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Active listening techniques | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| cod2 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4557 days ago 48 posts - 69 votes  | Message 1 of 13 10 February 2014 at 6:36pm | IP Logged |
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I consider myself to be somewhere in between B1 and B2 in German. I can read any random newspaper report or listen to a radio program and can understand the gist of what's being said - even though I can't make out every word. I have held reasonable level of conversations with native speakers for more than 10 minutes on a wide range of topics (plenty of grammatical errors but they understood what I said).
I need to improve my listening comprehension and I need to do a lot more active listening than I am doing now. I have enough materials with subtitles, so contents-wise I am OK. My question is around techniques. Currently when I do active listening, I do the following: First I watch without subtitles, then I watch with subtitles. Then I pause every now and then, and look up unknown words. Then I may listen once more without looking at the subtitles. I find that the process of looking up words slows me down and kills the flow. At the same time I feel uncomfortable carrying on when I don't understand what the subtitle says. So my questions to those who have done active listening: 1. Did you pause and lookup, or did you simply guess and move on? 2. How many times should I listen to the same material in a row? I read somewhere, most probably AJATT - not sure, that you should keep listening to the same track in a loop until you understand everything. On the other hand that's got to be a pretty boring exercise, too much like work. I really want language learning to be fun. Thanks in advance. Edited by cod2 on 10 February 2014 at 7:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5912 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 2 of 13 10 February 2014 at 9:45pm | IP Logged |
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I would most likely let it continue without pausing and look up the occasional word that stands out, preferably words that I know I've heard somewhere before that I know I've forgotten and that I'm actually curious about when it comes up. Then when I'm done with that word, look up the next one that stands out in the same way. Then I would leave that source alone for at least a day but possibly longer, then listen again and do the same thing. Repeat until it all makes some sort of sense :-)
I wouldn't be able to loop the same audio over and over in one sitting until I got it all - I would be bored out of my skull, and would lose interest in understanding the material. I agree with you - it's supposed to be fun! Stop before you get really bored. Liz Edited by Lizzern on 10 February 2014 at 9:46pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4871 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 3 of 13 10 February 2014 at 10:59pm | IP Logged |
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I'd say it depends on the length of the material.
With newscasts I watch single items, at first just trying to catch all I can, then listening for unknown words specifically (I don't have subtitles) and look them up. I read through the list of words a few times and then watch the news item again, noting the new words in context and understanding a lot more. With longer things like podcasts and radio shows, I usually just listen once and try to understand what I can. I look more for quantity than worrying about a particular podcast. That's more like natural conversation: I understand what I can, but I can't ask people to repeat what they're saying ad nauseum. I've found a couple of things important: 1. focus 2. variety of enjoyable materials 3. variety of strategies (both intensive and extensive listening) 4. consistency over a longer time period If you do focused extensive listening for about 30 minutes per day (more if possible), you should see definite improvements in a couple of months. You should try find something with familiar topics, though, or get acquainted with the topic-specific words by doing some intensive listening and learning new words. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 4 of 13 10 February 2014 at 11:08pm | IP Logged |
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I seriously doubt this was from ajatt. Unless you find something so much fun that you *want* to listen to it repeatedly. This reminds me on some of Volte's posts, actually, but the context was completely different: it was about distinguishing similar sounds.
Don't underestimate music. Don't underestimate extensive listening. Also, don't overestimate subtitles. If they ever seem incorrect or simplified, they probably are. Finally, what is between... erm, sorry, what is between getting the gist and making out every word? Vocab, grammar, accent, speed, some combination of these? Have you tried making transcripts? listening in small chunks until you can repeat everything? (without necessarily understanding everything) Would you understand the same text in writing (or if you read the subtitles first)? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5265 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 13 10 February 2014 at 11:42pm | IP Logged |
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Everyone's advice is good. I do all. I listen without worrying too much about things, maybe take a note here and there. I listen to podcasts while walking. I also watch a tv series and work intensively with it with a tutor. Watching first for enjoyment and the second time to write a review and quoting dialog. When I was first working with my tutor, I would write down any unknown words and we would go over them. the next session I would do my review. Now there are a lot fewer unknown words to write down. In the beginning, I had a lot.
Without a tutor, having a transcript is your backstop. If you want to work intensively with listening you can use the transcript to check your understanding. When I am working intensively, I may go through the audio a few times. I find having the transcript as my check very helpful. Subtitles for films can be downloaded by searching for Film name + subs or .srt files. You can then find the English subs and make your own parallel texts. Librivox.org has free and legal audio books to download. There are many members here who learn German and I'm sure they'd be happy to help you with more specific resources for audio with transcripts. The main thing with listening is to know that it takes time to train your listening and that takes exposure, lots of it, as often as you can until you get comfortable and understand most of what you're hearing. TV series help in that you can get familiar with people's voices over the series run. Also, TV series offer visual clues to what's going on. Edited by iguanamon on 10 February 2014 at 11:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4447 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 6 of 13 11 February 2014 at 2:37am | IP Logged |
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Watching a program in Chinese I'd pause a video every once in a while and look up words & phrases. If I have
trouble hearing I'd rewind to that bit of the video a few times to catch the phonetics. Instead of being a nuisance, the extra bit of trouble makes you anticipate what is going to happen next. Even a language like Chinese you don't have to rely on subtitles. Simply look up anything you don't hear very well phonetically. Subtitles can help but for some people they become lazy and finish a movie or TV series without putting in any effort to hear the words & phrases being said. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 7 of 13 11 February 2014 at 7:27am | IP Logged |
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I watch a lot of German movies/tv without subtitles, generally only once. I try to understand what I can and if I miss something that's OK. Trying to look up words or do repeated viewing just seems too much like work. Over time this seems to work OK.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| cod2 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4557 days ago 48 posts - 69 votes | Message 8 of 13 11 February 2014 at 8:10am | IP Logged |
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Thank you all for the very helpful advices. Much appreciated.
I had read before in these forums about transcripting the dialogues by hand, but somehow that seems too much like work or like being back in school - and I am reasonably sure I wouldn't be able to keep it up if it feels like that. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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