Successive Listening: Conversational

This exercise targets the following goals:

• Increasing your ability to understand conversational English that is spoken fast
• Understanding more and guessing less during conversational listening
• Understanding the nuances and not just the main ideas of conversational talk
• Understanding a wide range of English accents
• Understanding jokes and sarcasm in English

 

1. Write today’s date at the top of your notes
2. Choose a conversational talk that interests you (To increase your English listening flexibility, choose talks from a wide range of speakers – and accents!)

 

Elementary everyday conversational listening
(jam-packed with very high-frequency vocabulary and grammar)

• Learning English (VOA: Voice of America)
  • Let’s Learn English – Level 1
  • Learn English 2 – Level 2
• BBC Learning English (BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation)
  • English My Way
• EnglishCentral

 

Intermediate everyday conversational listening

• TV series: The young and the restless (Characterized by mostly direct speech acts)
• TV series: Friends (Characterized by mostly indirect speech acts and frequently includes jokes/sarcasm/cultural references)
• TV series: Seinfeld
• Transcribed YouTube videos: http://transcriptvids.com/videos.htm

 

Interpersonal academic/professional listening

• The PhD Movie and PhD Movie 2
• YouTube videos from Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD Comics)
• The Lab (YouTube)
• The Office

 

3. Listen to the talk 3 times:
   1. Listening #1: Listen without pausing the recording, taking the best notes you can (if possible, turn off any captions/subtitles)
   2. Listening #2: Simultaneously listen and read the transcript and/or captions, pausing where necessary to look up unfamiliar vocabulary
   3. Listening #3: Listen again without pausing the recording and improve your notes
4. Use your notes to record a brief audio report on your listening so that you’re prepared in case your English Speaking Consultant asks you to give a 1-2 minute report on today’s listening the next time you meet. Your audio report should include your answer to the following questions:
   1. “What did you listen to?” (topic, source)
   2. “What was it about?” (summary)
   3. “What did you like and dislike about it? Would you recommend it to a friend or classmate?” (evaluation) OR “What key thing(s) did you learn from the listening and how do they connect to your life?” (application)

 

Note: For more difficult talks, insert an additional step of reading without simultaneous listening (while looking up unfamiliar vocabulary) before the simultaneous listening/reading step described above.