Why you should join The Listening Lab

Listening to native speakers of English is hard.

It’s not just the vocabulary - the use of idioms, slang, and regional expressions - it’s the way they connect, drop, add to, and change the sounds that make individual words combine together to sound like one big mouthful of word soup.

It’s easy to see why you’re still using the subtitles on Netflix when you’re watching the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Or maybe even using the automatic captions on your Zoom meetings.

You’re not the only one struggling.

Join me as we explore those troublesome features of connected speech and how they interfere with your ability to understand fast, spoken English.

Learn to Listen Better in English.

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What to expect

Weekly listening posts to help you fine-tune your ear to the messy world of English listening:

• On Mondays, I’ll post a recording of a sentence. You’ll have the week to listen, decode, debate, re-listen, and comment on what you think you’ve heard. [If you’d like to comment, you must be a subscriber.]

• On Fridays, I’ll post the answer, along with some explanations of the features of connected speech that may be interfering with your ability to understand what you hear.

Occasional posts about listening, including tools, tips, and techniques for learning to Listen Better in English.

About me

I’m Lori. I’ve been an English/ESL/EFL/ESOL teacher to adults around the world for over ten years, and one common question I hear is, "How can I get better at listening in English?"

Unfortunately for many students, the answer is not:

• watching TV series & movies (sorry, Netflix)

• listening to music & podcasts (especially not while you're doing something else!)

• answering more comprehension questions (is this what we do in real life?)

• repeating the same video over and over (boring!)

• learning more and more grammar (enough already!)

Instead, most students need to learn how to listen differently - to learn how to break down that word soup into words they can actually understand.

Ready to join us in The Listening Lab?

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