Strategies to Improve your Listening in English 👂 @JForrestEnglish

hey everyone it's Adar thank you so much for joining me do you feel like listening is an important part of your English studies do you feel like you struggle understanding native speakers of English or other speakers of English and you'd like to improve if the answer is yes then this episode is absolutely for you because today I'm going to interview Jennifer forest from J Forest English the YouTube channel and Jennifer is committed to helping her students and view ERS improve their listening skills and by doing that improve their confidence their fluency and pronunciation in English

so today she's going to share with us her story her strategies and why she thinks listening is so important for her students and yes it has to do with her own experience learning French so I'm super excited to introduce you to Jennifer and to share with you our conversation let's listen hi Jennifer ER how are you doing I'm doing great Hadar I'm so excited to be here with you I'm so happy that you're here and I'm excited for our conversation um for those who don't know you and um are now watching um would you like

to introduce yourself the way you talk about what you do yeah thank you so much so my name is Jennifer I run the YouTube channel called J Forest English and my Approach is really to help people understand how the language is used in the real world so to study native speakers and to help make sure my students understand native speakers and feel confident because they also sound like a native speaker they're using the language fluently but naturally as well what got you into teaching and what compelled you to start a YouTube channel and start doing

what what you do oh I'm glad you asked because I actually got into teaching mainly because I was a failed language learner I was always interested in languages and I started learning French as a second language because at the time I was working for the government of Canada which is bilingual French and English and I was very dedicated to improving my French at that time I had never taught a language and I really loved the language I loved studying the language I learned so much about languages and then I decided I wanted to travel explore

the world and I turned that into teaching English and I started my YouTube channel just to help the students I was working with and then as the channel grew I decided wow I have this opportunity to help people from all over the world even if they're not my direct student I love it like how how for most of the teachers that I know like there's always this sense of mission and impact in their work and I could definitely see it in your work and now that you share your background story I can see why you

do what you do I love that um what is something that you do now as a teacher that you wish you had as a student and you didn't have because you said a failed learn language learning experience so what was missing well I would say definitely focusing on listening skills and trying to understand native speakers because after five years of studying French very aggressively I could pass any grammar test which gave you this false sense of fluency because I'm passing the most advanced grammar test easily yet I would go out to a restaurant and try

something simple like ordering a meal in French and it was a disaster I couldn't understand what they were saying to me it didn't un it didn't sound like the French I was learning in classrooms in textbooks and I didn't really know how to take all my knowledge of verb tenses and vocabulary and turn that into a natural sentence that could communicate my idea so I had a lot of knowledge but I couldn't actually use that knowledge to understand people or to speak and really I I focus a lot on listening because if you can't understand

what someone is saying to you you can't have a conversation and if you under if you improve your listening skills it means you're also improving your accent you're expanding your vocabulary you're learning natural sentence structure natural speech as well so I feel like it really improves other areas of your of your language 100% like I always say that there is this gap between the English that we know or the language that we know and the language that we speak and the more we learn without putting it into practice practicing listening and actually speaking we just

make that Gap bigger and bigger and bigger and then the frustration goes up with it because it's exactly the experience you were talking about and it's really important to put it into practice whether it's with listening or with speaking so so definitely I would say looking at your content that listening is important to you and now I understand why by the way is there like a specific story or something a situation that you remember where you struggled with understanding a French speaker and that caused a situation yeah I remember it so well because I I

was studying French very aggressively and I enrolled in this five week intensive French program which took place in frenchspeaking Canada so there's parts of Canada that are predominantly French and so I spent 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in the classroom in a university classroom environment just in French with a teacher with a French teacher and then after class I went to to a cafe and I wanted to order a coffee and a piece of pie and I could not communicate that I wasn't able to express what I wanted the person asked me I wanted a

coffee I ordered the coffee but then the person asked me a lot of followup questions probably about do you want it here to go what do you take in your coffee what size do you want and I didn't understand anything that this person said and it was just like a dear and a headlight situation where I just dear in a headlight for people who might not know that expression but it was so frustrating because I literally just spent eight hours for you know maybe the second or third week in a row studying the language and

then just the most basic conversation I could not have and I felt so ashamed and embarrassed and frustrated and it was just not a good situation so when I'm working with students I have that feeling in me I know what it's like to really struggle and I know what it's like to feel like you're not making progress but then I also have that perspective of maybe what what's missing and because if I were to go back and and learn a language again I would approach it completely differently today which is what I try to do

with my my YouTube channel to help my students amazing so so if we're talking about you know like using your experience and turning it into practical um opportunities for students to to learn in a non-conventional way right like like you would in a traditional Language School um what would you say the best method or strategy is to improve listening listening to very short clips of of shows whether it's a TV show a movie I mean we watch our content on social media these days so even just take a YouTube video but take a very short

