Can you understand what the man in the video is saying?
Last week, I participated in the Share Convention 2025 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with a talk entitled “Teacher, how can I get better at listening? A practical framework.” [Welcome to my new subscribers who joined me from there!]
In that presentation, I used this video to talk about why we need a different approach to listening lessons in the classroom - one that not only teaches learners how to listen rather than just tests them on it, but also gives them a model that they can follow when practicing outside the classroom.
The teachers learned about my 4-step method to approach listening and used it to develop their own listening lessons based around a short video. (You can see the slides here.)
As we talk about often here in the listening lab, for most learners that struggle with listening in English, the problem is not in understanding the main ideas & answering comprehension questions. The real problem is in being able to understand the fast, connected speech that you are exposed to in everyday conversations, TV series, and movies.
If you want to learn more about how to follow my HEAR method, I also have a self-study course that walks you through each step and teaches you how you can do it when practicing English outside of the classroom.
And, the video? It’s nonsense - some English words, some words that sound like English - but put together into sentences that are incomprehensible. 😂
The one thing it DOES do well? It highlights the importance of rhythm in English. And that’s next on our list of problems in understanding spoken English. Stay tuned!
