Are you looking for advice on how to improve your listening skills?
Struggling to understand native English speakers? You’re not alone. Improving your English listening comprehension is one of the biggest challenges for language learners, but with the right strategies, you can make rapid progress.
The key is combining different types of practice: extensive listening (podcasts, TV, conversations) with intensive practice that trains your ears word-by-word. Here are 9 expert-tested methods to transform your listening skills and understand natural English with confidence.
#1: Use your ‘dead time’ to practise listening.
Our days are filled with periods of time when we are kind of busy, but we’re doing things that don’t require our full focus. We sometimes call this dead time in English.
- Walking to work?
- Stuck on a bus?
- Doing some exercise?
- Cooking?
- Can’t sleep?
These are all examples of dead time that you can easily fill with some English listening practice. Listening is different to the other skills, because it is very easy to practice passively.
Of course, sometimes it is important to focus and listen more actively, but it is also very useful to listen to English while you’re doing other things.
Take advantage of these opportunities – the more English you expose yourself to, the better.
#2: Vary your listening
Ask yourself this question: how varied is the material that you listen to in English?
Of course, it’s good to listen to things that you are interested in, but it is also important to listen to a very wide variety of things:
- Different topics: sport, food, politics, travel and so on. Listening to material on a variety of subjects will expose you to a wider range of vocabulary. Here’s a good list of podcasts organised by topic.
- Different people. No one speaks in exactly the same way – if you always listen to the same person (e.g. your English teacher or your favourite podcaster) then you will probably get very good at understanding them. However, you might get a shock when you have to communicate with and understand someone else in the real world!
- Different accents. There are so many different accents that you could encounter when speaking English. Listening to a variety of accents will help you to adapt more easily when you come across a new one. The exercises on MicroEnglish will expose you to a variety of English accents, and the International Dialects of English Archive is a fantastic resource for more in depth practice.
- Different ages. People from different generations often speak in different ways and with different vocabulary – as with accents, this is something you can prepare yourself for.
The basic message is: don’t always listen to the same kind of thing, or the same people. If you do this, then you will find it hard to adapt to and understand new people or unfamiliar situations (which is often when you need your English skills the most).
#3: Eavesdrop on English conversations
If you are living in an English speaking country, then you are surrounded by English. Make the most of this fact, and secretly listen to the conversations that are happening all around you.
What is the man behind you in the queue saying on the phone? What are the couple at the back of the bus arguing about? What is the child in the park asking her mother for?
You might find this a little strange to begin with, but remind yourself that you are only doing it for academic reasons!
Notice interesting language, grammatical structures, pronunciation features, things that don’t make sense. If you can, make a note of them and do some research later on.
#4: Listen to authentic, spontaneous English (not just Netflix)
When I ask students how they practise their listening, a very common answer (maybe the only answer!) is that they watch a lot of TV in English.
That’s fine (sometimes), but it is important to be aware that the language in films and TV programs, as well as things like the news or documentaries, is not very authentic or natural because it is often scripted. The English that you hear on TV programs and films is too perfect.
Conversational English is a lot more challenging because it is spontaneous.
People make mistakes, start sentences and then abandon them, use strange pronunciations, and so on. On top of this, spoken English tends to be faster, and people talk over each other (which means that they talk at the same time).
Obviously this is much harder to understand, but you have to practise this if you want to get better at understanding people in the real world.
So, try and find examples of spontaneous, conversational English to listen to – these could be debates and discussion programmes (e.g. panel shows), informal interviews, conversational podcasts, etc. Podcasts are often quite relaxed and conversational, so they can be a great resource for practising this kind of English.
If you’re looking for a recommendation for a conversational podcast, you could start with either The Adam Buxton Podcast or Table Manners.
#5: Watch out for subtitle addiction
You might not like hearing this, but you should avoid using the subtitles too much if you are watching TV or a film.
If you use subtitles, two things might start happening. Firstly, you can accidentally end up practising your reading instead of your listening (without realising it!).
Secondly, you can become dependent on subtitles, which means you won’t develop vital skills like guessing words from context.
