6 Steps to Improving Your Understanding in English (English Version)

A STEP BY STEP PLAN TO IMPROVE YOUR UNDERSTANDING IN ENGLISH

The biggest problem students usually have when learning English is understanding people when they speak. This is one of the last areas that schools focus on, unfortunately, but one of the most important. And the truth is you will not improve your understanding unless you LISTEN to English.

So:

Listen every day! This is the basic advice.

To do this in a focused way and to improve your understanding as quickly as possible, I have outlined the steps you can take.

Focus on why you need to improve your understanding
Deadline - when do you want/need to understand better?
Immersion
Make it interesting for you
What to say if you don´t understand
Final notes & advice

FOCUS ON WHAT YOU NEED TO IMPROVE FOR

Why do you need to understand better?

To have conversations
To have meetings in English
To travel for business
To travel for pleasure
To understand movies in original version
To stop feeling embarrassed
To understand a specific accent
To move to another country
To improve your career opportunities & increase your income

2. SET A DEADLINE

When do you need to understand by?

We are more motivated when we have a deadline.

Bear in mind that it takes approximately 200 hours to improve by one level in the CEFR scale (the reference for languages in Europe).

3. IMMERSION

How can you incorporate listening into your life?

Passive v active.

E.g. listening while doing something else v actively listening to get specific information (for a quiz for example).

Passive exercises:

Situation:

Listen while driving
Listen while doing household chores
Listen while exercising
Listen during downtime/waiting time

Identify these situations in your own life.

Resources:

Listening to English music (same songs repeatedly)
Podcasts
Ted talks
Youtube
Audible books (free trial with Amazon)
See excel in Listening challenge

Active exercises:

To work on your understanding in a more focussed way, instead of just listening passively while doing something else, you should regularly do the following:

(How often you do this depends on how much free time you have - the more often you do it the more quickly you will improve)

Listen to something and do nothing else (the News, a podcast, a movie or series - it´s OK to use subtitles!)
Use music (Lyricstraining)

Use the cog symbol on Youtube to slow down the speech if you need to (you can also add subtitles from here). Try to understand everything that is said. If you don´t understand a word, stop and repeat until you do. Check what you think you hear with the subtitles. Sometimes you will know the word or sometimes it is new vocabulary.
Use Tedtalks - they have a transcript with most videos so you can listen first then listen along with the transcript.

4. MAKE IT INTERESTING FOR YOU

As well as listening to/watching resources that are related to why you need to improve your listening, you can also alternate with resources that are interesting for you.

Examples include:

Movies that you like

Series that you like

Podcasts or Youtube videos related to your hobbies and interests.

Activity:

Think of an interest or hobby you have.

Brainstorm/lookup listening resources on Youtube.

When you find something you like, listen to it every day

Note:

Keep your resources somewhere handy (in a Whatsapp group on your phone for example) so you can listen any time you have a few minutes

You might find it useful to fill in the following table with your chosen activities & how much time you will spend on them each day. This way, you can be sure that you are spending enough time to reach your goals.

	MON	TUES	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN
ACTIVITIES
TIME
TOTAL							HRS

5. WHAT TO SAY IF YOU DON´T UNDERSTAND:

While you are carrying out the above activities to improve your understanding, you will need to use these expressions when you don´t understand:

Excuse me/sorry, can you repeat?
I didn´t catch that, can you repeat?
Sorry, what was that?
Can you say that again?
I didn`t quite get that sorry, can you repeat?
I´m sorry, but I´m not quite sure I understand.
I am not sure I follow.
Pardon? (UK)
Could you rephrase that?
Can you clarify that for me?
Would you mind repeating that please?

You can also use the following expressions to clarify and make sure that you understood correctly:

So what you are saying is (here, rephrase what you think they are saying)
As I understand it then, you are saying that....
What you mean is....
Let me see if I understand you correctly - ....
If I understand correctly, you ....

To be able to say these fluently, you need to practice saying them. You can do this alone - simply repeat the expressions over and over again until you say them in a fluid manner.

6. FINAL NOTES:

Most important is that you enjoy the process of learning - think of it as an opportunity to expand your knowledge as well as your listening - combine the activities with resources that teach you new things and that you enjoy.
Immersion - make it work for you - incorporate English into the activities you already do.
Consistency is key! Try to listen every day, or at least Monday to Friday. But unless you do this consistently, you will not improve. On the other hand, if you do a little every day, you will notice an improvement as soon as a few weeks!
Be organised - you are more likely to listen regularly if you have the resources to hand. Personally, I have a private whatsapp group where I add resources that are interesting for me but I don´t have time at that ,moment to listen - I then have everything in one place on my phone when I do have time.
Be realistic - if you are only able to listen a few hours per week, expect your progress to be slower.
Now you have a plan to improve your listening!