How Can You Increase your Listening Ability for Comprehension Exercises?

...good. And he could feel it. All his senses were telling him to leave. Just get out of there.

It was a good thing that he did listen to his feelings. The next five minutes, after he walked out of the bank were chaos. Helicopters buzzed over. Police ran into the building. There was shooting and screaming. In the end, the police captured the bank robbers, but it was an awful time. And Don was glad that he felt it before it happened and left the bank.

You can listen to your feelings too. They often tell you things that your rational brain does not know. Comprehension exercises for English are difficult most of the time. But if you start to feel the English before you think about it, you can make it much easier to understand. Let;s take a look at a four stage method to prepare for an English comprehension exercise.

What we're going cover is: 1- Listening without thinking.
2- Shadowing
3- Tapping

Listening without thinking.

Before you even start to listen you can prepare yourself for the comprehension exercise. You have to make your mind blank. I recommend feeling the bottom of your abdomen, down behind your naval. It works nicely for me. Feel your breathing from that point, and slow it down.

When the speaking begins, imagine the words washing over you, like a shower. Any images that you have are fine, but thinking with words will not help you in the beginning. Just listen open and clear.

I find that if I put my tongue to the top of my mouth and press lightly, my mind becomes clear and quiet more easily. You can try this while you listen.

Do this twice.

Shadowing

The third time you listen, shadow the words you hear. Of course, out loud is best. Even when you can't say the words clearly, you can mumble the same pattern that you are hearing. Jump past the parts that are very difficult so that you can hear them and start shadowing as soon as you can.

Just make the same sounds as you hear, at the same time (or quickly after) you hear them. Don't wait for two or three words to pile up so you can say them.

You may find that if you try to copy the tone of the speaker, you will shadow better and better. It helps you concentrate better if you focus on the tone of the voice.

Do this twice.

Tapping

Now, try to tap out the beats of the sentence. If there are several sentences, listen to each one separately and tap out the beats, without thinking about the meaning. When you tap, do not think about the words, or you will almost certainly tap the wrong beat. Think instead about the beats themselves. Or, feel the beats. Really feel them. And then tap them.

Do this two or three times.

I did this with one student tonight. After the listening and shadowing steps, I asked her to repeat that sentence. She repeated it with mistakes that were not even normal sounding English. Then I asked her to tap the beats with me. We tapped the beats three times. Then I asked her to repeat the sentence (it was actually a question) again. The amazing thing I found was that she could repeat the English question perfectly once she had learned the beats! The rhythm improved her pronunciation but it also improved her grammar (or word order). It amazed me.

But the Audio is Too Long!

This technique is for exercises, not for tests. If you have a comprehension exercise, you can listen again and again. And you can listen to parts of it. Do these three steps on selected parts of a long audio to help you learn it deeply. You might choose sentences with your target vocabulary, or simply sentences that are difficult to make out the words when you listen the first time. You have to decide. But use this technique and your listening comprehension exercises will go much more smoothly. You will become a better listener.

Summary

To prepare for listening comprehension exercises, first listen twice without thinking. Then shadow the audio twice as perfectly as you can. Finally tap the beats out or say them as dah-dah-dah's to yourself. Do not think about the words when you do this. Now you are ready for the actual listening comprehension exercises.

Next Step

Go and try this with a short story. You will find many short stories (with scripts) on the English Listening World.com site. Choose any one of them and try to use these techniques before you listen for comprehension.