What Kind of Material Should a Student Use to Improve Listening Skills?

When considering material to develop listening skills in an ESL class, it’s very important to be careful with what kind of material you use. At the very beginning, it will be much more important to prioritize the comprehension of basic English structures.

Instead of thinking that music or movies will help, we must realize that they have a lack of pedagogical content. Using this kind of material will only lead to frustration.

In the first place, dialogues in most of the movies are spoken without proper diction. It may be natural for native speakers, but it is really difficult and frustrating for a beginner English student. The amount of slang is considerable, and this may result a little confusing; sometimes it’s even difficult for advanced students.

We are not saying that there are no exceptions, there are certain series and TV programs whose dialogues are a lot simpler, which makes them easier to understand for non-native speakers.

Songs are a very particular subject. The use of language in pop music, most of the times, is altered to the point it makes complete nonsense. Obviously there are exceptions. In case you decide to use songs anyways, try not to listen to hip-hop or hard rock where the sound of instruments and sound pulse is more relevant than lyrics and descriptive content.

It is recommendable to start your students’ listening training with podcasts or other voice recordings. It will be much better if they can get the script, so that they can follow the recording’s content. Keep this method for a while. It must be more than enough to enforce the learning of the most recurrent English structures.

Then you will be able to jump to a level where you can focus on audios or videos that show real life scenes, represented by native speakers. Internet is the best source to look for material.

Once the listening skills of your students have already improved, they can choose particular subjects according to their interests. They may decide to go for business, art, industry, sports, medicine, commerce, or technology subjects. The possibilities are endless.

Tell them to listen to every resource  they find, and after they’ve dedicated enough time to do it, look for more natural and easy-going materials, such as news, movies or even songs if you want to and play it for them. It will be much easier for them to understand the content.

Finally, other alternatives offered by the Internet and its infinite opportunities are audio books. These audio books will help them through reading the book (they always come with a book).  Your students get to choose one that meets their needs, according to their English level.

Alternatives are wide. The key is not to have lots of information; this will only be confusing for the students. It is always better to take one step at a time. There is nothing to be concerned about; if you keep on following appropriate steps and recommendations, they are going to understand spoken English faster than you can imagine!

Tags: basic english skills, develop listening skills, english listening problems, listening issues improvement., listening skills problems, material listening problems