How to improve my listening skills? Cómo mejorar mis capacidades de escucha en lengua extranjera

 It is essential to be able to understand what is said orally in any language in order to assimilate it, learn words, gramatical structures and be able to communicate. Listening attentively every production in any foreign language can make anyone learn it in order to communicate which is the ultimate objective of any foreign language speaker.

Es esencial ser capaz de entender lo que se dice oralmente en cualquier lengua para aprender, asimilar, aprender palabras y estructuras gramaticales y ser capaz de comunicarse. Escuchar atentamente cualquier producción oral puede hacer aprender la lengua para comunicarse que es el principal objetivo.

Thus when grammar books and language courses were not available or did not exist any learner would pay attention to any conversation, songs, speeches in the street or the mass media such as the radio, TV or the internet to learn the language and achieve its communicative goal. For example Spanish workers in Germany during the sixties of the past century used to pay attention to German colleagues and ask for correction of mistakes to learn the language of their host country and eventually learnt German to understand and make themselves understood in the foreign country even though they might be illiterate.

Así cuando no había o no existían los libros de gramática o cursos de idiomas cualquier aprendiz prestaría atención a cualquier conversación, canciones, discursos, etc. en la calle o por los medios de comunicación como la radio, TV o internet para alcanzar el objetivo de la comunicación.

Here are some useful tips to improve your listening skills in real life:

-Pay attention to the body language and keep eye contact.

-Try to empathise and use emotional intelligence to understand the speaker.

There are more listening skills to apply in any listening exam:

-listen regularly in the foreign language either the radio, songs, podcasts, films, etc.

-listen in the foreign language anything that you are passionate about, listen videos or podcasts of your favourite topics or hobbies.

-pay attention of the tone and rhythm in the foreign language.

During the exam it is useful to follow these tips:

-read the questions and instructions of the listening exercise.

-listen the first recording or audio file to get the overall idea and write the key words, it is essential to get the gist, don´t worry if you don´t understand a word because it is better to get the main idea.

-in the second recording answer the questions of the listening exercise.

-read the questions and answer in the listening exercise of the exam to check it is understandable and reasonable.