2 ways to improve IELTS Listening and enhance English listening skills every day

Listening skills in the IELTS exam can be challenging for many, leading to frustration and difficulty in understanding. However, developing strong listening skills can be a powerful tool to excel in the IELTS test. If you often say, "I'm afraid of listening to English," "I can't understand anything," or "Does this have subtitles?", the following article will reveal 2 ways to improve IELTS Listening.

I. Reasons to consider these 2 effective ways to improve IELTS Listening

• If you're struggling with listening, the key is to listen more. But how much is enough? Simply replaying English videos continuously for 5 to 10 minutes may not be sufficient for effective listening practice.
• Watching movies is one of the ways to improve IELTS Listening, and it has helped many people excel. However, you may find yourself diligently practicing listening for the first 5 minutes while being carried away by the storyline from the 6th minute onward, forgetting about English altogether. It becomes more about enjoying the movie rather than focusing on learning. 
• Therefore, these methods may not be suitable for everyone, and you may need to find your own path. If you are serious about learning and consider studying as a serious endeavor, you might want to avoid learning through movies or music as they can easily distract you. For me, they are time-consuming.

So, how to improve Listening skills in IELTS? Let's explore the following 2 effective ways to improve IELTS Listening:

III. Two essential ways to improve IELTS Listening

1. Determine your listening goals to find suitable resources

If you have a clear goal, such as improving your listening skills for the IELTS exam, focus on finding listening materials related to IELTS topics with a social aspect. I usually recommend listening to speeches on YouTube, which can be from world-renowned figures such as famous singers, actors, presidents, or experts who share relatable topics. Personally, I love TED Talks, so I highly recommend them. 

Alternatively, you can also listen to the Listening section of Cambridge practice books, which closely resemble the actual exam. However, the drawback is that they can be a bit boring.

The benefit of this method is that you can choose topics that interest you, making the listening experience more enjoyable and informative. By combining listening practice with gaining knowledge, you'll benefit even more. Additionally, practicing listening stimulates the brain and, without any magic tricks, can improve your English pronunciation and make you sound more like a native speaker.

2. So what are the ways to improve IELTS Listening?

You can apply the formula: "Five buddies on a tank" to help you. You can name it this way because it consists of 5 steps. This listening method will suit people like you who are highly determined, have a strong commitment to practicing listening, and listen seriously without giving up midway. You can call it "five buddies" because you listen to each video five times:

• 1st time: Listen with your native language subtitles. Turn on your native language subtitles and listen once to understand the main content of the listening passage. 
• 2nd time: Listen with English subtitles + look up the meanings of new words
  • When you come across a new word, stop the video and look up its meaning (including looking at the pronunciation to follow along). There will be quite a few new words for you, so you can select only the ones you want to learn (you can ignore words that are too academic or ones you rarely encounter when using Vietnamese). Take note of the new words in a notebook.
  • Every time you encounter a new word like that, you can rewind and listen to the sentence again to practice listening to that new word one more time and try to remember its meaning in context. For beginners, I understand that this can be challenging because there are mostly new words. So, don't listen to a 15-20 minute video all at once. Break it down into multiple sessions, listen to the first 5 minutes in one session. Learning vocabulary through listening is very effective.
• 3rd time: Listen with English subtitles + Recall the meanings of the words you took note of: After listening, once again, turn on the English subtitles and listen to the previous segment to see if you can understand more. When you come across a new word, make an effort to recall its meaning in the sentence. I swear, this method is extremely helpful for learning vocabulary.
• 4th time: Listen without subtitles: Turn off the subtitles and listen again. When you come across a new word at this point, you should already remember it. If you forget any parts, you can turn the subtitles back on to remember quickly. Keep listening until you understand the whole passage.
• 5th time: Review the new words once more:
  • After a few days, open the video again and listen. You will definitely notice a difference. 
  • Furthermore, you can practice listening while preparing to sleep and while brushing your teeth (because you realize that your listening skills are weak, so you can make the most of your time to listen a lot, just play TED Talks videos to practice listening).

That's it, this is my advice to listen more and get used to it. It may sound a bit challenging, but it's worth it. I'm sure you'll get hooked while feeling a significant improvement in your listening skills.

Above are 2 ways to improve IELTS Listening shared by a PREP student. In addition, PREP advises you to continuously enhance your English vocabulary because "having vocabulary means having everything". Combining listening practice with vocabulary learning is also one of the ways to improve IELTS Listening skills.