Sharpening Your Listening Skills

Sharpening Your Listening Skills Today we’ll talk about sharpening your listening skills. Can you understand me? What? I said can you understand me? What? Does that sound familiar? It’s very common. I heard it many many times in China and other places where I would ask somebody something or say something and they say ‘What did you say? Could you please repeat it?’And sometimes they say many times and finally they just give up. And maybe you’ve been in this situation. You’re talking with a native English speaker or you’re watching an English movie and you just give up, because you can’t uderstand. So I’m going to give you some suggestions for sharpening your English listening skills. The first and most important thing you have to do is to create an English environment. And that means you have to get rid of anything Chinese when you’re practicing English. For example, movies, English movies are a good tool. And a lot of students use them. But if you use the English movies, it’s very important to turn off the Chinese subtitles. And you may be thinking ‘Oh, if I don’t have Chinese subtitles, I don’t understand what the movie is about.’ I understand that when I watch Chinese movie, if I have English subtitles, I can understand the movie much better. But my Chinese doesn’t improve. The only way my Chinese can improve is there’re subtitles and are also in Chinese or no subtitles. But if I have Chinese subtitles and I watch Chinese, that’s good for me. So when you watch an English movie, be sure you turn off the Chinese subtitles. Now you may not understand the whole movie and that’s okay. But little by little, you will improve if you do this. So don’t have anything Chinese. Some people say ‘My English is poor because I have no English environment.’ And then they go home and then they watch Chinese subtitles. It’s not they don’t have, it’s there, it’s just that they don’t use it. So use English subtitles freely. However be careful because some of the pirated DVDs that you can buy very cheap in China. Some of those even the English subtitles are not correct. And so you have to be careful. Make sure that the titles, subtitles are correct in English. And you can use those . They’re very good. But get rid of everything that is Chinese far of you. If you’re in class and you have an English teacher whether it’s a foreign teacher or a Chinese. Most of the Chinese teachers or the English teachers, when they teach Chinese, they would say ‘Only speak English.’ And you have a choice, you can do that as many my students do or you can speak Chinese when the teacher is away from you. And what you do with this is going to result in your English improving or not improving. Now if you’re in an English class and you’re speaking Chinese, and the teacher comes over and hears you and says ‘You’re speaking Chinese.’ Don’t say it to the teacher ‘I’m sorry.’ Because you haven’t hurt the teacher. You hurt yourself, and you hurt your classmates. So if you say sorry, you should say it to yourself and to your classmates. When my students say sorry , I say ‘It doesn’t hurt me. This is a chance you made to practice Chinese listening, but it’s not helping your English listening.’ So the best thing that you can do is get rid of anything Chinese that mixed with your English in an environment. So let me ask you a question. Do you agree with this that the best way to improve your English is to go abroad? Would you agree? Yse, yeah. And the best way for me to improve my Chinese is to be right here in China. Okay, but unfortunately, most of us in China, most Chinese people don’t have this opportunity, some they do have this opportunity, don’t even improve because when they go abroad, they go together with Chinese friends and spend all of their time just practicing Chinese which they don’t need to do, right? But some Chinese when they go abroad, their English listening improves. I’ve met Chinese people in my own country who had been there for a long time. Some of them, their speaking is still poor but their listening is very sharp because they’re in that kind of environment. So you live in China. How can you create an English environment in China. That’s important to you, right? Now, the first thing you have to do is shout out the Chinese world. How can you do that in China? Well, there’re several things you can do. You can find time when your roommates are not there. And you’re the only one there. Go into your dorm and close the door. Once that door is closed, what you listen to is your choice. You can listen to, for example, VOA radio or some other English radio program, you can watch a movie, an English movie on your computer, you can call a friend and talk on the phone, you can speak, you can read, and you can be in English environment on your own. Now that has to be only a short time for some people because roommates are always in and out, sometimes they’re always there. And I know Beijing is a very crowded place, if you’re in a big city like Beijing or some other place in China, it’s hard to find a place to be alone. So that may not be the only solution for you, for some people who have a work. But something that you see, everywhere you go, I see that on buses, I see it everywhere in China, people have their MP3 or their telephone or something in their listening using earphones. And if you’re sitting besides someone like that on the subway, you can’t talk to them, because they’re not in this world, they have their own world. Their music, whatever they’re listening to, that’s another world to them. And maybe they’re even watching a movie, I see people watching movies on some other phones. My phone won’t do that, but some phone you can watch a movie, and they have their earphones. They have no idea what’s going on around them, there’s no environment around them, there’s an environment it’s right here. And you have the power to do that, if you want to improve your English, you can do that, and you can do it anytime that you’re not studying, and now when you’re studying for physics or biology or chemistry in Chinese you have to study, you can’t litsen to English