Learn Effective Listening Skills

To ensure that you have effective listening skills, we are going to explore a wonderful story written by Carmen Colombo.

She is going to help us learn about patience.

What do you know about being patient?

Are you a patient person?

What about your goal to obtain good listening skills? 

Do you have enough patience to reach your goal?

If you find yourself frustrated, when you don't understand or make mistakes, I want you to remember this story I am about to tell you.

Sit back, relax and listen.

Patience
by Carmen Colombo

Ok, now listen to it again. Yes...again please.

Have you listened to the story at least twice?

Good. This is a great exercise; listening to audio without reading. Just relax and enjoy the fact that you are learning something new.  Be patient with yourself.

Absorb as much as you can without reading on a regular basis and you will build effective listening skills that you can use in the real world.

Ready to listen with the text?

Click here to open the text in a new window

So now you have heard it, read it while listening to it, and looked at the vocabulary. Now I want you to try reading the story aloud with me. Get those English speaking muscles strong.

Now, let’s explore the story some more. Let’s look at the words. To have effective listening skills we must understand what most of the words mean.

Click here to visit my vocabulary activities glossary, to help you understand some of the difficult words.

Consider this like going to the gym. At the gym you lift weights to tone and strengthen your muscles. Do the same for your English muscles. Try to sound like me to help improve your pronunciation.

Now here is a story of my own.

Do not be Rebecca. Please!

Are you missing great opportunities to use your English, like this student is? She is making it harder for herself; are you doing the same thing?

The biggest mistake that she is making is studying for hours alone in her house, when there are real people outside who want to interact and speak with her.

The best way to develop effective listening skills is to listen to real English, not study a grammar book.

Using your English is much more rewarding and helpful than sitting alone in your home with a book.

Your goal isn't to know English; your goal is to use it to communicate with others.

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