clip and I like to focus on short clips because committing to a 30 minute TV show or a 2hour movie I feel is overwhelming for for a learner at one time and if you're just if you have it on in the background and it's more passive entertainment and you're not trying to necessarily learn from it you're just exposing yourself to the language that's fine but if you are trying to work on improving specific skills then you don't need a 30 minute TV show or a two-hour movie you just need a even a 30- second clip

a two-minute clip but really analyze it listen to one sentence perhaps you can focus on different areas you can focus first on just listening to The Sounds which I know you do a lot with your students listening to how the words flow together or listening for pronunciation or you can learn vocabulary from it you can analyze the sentence structure or you can take this one very short clip and do all three things and really just go deep into that clip and learn a lot from such a small piece of content and it's fun it's engaging

students really enjoy this approach as well and it makes it makes you feel at the end of this exercise like you really truly have improved your English that's amazing and and I so agree with that concept of quality over quantity you don't need to do it for five hours and then not even remember what you gained out of it you're just like I'm done with it but you really go deep in that Broad and I think that's what Learners need and I do think that you can learn so much like just like you said from

a short piece of content um so it's it's it's a great approach um why do you think native speakers are so hard to understand for students who are learning the language especially Learners who don't have a lot of experience being around uh people who speak the language natively yeah I think there are quite a few reasons first of all just basing this on my experience with learning French as a second language is it's not what you study so the language you study uh in a traditional classroom or textbook setting is you know the speech is

a lot slower they don't necessarily connect their sounds they overenunciate individual sounds for the purpose of helping you learn it because they know you're learning this as a non-native which great great strategy behind that in the sense that they want you to understand what they're saying but it doesn't help you when you're in the real world so you're learning from a style of speech that just is not very typically used in the real world and it can also be just things like right now you're listening students are listening to very high quality audio with zero

background noise but then when you watch a TV show or a movie there's lots of background noise the scenes take place in restaurants on the streets you hear a lot of background noise which makes the speech a little more difficult there are multiple people talking at the same time so just other noises are introduced as well so this is a very clear audio environment that you're experiencing right now as well so that could be it and then one thing I've noticed also it's the lack of of knowledge of the natural Expressions that native speakers use

sure in a language exam they'll tell you to use Advanced vocabulary and absolutely native speakers know Advanced vocabulary and we use it as well but we use it in very specific situations but 90% of the time perhaps we're using just natural speech phrasal verbs idioms expressions like I said dear in a headlight H but then I explained what that is because students probably might not know that expression but a native speaker isn't going to stop and explain what these expressions are they're just going to assume you know them and I think a lot of listening

can help you understand even if you do it on your own without having someone facilitate it which is always good but sometimes we don't have access to it and we hear new phrases I think that when you hear it in context again and again like it it eventually makes sense so really exposing yourself to a lot of the spoken language is also so important for this kind of work now I have a question like how do you balance between consumption right like or passive learning which is listening even though it's not really passive because you're

constantly focused on things and if you repeat it out loud then of course it's not just passive but how do you balance between um receiving the language and producing the language because I'm assuming that you would want your students to practice both it's a really great point because that ratio is generally out of bounds or out of proportion I should say for students it certainly was for me as a language learner I spent 90% of my time absorbing the language and a very small percent of the time actually using the language so I encourage my

students to use their language in every way they can uh it depends on their goal so a lot of students will use speaking as an example because that's something that most students want to improve so I encourage my students to just speak speak every day even five minutes breakfast lunch dinner before bed so that's a combination of 15 to 25 minutes as you're having a shower you can speak you don't need someone to speak to you can improve your speaking skills just by opening your mouth and speaking so definitely start doing that it might seem

a little awkward just talking to yourself but it's very beneficial big fan of this strategy yes and eventually you'll enjoy talking to yourself you'll become your own friend I talk to myself all the time and not to improve a language just because I'm so it's just something I do a lot is talk to myself so just vocalize thoughts to help me clarify or help me plan things help me think things through I just vocalize things so if you just start vocalizing and there are certain you can summarize your day you can tell uh tell yourself

what you're going to do tomorrow you can summarize a TV show you just watch you can do anything just have fun with it but of course I understand you also want to speak with other people but I think students have this idea that it's very hard to find people to speak with so if you approach it thinking oh it's too hard I'll never find someone you just probably won't put in the effort because you've already decided it's too hard but there are there's websites like Meetup to specifically help you find language Partners there's there's so

many websites just do is simple Google search ask chat GPT you'll have more than enough resources to find a speaking partner but in the meantime you can get 20 to 30 minutes a day easily by speaking to yourself and it won't take any time out because you can do it while you're showering while you're making breakfast while you're getting ready while you're doing anything I I agree and I encourage my students to do the same um and and I just want to say really because I think this is so important like to do the work