because you'll fail the exam. But when you’re doing something else, you’re going someplace by bus, you walking across campus, just walking to the dining hall, or anytime that you’re going someplace you don’t have to focus on something in Chinese, you can put your earphones in, and you can have an English environment, and you’re in an English world, so it’s possible to do that. And you can do it even better than some Chinese who go abroad and just Chinese people, so you can naturally improve your listening very quickly by doing that. One thing is really important when you’re practicing listening and a lot of people miss this. Don’t worry about each word word文档格式规范word作业纸小票打印word模板word简历模板免费word简历 , don’t focus on that, focus on the meaning of the whole sentense or the whole conversation. When people watch movies, this is a probelem, I have to say in problem watching Chinese movies. I watch the movie, I have the Chinese subtitles, I see a character, a Chinese character or hear a word that I don’t know, and I’m grabbing my dictionary. And then I do that I miss the whole meaning. In English we have some saying, we say ‘ You miss the forest because of the tree.’ You see only one tree, you focus on the tree, but you miss the beatiful forest. You have that in Chinese, too? Okay. And the same thing is ture with English listening. If you focus on listening to every word, that’s not necessary. When we watch a movie in our own native language, when I watch an English movie, sometimes I don’t understand every word, let me surprise you because this is my own language.But sometimes, for example, a few years ago, there was a famous movie called Metrix(黑客帝国), maybe you remember it maybe you don’t. Metrix, there was a lot of technology, and many of the words were madeup words, even weren’t really English words, they were just made up for the movie. And if I wasn’t there and you were there, the Chinese person with your dictionary, some of the words would not be in your dictionary, so you’d be calling me your teacher and say ‘Michael, what does that word mean?’ And I would have that I have no idea what it means, but understand the movie. And with listening to a movie, listening to the radio or just talking to somebody, it’s not important to understand every word. Communication is about hearing the meaning not each word, so if you focus on each word you probably get lost, so if you can understand the general meaning, that’s enough, that’s what communication is about. Okay. Even now in this lecture, if you don’t understand every word. It doesn’t matter. If you understand most of it or you understand the general meaning, that’s what important. Now I wanna give you a suggestion for just an exercise for practicing listening. And there are two exercises, and they’re opposite. Both of them may be a little difficult to what to do, but if you do this both, they will help you. One of them, the first one is easiest. Listen to children’s stories. You can buy them in bookstores, I see them all over the place, okay? If you don’t know where, talk to me, my daughter lists them all the time. Listen to children’s stories. Now, university students sometimes maybe they’re too proud. And they say ‘My English level is up here, that’s down there.’ But at the same time, I see Chinese people who can speak in fluent English, when they talk to my children, something they don’t understand, because what is in your textbook may not be exactly how we really talk sometimes. Children’s stories will help you get the basics that you need. The other good thing about listen to children stories is sometimes students get very discouraged. They listen to some very complicated English or even middle level English or they listen to two foreigners talking and they don’t understand, they give up and they say ‘I can’t understand anything.’ And they just give up. If you listen to very simple English that is for children, it’s easier for you to understand and it will encourage you, everbody needs to be encouraged. So that’s the one extrem, the other extrem I like to suggest you, also listen to something that’s above your level, way of above your level. And when you listen to that, if you don’t understand it, don’t worry, just keep listening anyway. And if you just pick up a few words a few sentenses, that’s okay. But I will coution you when you listen to that, don’t get mad and give up. Don’t say ‘This is no good. My level is here, that’s here. My English listening is very poor.’ If they’re very complicated English, it doesn’t mean your English is poor, it just means it’s complicated English. Another thing that I think it’s very important that some students don’t understand is that you need to listen to each other speak together in English. Now some people say ‘Why would I listen to someone who is not a native English speaker?’ My answer is simple. In today’s global eyes world, people from everywhere are speaking English, and if you’re going to do any kind of international business or make international friends, you will meet people from everywhere of the world. Some of those people, your English is better than their English, and you have to get used to different accents. You can listen to me if you want to get used to American accent ,but if you want to get used to listening to everybody, practice with each other, and it’s good for you. Some people say ‘Oh, my roommate, his English is so poor.’ Good, that’s an opportunity for you to listen more carefully. It’s good for you, so that would help you. Yes. So whatever you listen to, children’s stories, complicated things, watching the movies, the most important thing is don’t mix with Chinese. If there’s a little Chinese, your brain will focus on the Chinese. You have to get rid of everything Chinese or any other language that’s not English. Focus just on that. Fortunately, to understand the meaning, you don’t have to know every word. And if you’re listening to a lecture or you’re having a conversation, and you don’t understand the words, that’s okay. Because in our next lecture we’re going to talk about how to understand and how to make your meaning understood without words.