TIPS FOR IMPROVING LISTENING COMPETENCY

Nowadays, English  teachers should be more creative in teaching. New methods, approaches, curriculum and textbooks would  yield nothing if teachers are not willing to change their  teaching habits. They should be able to adjust to the advancing technology and time. Students are getting more and more informations from the web. Often teachers know less than their students in some aspects such as how to use technology in improving competency. Still, students need a teacher to guide and give advices to them , in fact, teachers are irreplaceable. It has become a great challenge for eEnglish teachers to improve not only the students, but also themselves as well.

Young learners usually are keen of playful things. They do not like heavy or serious lesson materials that can make their forehead frowning and sweating. I have been experiencing the situation for more than 15 years. Whatever grade and wherever they are, when it comes to hard  exercises or practices such as listening, they would shrink deep into their tables and try to be invinsible. So, it depends on the teachers  to make their classes more alive and active with minimum burden to the students.

For many students  who are studying English, listening can be a little difficult especially if they are lack of exercises in or out the classroom. Actually, there are several interesting ways to be better in this competency. Unfortunately only a handful of teachers pay proper attention to the problem. And I could be belonging to this kind of neglectful  teacher. Here, I will share some tips of improving listening that could be working for both teachers and students.

TIPS NUMBER 1

First, find a not too long song with slow rhythm and  soft music. Listen and  write as many words as you can from the song. Don’t try to look at the lyric if you have one. Listen for 3 - 4 times and then after that you can check with the  correct  lyric. You can get the lyric from internet. Do this activity 2 – 3 times a week. Each time with different song

Example of songs that you can use for practice : Big Big Girl, Love Yourself, A Thousand Years etc. Many songs from 90’s are nice enough to be used for practicing.

TIPS NUMBER 2

Watch English news in your television or videos and take notes of important points that you can grasp from the news, such as names of places, people, date and time also  the main points. Do not make any conclusion by just watching the video or pictures being broadcasted. Or you can listen to radio broadcasting like VOA, BBC or ABC. Since you can only hear the news reader’s voice , it can be more effective.

TIPS NUMBER 3

If you watch English speaking movies, try not to look at the subtitle. It is even more recommended if the movie you watch does not have subtitle at all. I suggest some cartoons for the early exercises because they are usually easier to understand since mostly are using daily expressions. You may choose any of your favourite cartoons, from Ben 10, Dora the Explorer or Sofia the First. Do not be ashamed if other people catch you watch cartoons because you are not only watching but also in effort to improve your listening  competency.

TIPS NUMBER 4

            In this tips, using dictations is also recommended. For teachers, you can do some dictations in your class once in a while. After giving new vocabularies or discussing new topics, you can give dictation to your students. This is to remind them about the words they have got and not only to exercise their listening but also their writing competency.

If you are a student, you may have dictation with your friends. Ask a friend to dictate several words and then you can do the same thing to your friend. After that, check the result together and the one who gets the most correct words can be the winner. Or you can have dictation exercise in group. It can also be used for games in class.

Those are 4 tips for improving listening competency that I know so far. If you have others, then you are very welcomed to share here or with wider audiences. I believe many people will thank you for your tips and there is nothing painful in spreading goodness, right?