Welcome to Horne Learning Services and our blog post for today!
I do hope you are enjoying life and being successful.
Today I'm going to talk about learning English through listening.
Most people who want to learn or improve on their English, always demand speaking classes, or say "I just want to speak!" But English is about a lot more than just speaking.
"Speaking's" best friend is called "listening", and if they don't go together, "speaking" just isn't the same!
Listening is an important exercise in mastering the English language. And that doesn't mean a class of students should have to listen to each other's imperfect English while the teacher sits down and lets them get on with it. That is not the ideal listening exercise.
Students need to listen to correct English, from somebody who can speak English perfectly, which in most cases, should be the teacher. The exposure to listening to correct English is a big advantage for English students to have.
Fortunately for me and my students, I'm from England, and English is my natural language, it hasn't been learned like other languages had to be.
As such, I try to talk to my students a lot, give them instructions to see if they have listened well and follow them. I will not speak in any other language but English, to them. Very soon, they get comfortable with English and their listening improves.
I record myself speaking and give them listening tests with questions to answer. Best of all, I watch English movies with my students, young and old!
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This week we are watching the movie, "Mirror Mirror", based on the story of Snow White, but told from the point of view of the evil queen. I've prepared 20 questions for students to answer by watching the movie and listening very carefully.
Students will not understand every single word that is spoken, and at times it may seem that people in the movie are speaking very quickly, and students may feel that they are losing pace from time to time.
It is however, a great opportunity for students to practice listening, look out for key words and answers, and develop an understanding of how the English language works. Learning new words to add to their vocabulary is another privilege.
But it's the exposure to listening to correct English which is the overriding benefit here.