Having said that, subtitles can still be a useful resource. Try watching a few minutes of a TV programme or film without the subtitles to see how much you can understand, and then watch the same section again with subtitles to check your understanding. It might ruin your enjoyment of the programme, but is a useful exercise!
#6: Focus on vocabulary if you want to survive
If you’re finding it difficult to follow what someone is saying, then this strategy can be very useful. The best way of following the main idea of what someone is saying is to focus on the vocabulary they use, rather than the grammar.
English speakers tend to stress vocabulary words but not grammar words (e.g. he DECIDED to HAVE a BATH). If you develop your ability to focus on stressed words in a sentence, then you will get better at understanding the main idea of what someone is saying.
Imagine a colleague comes up to you on Monday and asks you: “What did you do at the weekend?”. If you only understood one word of this sentence, which one would be the most useful?
If you think about it, ‘weekend’ is the only word you need to get a pretty good understanding of what you are being asked. Of course, understanding only one word is not ideal, but it can allow you to survive and continue the conversation.
#7: Do regular intensive listening
When students practise their listening, they usually do extensive listening – this is when you listen to long pieces of English (like a TV programme or a podcast) and aim to understand and follow the main idea of what is being said.
Doing this is important, just like it is important to read a lot.
However, you should also do regular intensive listening. This is a very different kind of listening practice, which involves listening to short sections of English, and trying to understand every single word of what someone is saying.
This kind of listening will help you develop the skills you need to be a better listener in real life, and will also help you identify the problems you have which stop you understanding people.
Think of this kind of listening as like exercise for your ears. When you do 20-30 minutes of intensive listening a day, it’s like your ears are going to the gym. This ‘exercise’ will make you a stronger listener when you need to use this important skill in real life.
This is exactly why I created MicroEnglish. The dictation exercises provide intensive listening practice that trains your ears to decode rapid, natural English word-by-word. Each exercise includes instant feedback, helping you identify exactly where your listening breaks down.
Unlike passive listening to podcasts or TV, dictation exercises actively develop your bottom-up processing skills – the foundation of true listening comprehension. Combined with the extensive listening you’re already doing, this intensive practice will rapidly accelerate your progress.
If you’re new to MicroEnglish, you can try a free exercise here.
#8: Learn about connected speech patterns
One of the main reasons native English is hard to understand is connected speech – this is when words blend together in natural conversation, making them sound very different from how they look written down.
For example:
- “Did you eat?” often sounds like “Jeet?”
- “Going to” becomes “gonna”
- “Want to” becomes “wanna”
- “What are you” becomes “wachya”
Understanding these patterns is crucial for decoding fast speech. When you practice dictation exercises, pay attention to how words connect and change. You’ll start recognizing these patterns, making natural speech much easier to follow.
When you struggle to understand a phrase, replay it several times and notice how the sounds blend together. This awareness is the first step to mastering connected speech.
#9: Use transcripts strategically (but not as a crutch)
Transcripts can be incredibly useful learning tools if they are used correctly. The key is to use them for learning, not to avoid the challenge of listening.
Here’s an effective strategy:
- Listen first without the transcript – Try to understand as much as possible
- Listen a second time – Fill in gaps in your understanding
- Check the transcript – See what you missed and why
- Listen again with the transcript – Follow along to train your ears
- Final listen without the transcript – Check your improved understanding
This method helps you identify your weak points. Did you miss a word because you didn’t know it? Because it was pronounced differently than expected? Because of connected speech? Understanding why you didn’t catch something is vital for improvement.
On MicroEnglish, this process is built into every dictation exercise – you type what you hear, get instant feedback on each word, and can replay as needed. This systematic approach develops the decoding skills you need for real-world listening.
Start Practicing Today: Your Action Plan
Understanding natural English takes consistent practice, but these strategies will accelerate your progress significantly. The most important thing is to combine different types of practice:
- Extensive listening (podcasts, TV, conversations) – for exposure and context
- Intensive listening (dictation, detailed analysis) – for developing decoding skills
- Varied practice (different accents, topics, speakers) – for adaptability
Keep going, and you’ll see the improvements. Good luck!
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