on your own speak on your own and then find the right people and we do actually have um we have a free community on Facebook called the influency community where people connect with each other and and practice and it's free like so they practice in conversation groups so really there are and I think what you're saying that people are not open to the idea of even searching because they think it's like it's going to either cost them money or it's going to be boring and no like you know there are amazing Solutions out there so

you started you kind of like mentioned something that got me excited about you said uh if you decide that it's going to be hard then you will won't you won't do the things that you need to do to get the results that you want and you're you're talking about mindset here and attitude so what would and I definitely love talking about it so I'm curious to hear from you what do you think are the biggest mindset blocks or negative thoughts or limiting beliefs that students have that you have heard and seen that you know that

if they were to overcome this type of thinking their performance or their fluency will improve as well well I'm glad you got excited about it because I I do as well because there has just been such a profound impact when you help a student with their mindset and generally it's not something that they think of when they want to improve their language they don't think they need to work on their mindset but so much of speaking a language is your mindset it's incredibly influential on your success or failure as a language learner and I just

hear a lot of defeis mindsets or or more negativity in I I read all the comments on my YouTube videos and I do quizzes quite a lot and a student will get nine out of 10 on a quiz and then and then berate themselves as as doing a terrible job and oh I can't believe I only got nine out of 10 and and it's just they go on about it and it's like nine out of 10 that's amazing you got nine right and one wrong but they focus on that one they got so easy to

focus on the negative exactly exactly and so just little things like that like I find that students in general they just they approach they see themselves as a language learner from a very negative perspective whereas I'll meet a student who is convinced that they I know you focus on accent and pronunciation so sometimes I'll meet a student and they're convinced that their accent is terrible and their pronunciation is terrible but then I listen to them and I think wow I think they sound really good I I I think they sound great but it's hard to

convince students to see themselves in a positive way or to celebrate their progress they're always focused on what they they don't know oh I just learned modal verbs but I don't know how to use the present perfect rather than celebrating learned I learned how to use the modal these modal verbs now I feel more confident with this so yeah just in general I find they're overly negative and there is this more defe as attitude oh I'll never be able to improve I'll never reach my goal I I can't do it yeah and so how do

you and and is there something specific that you do to kind of like shake them off or you just say hey look at the negative at the positive and be able to celebrate how would you help help them change that mindset first of all most of them don't even notice that they they say stuff like that they don't they're not even aware of the fact that they do approach their their progress or their English from a negative perspective so just simply making them aware of the fact that hey you you got nine right that's really

great and then sometimes they'll reply back in the com and be like yeah you're right I did get nine right so just sometimes it's just awareness yes yeah because they have this this track in their head and they're just it's so comfortable to them because it's in their own voice that they don't even hear this track in their head and then one strategy I really like doing with my students because it's 100% true is reminding them how many mistakes I make with English or I might have a conversation with someone and not hear what they

said and a native speaker and ask them to repeat themselves for whatever reason or I learn new words I realize I've been seeing a word incorrectly for 30 years and just reminding them that I don't speak the language perfectly I find that really helps them feel better about it yeah yeah definitely and also is their second or third or fourth language so it doesn't need to be perfect like it's certain that one will make mistakes if they speak in their second language and that happens in your first language as well absolutely um we like to

celebrate small wins so we kind of like get our students to always find something to celebrate so that they because you're right like people tend to berate themselves and to focus on the negative but also if you give um similar airtime to the good things and to kind of like force yourself to come up with something that you can celebrate I think um we find it also helpful in getting our students to be like okay I have these negative thoughts I'm aware of them but also there is this going on which is really important and

this is really what you do as well um the first time I came across one of your videos was on YouTube I was like searching for something else you know how there are all the suggested videos and um the first video that came up was learn English with the news and that kind of like grabbed my attention because like oh I haven't seen that yet right like I do shadowing and exercise like you have all these scenes and TV shows and like with the news I like that and then you know I watched the video

and I was like this is really really good and so helpful so tell me why you decided to have this series of videos about learning with the news why do you think it's beneficial for students and um how is their response to this type of uh content I really enjoy making these videos mainly because I see how helpful they are to my students so I really love this content I know people read the news as part of their daily routine so I wanted to take content that they're already using and turn it into something educational

but then at the same time learning about the world so I try to be very strategic about the news articles I review because I know they're also learning about the world and part of learning language is because you want to feel connected to to the world so I feel like for one the content is interesting and if you're engaged if you enjoy the process then you're going to be more likely to keep doing it so I wanted to make sure the content Choice was interesting and some people might have this view that because it's the

