Check in every day!

Week 4 Lesson 3

Last week we talked about how to improve your English listening skills. One good tool to help you improve your English listening skills is by listening to the radio or podcasts.

What is a podcast? A podcast is like a radio show, except you can listen on your smartphone or computer. They can be short or long, and there are podcasts about almost every topic you can imagine.

There are many great podcasts that can help you learn English. We we will listen to a few of them this quarter.

The popular podcast "Storycorps" is a good one for level 5/6 English learners. You can listen to stories about people's lives and hear them talking in natural, everyday English.

Here is a story from the Storycorps podcast. Listen to this story once. Just listen for the big idea, and don't worry if there's a word you don't know. Just listen.

Now listen to the story again, and read the words (transcript) as you listen.

Chloe Longfellow (CL)

CL: She had red hair–it was red hair out of a bottle, but it was still red hair. And she was a spitfire. If you messed with her and she didn’t think it was right, she would tell you. But I do remember that she always smiled with her eyes. Even when she was angry, even when she was tired. She was my very first best friend. It’s really surprising the amount of life lessons you can learn in a kitchen if you have the right teacher. She used to try to tell me about acceptance and how to be a good human being. She’d get all the ingredients for a soup and she’d look at it and she’d go, “Now see honey, this is how the world works: some people are onions some people are potatoes. It would be a really boring soup if you just put potatoes in there, wouldn’t it? But if you add leeks, if you add some bacon, then you make this wonderful thing. And all these different people come together to make this wonderful thing called our world.”And one time she had grown some beets. And we brought ‘em in, cleaned ‘em off. And I got to move the page in the cookbook. And I had beet juice all over my hands and I left a little tiny handprint on her cookbook. And I started to cry ‘cause I thought I had ruined it. That was grandma’s favorite book. But she took a piece of beet and she covered her hand and she put her handprint on the other side and made our thumbs touch in the print. And said, “It’s perfect now.” If I really miss her I can just open the book and go back to that page. She touched it so often that it still smells like her, even all these years later.She used to tell me that the sky was black velvet and the stars were holes that had been punched in the ceiling of heaven. And that was how our loved ones looked down at us and saw if we were doing wrong, or if we were doing right, or just check in on us every so often. So, every time I look up at the sky, she’s there.

One new word you can learn in context from this story is "spitfire". Chloe says her grandmother was "a spitfire". What does that mean? Before you look it up in your dictionary, keep reading! Often the answer is close by. In the next sentence, Chloe says "If you messed with her and she didn’t think it was right, she would tell you." So, a "spitfire" is someone who is not afraid to share their ideas or opinions. They are someone who will always tell you their opinion! I think we all know someone who is a "spitfire".

How to Use English Podcasts to Improve Your Listening Skills

You already know that using podcasts is a great way to improve your listening skills, but do you know how to make the most (use in a way that’ll give the best result) out of them?

There are a lot of techniques you can use while listening to English podcasts that’ll help you to become a master of English listening.

1.) Listen as white noise first

White noise is basically sound that’s going on in the background while you’re doing something else. When you listen to music while you clean the bathroom, that music is your white noise. Or, when someone who lives alone switches on the television at night while they make supper, that’s their white noise.

It may seem counterintuitive (unreasonable or the opposite of what you’d expect), but listening to English podcasts as white noise while you do other tasks actually helps your brain to get used to the language. This means you don't have to understand everything you hear the first time you listen.

2.) Listen a second time, but now pay close attention

Now listen to the podcast a second (and even third) time and pay attention to all the words and expressions you recognize. If you feel the speaker is talking too fast, try reducing the speed of the audio to 75% (when available).

3.) Read the transcript, if it’s available

Reading the transcript while you listen to a podcast is amazingly beneficial because you’re getting the same information through two different channels (your eyes and your ears), which helps your brain to remember and comprehend more.

4.) Repeat words and sentences out loud

Speak like nobody is watching! Pause the podcast whenever you want to and go back to words and expressions that are new to you or you think are difficult to pronounce. Repeat them over and over until you get them just right.

5.) Pick up new vocabulary and grammar from the podcast

If you look up new words and learn and review grammar bits you hear in each podcast you listen to, you’ll likely remember them a lot easier in the future. Plus, as you already know, learning new vocabulary and grammar is essential to growing as an English language learner.

HOMEWORK

Your homework is to listen to an episode of the podcast Storycorps.

Click on the picture. The picture will take you to a page with the audio you can listen to and the instructions.

Comfort from the Kitchen

Stories about how food brings people together.

Page updated

Report abuse