10 Advanced Ways to Improve Second Language Listening Abilities

Learn tips and techniques for improving listening capabilities.

Introduction

When teaching in China, many students tend to struggle with listening activities, especially those that only involve audio with limited context. Having extra activities and techniques for improving listening can ensure your ESL learners can thrive as they continue to learn.

Reusing Favored Media

Interestingly, one of the best ways to improve language has nothing to do with seeking out new material. It’s sometimes more effective to find movies that you already like which you’ve seen in your original language. You can watch it again in your target language provided you find some guidelines.

For instance, let’s say a student enjoyed Kung Fu Panda in Chinese. If they watch it again in the target language (English, without subtitles) they have enough contextual knowledge and memory references to pick up linguistic functions that rapidly improves listening capabilities.

The rules for using old media with a new target language for listening learning are fairly straightforward.

Listen for comprehension, rather than specification. If a student doesn’t understand two or three words in each sentence but they grasp the overall meaning, they’re doing fine.

If a word continuously comes up that the student doesn’t understand, instruct them to write it down and check it up after the movie.

If the movie/TV show is live-action, then tell your students to focus their attention on the lips of actors. This creates an audio-visual reinforcement where the brain pairs certain mouth shapes with certain sounds, enhancing audio recognition faster.

Finally and most importantly, do not let your students use subtitles under any circumstances. If a student uses subtitles in their native language, they’re just practicing your mother tongue. If they use subtitles in the target language, they’re essentially working on reading rather than listening.

Why Video-Listening Learning is Valuable

It’s wise to recommend visual-audio listening activities over purely audio activities, since video-supplementations offer a higher-context setting. While podcasts, music and radio in the target language is quite nice for advanced learners, videos, movies, TV shows, Youtube videos and even visually-enhanced audio books provide a lot more context to work with.

Facial expressions, mouth movements, settings and body language tend to improve listening skills more quickly, both through conscious and subconscious recognition.

Remember, Chinese culture is a high-context culture. Students in China tend to be more aware of body language and micro expressions than those who grew up in certain Western countries.

Tapping into Intrinsic Motivation

Of course, the best way to improve language in all settings is to engage with material that is rooted in intrinsic motivation.

Finding what students enjoy learning about and then looking for content from there is one of the best ways to learn. For instance, I’m a big fan of travel videos and travel vlogs. I went through Youtube, found plenty of travel vloggers across the country speaking the target language and followed them. It made listening a lot easier since I was excited about the content.

Ask what your students are interested in. Look for media that matches their most common interests and make appropriate recommendations from there.

Focusing on Artificial Immersion

For further development of listening skills, I recommend constant artificial immersion for advanced students. It’s amazing what the brain picks up when passively surrounded by language. For instance, learners can listen to as much English music as possible without necessarily focusing on it. The student’s brain will automatically start coding in commonly recurring sounds.

Additionally, there’s a chunk of research that shows kinesthetic motion while undergoing exposure to “audio-only” materials enhances comprehension. So having students take a walk or driving while listening to podcasts, radio and audiobooks improves listening abilities as well.

Have your students surround themselves with as much English in their home lives as possible.

Remember, when it comes to linguistic functions, quantity is king. Human brains retain information we use frequently, so having listening practice multiple times throughout the day is vital. Have your students change their phone settings, make all their music and podcast playlists in their target language, set their news feed to the target language, perform solid audio-exposure habits and have them try calling up at least one friend per day to practice the language.

Of course, artificial immersion is optional and relies on students creating an English-language focused environment at home. However, for advanced learners, these techniques can gradually improve advanced listening comprehension.

Other Teaching Techniques for Listening

Thematic Root

When focusing on listening to learn English, there’s also something called “thematic root” which involves focusing on singular subject matter across media.

For instance, if I watch a documentary on marine wildlife in the target language, my next documentaries should be on dolphins, coral reefs, etc. rather than, say, professional boxing. This allows for a student’s direct lexicon to expand regarding the target words.

Shorthand Transcription

Another activity students can do independently is called “shorthand transcription.” This is good for developing writing skills and listening skills at the same time. Find a Youtube video in your target language and listen to it at 0.75 speed. Set a timer for ten minutes and press play. Do your best to write down, word-for-word, whatever the narrator or actors are saying.

The student won’t get everything right, but it proves direct comprehension and lets their brain sort through information at a higher rate. After the first listen-through, repeat the process at normal speed, writing in blanks that they missed before. If they need to, they can listen a third time.

This exercise is surprisingly effective and averages about 25 minutes (ten minutes of first listen-through at 0.75 playback speed, roughly 7 minutes for the real-time listening to the point where the first listening stopped).

Once the transcription is over, go through what your students wrote and find errors if there are any. Students can also try matching their work to subtitles to see if they made any mistakes, self-correcting. This exercise has the added benefit of improving writing speed. This is higher intensity than passive listening and shows exactly what words and phrases you need to work on.

Line-By-Line Shorthand Transcription

A less-intense version of shorthand transcriptions, acceptable for beginner students, involves watching a video with subtitles, using a paper to cover up the words. Have students write down what they think they heard, pause the video, and let them compare their writings with the subtitles.

Subject-Focused Language Listening

If your students are having trouble with specific subject-matter, organize a managerial approach to targeting the language.

For instance, if students are trying to understand audio relating to aerospace engineering, find the 100 most-common technical phrases in that field. Plug these phrases into a chatbot and have the bot read them to students independently, repeating each one for pronunciation.

Repeat the exercise by putting the words in natural contexts that students already have a strong foundation in. For example, the word “stratosphere” can be used as “We need to learn the temperature of the stratosphere.” Create 3 to 5 sentences spoken aloud with each word, as this helps the brain create a mental shortcut to comprehension and then look for listening content that’s centered around the target language.

Language-Training Chatbots

Keep in mind, interactive chatbots have drastically improved learner listening responses without the need for direct teacher interaction. Talking to a Mandarin chatbot about specific, enclosed topics and hearing an active response is an effective learning method.

Somewhat ironically, Chinese-centric learning materials don’t have a strong focus on listening-comprehension. China has a deeply literate society or writing-centric culture which is often reflected in their exams and studying methods. Since China is highly ethnocentric and their education system relies on written tests to handle the massive number of students the nation has, listen-response formats are relatively underutilized in Chinese classrooms.

Therefore, it’s the responsibility of ESL teachers to pay special attention to improving their student’s English listening capabilities.

Conclusion

Improving advanced second language listening skills requires a strategic mix of engaging content, high-context video materials, thematic learning, and consistent artificial immersion. By reusing familiar media, incorporating shorthand transcription exercises, and focusing on subjects students care about, ESL teachers can help learners develop the ability to understand English naturally in real-world contexts.

By applying these listening comprehension strategies for ESL learners, teachers can turn listening from a struggle into one of their students’ strongest skills.