news it's very academic or uses very Advanced vocabulary whereas in fact that's not true the news is meant to appeal to a general audience and is written in a very natural way so the news is not academic English it's it's everyday English it's the English that we use in the real world they use phrasal verbs it Expressions they use natural style of writing as well would you say that depends on the source like would you say that for some um magazines or newspapers the language would be heightened or less conversational than other sources that's very

true it does depend on the new source for example the the New York Times is known as to be at a higher reading level and then magazines would be or uh celebrity news magazines Entertainment News would be at and even more maybe they use more colloquial language right or even bordering on slang language so there is a degree of of level uh but your your general news the ones that people think of the most in in North America at least uh would be at that that intermediate level I would say and that is your go-to

when you teach and if you were to um suggest a students to practice with the news that is what you would recommend generally yeah sometimes I will pick a a news source that is a little more academic because I know a lot of students they do they are studying for formal purposes to take their eye out or for for more academic purposes so I do try to have a variety and some more beginner news choices as well but for the most part it's it's that intermediate level and then when you you start with content that's

interesting it's everyday it's how native speakers communicate and then from that you can look at a paragraph even one sentence and you can see how the language is being used in context which is very helpful because if you see one if you study one phrasal verb that phrasal verb has five different meanings depending on how it's used but in this sentence it has one meaning because it depends on the context of the sentence and then at the same time you can study the grammar of it but you're learning grammar very naturally to help you communicate

and because I read the news it's also helpful for pronunciation whereas if a student were to read the news on their own they're they're reading it based on how they pronounce it so it might be influenced by their native language but because I read it to them they hear the sounds and the connected speech as well so I find it's a great way to focus on all areas in a engaging and educational way yeah I love that it's really interesting the news could be controversial at P like specific situation so I'm also thinking like as

a teacher you're probably doing a a lot of work in finding the right piece of content so that it wouldn't trigger people I think that's actually the hardest part because coming back to mindset and once you start to become aware of how much negativity there is and you look at the news you open it and it's just very negative and like you said there are a lot of topics that I just would not want to cover so probably the hardest part for me is finding an appropriate news article that would appeal to a wide range

of students be interesting teach them a natural speech as well so the actual teaching part for me is easy because that's my area of expertise but finding the news article is very challenging I can imagine you know as a content creator I'm like I find it really hard to find the right piece of content especially the news so this is a good opportunity to show people like the background work that a person a content creator has to do to come up with you know like what ends up being a 10 20 30 minute video but

there is so much more that goes into it and so much thought so thank you for sharing uh that absolutely uh that experience um so before we wrap up if if you had to give someone who is just starting to learn um English or they want to improve to move to a higher level what would be your best piece of advice yeah my best piece of advice is to find a method of learning that that you really enjoy because if you start with a method of learning that you enjoy it will make the process so

much easier you might watch one of my learn English with the news lessons and not enjoy it because maybe you're you don't like reading the news so in that case definitely don't use that because it will be tedious you won't want to do it you won't want to repeat it so that's just one style there are so many great teachers out there there are so many great resources out there most of them for free so first really spend the time and ask yourself what what is my learning style what approach do I really like and

then find something that matches your learning style and then commit to it commit to spending a certain amount of time whatever is realistic for your schedule how many days of week whatever is realistic for your goals or your schedule and just commit to that give it 90 days before you even ask yourself am I improving because Improvement takes time so find a method that works commit to the time and wait a minimum of 90 days to actually see your results because it takes time that's such great advice and I really resonate with what you said

about find something that makes you happy that you enjoy because I think a lot of times people when they don't like something they feel it's their problem like it's their fault they just don't get it and sometimes no it's a personal preference and style give yourself permission to actually enjoy it which is what you're saying and I love that yeah absolutely and if you if you enjoy doing something you're going to do it more so it will help you in the long run and you learn better when there is a positive emot emotion attached to

the experience of learning like your brain retains information better when you are when you enjoy it yeah absolutely absolutely so Jennifer where can people find you to um work with your content and work with you tell us everything and I'm going to also link everything in the description so tell us well I'd love to have you come over to my YouTube channel it's j Forest English and like hadara said we learn English with the news we learn English with TV shows movies and we do other fun stuff as well so come join me on J

Forest English YouTube channel amazing and we are going to have an interview on your channel Jennifer so we're going to send people there as well to go and watch it if you want to um hear me talk about pronunciation and teaching we had a great conversation so um that's it Jennifer thank you so so much for joining me today and for sharing your knowledge and um your experience it was really great talking to you and very valuable so thank you so much it was such a pleasure thank you all right thank you so much for

watching our interview all the links to Jennifer's Channel and website are in the description below if you enjoyed then share it and like it and definitely go check out her Channel have a beautiful beautiful rest of the day and I will see you next week in the next video bye