The "listenig" is a fundamental part of our learning of the English language.

Many people focus too much on "speaking" (English conversation) as they believe is most important when communicating. "Listening" (the ability to hear and understand) is equally important and should be practiced in a strategic manner.

The natural way to get started in learning any language is "listening".

Remember as you learn Spanish, our parents bought us a book and began to teach grammar rules in the crib, right? No. We started listening to our parents as we talked, listened day after day and learned patterns in context and then slowly reproduce and transform the "listening" to "speaking".

Let's see some problems that many people have to listen in English:

listen in English is something that is achieved with practice and time to accustom the ear. 

But one must know how to listen. Students have various problems when trying to practice "listening" as:

• Many new vocabulary: The problem is clear: students want to understand all the words)

• Speed​​.

• The students are trying to understand previous words.

• Problems with different accents, pronunciation and phonetics: In this globalized world, we need to know and understand different accents as American, British, or Australian. Need to also be prepared to learn to understand the accents of non-native people like the French, Japanese or Germans. many students have great difficulty in understanding the various accents and try to only focus on one but eventually can be harmful because in real life we can come up with different accents.

Tips for hearing better in English:

• listening activities "listening" the appropriate level: To practice and make the ear sensitize is better advisable to go slowly and listen to conversations on the level at which they are. Thus can practice common phrases and start preparing our ear to advance stages.

• Identify key words: Not need to understand all the words when you listen. Almost always just enough to understand the "keywords" to understand the main message.

• Logical Deductions: Deduct the context.

• Intonation and context: Listen as people make intonations. Might show surprise, displeasure or any other emotion. Hear how accented words (Word stress) as it will give them clues for you to figure out the meaning of words. Pay attention to context.

Then I will propose some activities to practice "listening" with children from Primary:

• STORIES FOR CHILDREN

It is a very good resource to practice listening. It is very important that when telling a story in English both be very expressive intonation and gestures, so that the student has to understand it more easily. It is also good that we help puppet or pictures or objects that students will get more to the story. A good idea is to put the story in a video as it is new to them and always will seem more attractive.

This is an example of history:

After playLes history we can ask what happened? Motivate them to explain it in English even with a basic vocabulary. Ask them to do a mural for groups drawing and telling the story. Repartirles a form to complete with the information gathered in the story ...

• NORMALLY SITUATION:

Another interesting activity that we can do is to put a video in which a normally situation show and after seeing what happens we have to create groups to practice the situation playing different papers.

An example is the shopping, the conversation between customer and shopkeeper in a store. It is very interesting because this happens so cuotidiana.

Another example is the restaurants, the conversation between waiter and customer in a restaurant.

• LISTEN AND REPEAT:

Another example of good activity to practice listening is listening and repeating words. This is good to accustom the ear to the pronunciation and learn new vocabulary.

Thanks for your attention, see you soon!!