Language Listening Strategy

Hi there Steve Kaufmann here again to talk about language learning and today I'm gonna talk about call it the strategy of listening or the strategic nature of listening from a number of different perspectives.

And these are a number of thoughts that have been kind of going through my mind as I continue listening to my Arabic and Persian

You know learning a language is a long distance run so we have to have a strategy there are might be sort of short-term tactics but you have to have a strategy for the long haul.

And to me the most strategic thing we do is listen listening and listening comprehension is at the core of everything when I read in another language I have to hear the language I have to be able to subvocalize this is particularly true when I read in languages like Arabic and Persian where at least as yet to me

it's not immediately obvious how the words are pronounced it was certainly too true when I was learning Chinese I had to have a sort of a level of listening comprehension

I have to hear the words in order to be able to read them and the reading activity or the activity that I do reading on my iPad using LingQ to acquire words is all sort of a tactic to aid in my main strategy and my main strategic goal which is to achieve a high level of listening comprehension

but of course I'm able to retain the words better if I read them if I see them and then I hear them so I need the reading in order to make the listening comprehensible and sometimes people ask for how do you start listening if you don't know anything well that's one of the magic moments in language learning by doing the mini stories for example a lot of material with a lot of repetition and a lot of basic you know high-frequency verbs you know languages like for me was the case with Turkish and Persian and Arabic and Greek which are just noise through relative listening they start to have meaning and so you get a toehold but once you're through the holes and I'd listen to my sixty many stories in Persian Arabic and so forth thirty forty fifty times

I can't continue listening to them even though I I still have little areas where I've forgotten worse I got a move on so then strategically I move on to in the case of Arabic podcast from mostly cause bad cut and in the case of Persian to the far door podcasts that are put out by the Radio Free Europe people but there it's difficult however I noticed just by listening I understand more and more not just by listening

Because I also invest the time in reading and listening and saving words so that now the promise that Kat podcasts have fifteen to twenty percent unknown words whereas it used to be forty percent so even though probably I'm I don't speak that much better I understand more I notice more words that I know when I'm listening and so and so it's all focused on this this sort of listening comprehension one of the things that I've started doing and which I want to mention and get some reaction from people is on the Persian

I was able to find people in Iran in my case an

Iranian person who's been traveling in

India to create these stories where they

talk about themselves whatever they're

doing things that interest them what

they've done in life what they study and

so that you're five minutes long seven

minutes long they speak them first then

they transcribe them we have these in

Persian it's called the Iranians and

it's quite interesting there's I think

sixteen or seventeen stories but then I

had them convicted as one collaborator

creates stories excuse me create

questions the way we do for the many

stories now I always against being asked

questions about things that I have read

or listened to that is if I am asked to

try to remember and say in my own words

what happened in the story however I

think it's tremendously

official to be asked to be told the

answer then ask the question and then

get the answer again so for example if

the story is about you know Sahara who

travels in India and visited a yoga

clinic is something that the statement

might be Sarah spent five days in the

yoga clinic in Pune that's the statement

the question is did Sarah spend ten days

in the yoga clinic in Pune and then the

answer is no Sarah didn't spend ten days

she spent five days so I don't to think

of anything I don't have to remember

anything

the answer is there but I have to answer

either yes or no or when or where or how

type of questions where the answers are

largely there so it's it's kind of

exposure and these are tremendous

because you're really able to focus in

on that particular bit of vocabulary so

now I'm thinking with the falsified cat

like originally when I had these stories

done I hadn't thought of adding these

questions to them now that I've asked

SAR not to do the questions and answers

and I find it very beneficial now I'm

thinking it would be an interesting

experiment I don't know if there are

Arabic speakers out there that would be

interested in helping me on this where

you take I say a constant cat podcast

which might be about the situation in

Palestine or in Libya or the different

things that elections in Algeria

whatever they're talking about are in

France bad kept in Arabic and come up

with ten statements okay

recently in you know the reaction to the

Trump so-called deal of the century in

the Arab world has been mostly negative

that's a statement now the question is

has the reaction to the Trump deal of

the century and to solve the

israeli-palestinian conflict being well

received received in the Arab world as a

question the answer no it has not been

well-received it has largely not been

well received

so that then is taking something that

was said in the podcast turning it into

a statement question answer and having

10 of these or 20 for that matter

because some of these podcasts are quite

long and some of these I got to be very

careful with these Arabic podcast

discussions because if there are three

or four people they're guaranteed

they're all gonna be talking at the same

time and it's very difficult to hear

what they're saying

I gotta get full marks to the

transcriber who is able to sort out

who's saying what so it's best if

there's only two because then at least

you know you have a better chance of

having only one person talking at once

but that's okay so the point is there's

again a strategy visa be improving

my listening comprehension and

so I'm gonna be doing more of that you'll be able to find

these at length of course and

we have one person who is helping us on

the Persian if I'm gonna have to try

and look for someone who can do the same on the Arabic

and I want to experiment

going into my podcasts which are largely

on political subjects and

then extracting say ten statements with

the corresponding question and then

the corresponding answer and all of this is to build up

my listening comprehension

so that and so ultimately for me okay

the goal in learning a language is to

speak obviously but I know from

experience that if I understand well if

I understand these political podcasts

if I understand movies like my wife wife is watching

this the resurrection Turkish

serial on Netflix and I've kind of

dropped my Turkish but

if I can understand everything they were saying

I will be able to speak I may speak poorly

at first but very quickly I will catch up

because all of that passive

vocabulary all of that solid listening

comprehension capability will activate

so that strategically the goal of

language meaning of seven support and

they should do it in schools as well

should be comprehension listening

comprehension and the speaking ability

will come with the need or

the opportunity as long as the person is

willing to

go for it and not worry about making

mistakes so there you have it

the strategic importance of listening as a

sort of the key element the key

strategic goal of 30 of my language

learning and some discussion about

the use of these statement question-answer

techniques in order to make you know

these things that I'm listening to that

are now kind of a little difficult for

me as I go from the many stories to you

know genuine authentic content that a way

to make those more comprehensible is

to create these you know statement

question answer you know bits of content

where you're gonna get

more repetition of some of the key okay

so that's kind of what was running

through my mind I am going to be

pursuing this idea I'm getting these

statements legend answers attached to

some of the podcasts that we have in

our library at length and yeah thank you and

I look forward to your comments

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