Firstly, because even when it feels like things are really bad, they aren’t that bad. Next time, I wouldn’t be the weakest telephone! It was horrible, but afterwards, I was determined that next time I would be able to pull my own weight. Like I shouldn’t have been in that class.ĭespite this emotional experience, I didn’t want to quit. The teacher said that the girl next to me could break the rules and whisper the message again. Everyone was waiting for the fun of the final message to be announced. I was the only student who couldn’t make out the message. I’m Sure You Could Imagine What Happened Next - It Didn’t Go Well This would then get passed from student to student until the last student read out the final message. The teacher was planning to whisper something in the first student’s ear. My heart rate soared and I could feel my stomach bottom out. I realised we were about to play ‘Chinese Whispers’ (Telephone) in Spanish. Soon enough, with a quick visual demonstration from the teacher. “Do you know what it is?” I asked the Italian girl next to me. We are going to play a game called ‘broken telephone’.”) (“Now we have done enough grammar for today. Vamos a jugar un juego que se llama el “teléfono roto”. Ya hemos hecho bastante gramática por hoy. The teacher picked up on the lack of student presence and said something like: You know, to avoid any unwanted attention.Īfter two hours of intense grammar, I wasn’t the only one who was drowning in information overload. Instead, I pretended to understand and asked a question or two based on what I read in the book. I wanted to say “I quit” and walk out of the classroom. The teacher - speaking only Spanish - whizzed through some complicated grammar structures that I had never seen before. Later that morning, I joined my new class. After the test, they put me into a class at level B2. My reading, writing and spoken Spanish were good. On the first morning, they made me take a placement test to work out which class I should be in. It was day one of a four-week stay in Madrid that I had planned to work on my Spanish. If, like me, you've ever felt overwhelmed by listening to your target language, there are steps you can take to solve the problem.īefore I dive into these strategies, I’d like to tell you about a painful moment I will never forget… My Scariest Day in Language Learning Listening Skills: Pulling It All Together.
#Listening skills how to
I’m Sure You Could Imagine What Happened Next - It Didn’t Go Well.I’ll explain why it doesn’t work, and give three other activities that are far more effective for improving your listening skills. In this post, you will learn the one activity most students use (including myself) in an attempt to improve their listening skills. In the end, I discovered why I struggled so much with my listening skills: I’d been developing my listening skills in the wrong way. It was more like one inch forward, two steps back, two months pass, half a step forward, then sideways. The adage of two steps forward and one step back comes to mind, but that doesn’t really capture what I went through. After that, they could listen to their target language and understand everything being said.Īlong my language learning journey, developing listening comprehension was a long, slow and painful grind. I also hear language learners say that after practicing for a while “it just clicked one day”. I sometimes hear other language learners say that, even from the early stages, they understood their target language perfectly fine. That might be because I went about it the wrong way. ?Īs a language learner, I found listening to be the hardest skill to improve.
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