If you are wondering how to improve your listening comprehension skills, you may want to know that it all comes down to… listening to Spanish A LOT.
Pace yourself though, distribute your listening sessions so that they happen frequently, but not for a very long time. Ten minutes everyday are better than 60 once a week!
If you can make 15 minutes or 20 everyday, great. Like with any sport, you develop “muscle” with your language learning too. The vocabulary and grammar you learn act as the building blocks to support your listening practice. Frequency increases your stamina and feeds your interest to learn more, because your previous learning acts as a base and as a motivating factor to scaffold your next chunk of learning.
Also, if you really really are wondering how to improve your listening comprehension skills, you have to consider to keep some track of your learning. This way, you will be able to see how much you have achieved with the time you have invested, which helps you to assess how much more to put in, or how much better you could distribute your learning time.
For any level, but specially for the lower level spectrum of proficiency, it helps to listen within a particular topic that you are learning or want to learn some vocabulary about. The more familiar you are with your topic the easier will be for you to understand the main content of what you are listening to. At beginners’ level this is particularly the case, as your vocabulary is limited. However, it is not just about vocabulary.
Usually for you, within a class context, the purpose of listening to a speaker or, more commonly, a recording, is to extract some information in order to answer some questions. The skill therefore is as much about being able to anchor your listening on words and grammar you already know, as to do without all the words that are not important for the task at hand. This focusing is helped also by practice.
A preparatory task can consist of learning some words relevant to the topic first. The transcripts of recordings you are supposed to train with can be the source of the words you need to learn. Make a point of creating some lists of words that are grouped thematically or by the level of difficulty they present to you. The sooner you establish what words are not sticking in your head, the sooner you need to devise a strategy to go back to them repeatedly, until you learn them.
Make phrases with them, read them aloud, use online tools such as Quizlet to quizz yourself in different ways… Anything but just saying to yourself “this is too hard, I can’t”. Persistence pays off!
But you may be wondering how to improve your listening comprehension skills also at times when you are just listening not to answer some questions but FOR FUN. Well, then keep reading:
1. watch your favourite Spanish movie with captions on. So that you can see and hear the words in natural speech contexts, spoken by native speakers, while you can still follow the story. And…
2. don’t forget music! I have already selected some samples of Spanish-speaking singers that you can find in this website to get started. So, get the lyrics of your favourite ones and sing along. Look up for the odd word that seems interesting and you don’t know yet, to keep learning. Finally…
3. if you like to keep up with the latest news, watch or listen to some in Spanish too, especially if you already have caught up with a particular event/news item in your own language. You will understand a lot, and without the dictionary. You simply will be able to guess the meaning of some of the words: easy!
Remember: little by little, all adds up & it can be fun too!! Keep it up… & if you have any suggestions of your own, share here, let us know.
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