Thursday, January 29, 2009

Improve Listening Comprehesion by watching TV

Even though I am a big advocate of reducing the amount of time people watch TV daily, I do have to say that it is a great tool for improving your listening comprehension.

Find a program that you like and stick to it day in and day out until you are able to understand it without too much effort.

When I was 17 and took the TOEFL I got a score of 607, which is on the highest bracket, yet I had a hard time understanding the TV shows in English! I made it a job to watch daily this particular show that caught my attention.  At first I had no idea why people were laughing at the jokes but little by little (probably over a month period) I was able to start laughing together with the recorded laugh! I remember thinking -"When I am on the living room and there is a TV going on in another room, if the program is in Spanish, I can pick up everything being said. I want to get to the point were the same would go for a program in English."

Well, practice makes perfect, so take everyday half an hour to watch a TV program in English. If you don't have cable TV in English get a couple of movies that you like and watch them in English with no subtitles. If you need the extra help at the beginning then set the subtitles to English. Make sure you get a movie you like because you will be watching it over and over until you can pick everything being said.

Review your notes on stress and intonation and pay close attention to the stress and intonation used by the characters. As you watch repeat the dialogs mimicking the stress and intonation.

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