A Proven 6-Step Approach for Improving English Listening Skills

✅ Step 1: Listen to the audio without reading the transcript I suggest only taking a small part of the listening and working with that. The objective of this step is to check how much you understand just by listening without reading the transcript or subtitles. Repeat up to two to three times while taking notes. 

✅ Step 2: Read the transcript In this step, you are not going to listen. Rather, read the transcript of the audio you have just listened to. At your own pace, check how much you understood. Look up and take notes of new words and highlight the parts which you understand while reading but didn’t understand while listening. 

✅ Step 3: Listen with the transcript Next, listen to the audio again while reading the transcript. The point of this step is to focus on the parts which you didn’t understand and evaluate why you didn’t understand. Was it because of the vocabulary? Was it the speed, the accent, or the connected speech? In this step, you’ll be playing, pausing, rewinding then playing back again. Your aim is to identify what you didn’t get when listening to it, and understand why you didn’t understand it. 

✅ Step 4: Listen without the transcript again Now you are going to listen back again with the transcript. The reason for this is that you want to identify how much you understand now that you have completed steps two and three. What can you understand now that you couldn’t in step one? Are there any parts which you are still struggling to get? Identify why not. On the whole, you should understand the audio a lot better than the first time around. 

✅ Step 5: Take note of the new vocabulary and review it An important factor in improving listening is to increase your vocabulary. The more vocabulary you have, the greater understanding you will have. Store the new vocabulary and review it. Choose a time in the day and stick to that time every day so it becomes a habit. 

✅ Step 6: Listen Back to the audio 2 or 3 days later. Finally, after a couple of days, listen again to the audio. The reason for this is that your brain needs a bit of time to process the new information, and it is also a reviewing exercise which helps you remember new vocabulary and language. It’s also a good way of measuring your development which helps to boost confidence.