: 668

A good thread and one that makes me want a dollar for each time I've heard it. That's why I tell my students they'll have to shell out $19.95 for my 700 page book, "English in a Day," when it hits the stands. You teachers, of course, can buy it half price.

Sherri · Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2003 10:57 pm Post subject:

I enjoyed reading everyone's comments. Roger, you made me laugh outloud. Japanese students mix up "listening" with "hearing", so a common question here is "how can I improve my hearing". I know what they really mean but I also know how I want to answer--get a hearing aid.

Whether this question comes from my student or not, I like Wolf, usually turn the question around and ask them what they think, or what they actually do now. They usually answer their own question. dln has some good concrete ideas for advice to give, but I would only go to the trouble to give such detailed advice to people who were already my students.

We got asked this question so often at the school where I work that we prepared a handout with lots of self-study suggestions, activities, how to keep a self-study journal and sources of English.