Listening

Why Listening Is Vital for Language Learners

Many language learners focus a lot on speaking. They don’t spend as much effort on quietly listening.

Listening seems like it should be simple, or secondary to other more active language skills. To the surprise of many new learners, listening to a foreign language is difficult. If you’ve ever had to sit for a second language test, you’ll know that the listening section is almost always the hardest.

But, listening is a vital skill for language learning.

Research shows that when we communicate, we spend around 40-50% of our time listening, 25-30% speaking, 11-16% reading and only 9% writing (although that last one might have changed in recent years due to the rise in social media).

That means we spend about half the time listening!

With the help of the following sites your can practice listening. The Internet resources can be especially useful for those interested in economic or business topics.

http://ed.ted.com/lessons

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radioscotland

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/

http://wordsinasentence.com/

http://learningenglish.voanews.com/

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-11876811

https://www.theguardian.com/business/business+content/video

https://www.englishclub.com/listening/dictation.htm

Radio

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0462s3l

BBC – Radio 4 Extra

http://www.my-radios.com/ru/radio/%D0%A1%D0%BB%D1%83%D1%88%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C/14997/BBC-World-Service