Is it Okay to Listen and Read for Listening Practise?

...to listen and read? My answer is, by all means, it is okay! You can listen and read when you practise listening. In fact, you should do this to improve your listening practice a lot. But there are limits to this.

But

But you should not listen and read every time you do listening practice. In fact, I strongly advise that you do not read while you listen most of the time. You should do this kind of practice when you are not one hundred percent sure of what you are hearing. If you do shadowing (when you listen and repeat exactly what you hear at the same time) then listen and read is a very important practice, but don't do it too often.

Why?

If you read while you listen too often, you actually stop listening carefully. Most of you attention will go to reading. Then you are doing reading practice. That is fine to do, but it will not help your listening improve very much. That is why you should not read while you practise listening most of the time.

So Why Listen and Read?

It is important to listen and read once in a while to make sure you understand what you hear. One of my students once made a mistake. When I said, "The staff wants to help," she thought I said, "The staff wants help." This small difference has a big difference in meaning. It is good that I wrote it on the white-board once so she could read it.

How often?

So listen and read is good for your listening practice. But if you do it too much it is not good. So how much is good? I can't recommend an exact answer that is perfect for everyone. That is impossible. You have to find what balance is good for you. However, until you find what is best for you, try to listen and read once in five listening practice sessions.

But if I Don't Read, I Don't Understand!

That may be, but you will never understand what you hear well if you read all the time. You need to make your brain uncomfortable. You need to make it listen to some things that are difficult to understand. Then if will work harder to try to understand it. If you keep listening to the same material, after a while you will start to hear it and understand it better. Support your brain by listening and reading, but only sometimes. Not too much.

Just like my son riding his bicycle, you need to support your listening practice, without giving up. He put one foot on the ground and one on the pedal. You will listen without reading sometimes, but once in a while you can listen and read at the same time. That is your support.

Summary

Listen and read is a great way to help your listening practice. You should do it. But you should not do it every time you practise. You should try to listen and read once every five times you practise with a recording. Then as you become better, you can change that number to fit you better. Just use this technique as a support until you become more skilled.

Next Step

Now, go now to the story on this page - Samuel's Good Books. Listen and shadow this story several times. Make plenty of mistakes. This will help you to relax. Then after you practice it four times, listen and read it out loud on the fifth try. Of course, this is just the start.

Oh, and by the way, you can expect to have a few moments when you say, "Aha!" as you see the script.