I had a lot of people have asked me

said "Ronnie, how can I improve my listening?"

Uhm, I've gotten a couple of suggestions for you.

So, I'm going to teach you some tips on how to improve your listening skills.

Probably the way that you have learned listening is...

maybe you have a textbook or... a CD.

The problem with a textbook/CD is the language is not natural.

Oh see... it's so unnatural we get beeped!

They have conversations like:

"Hello, nice to meet you. My name is Ronnie. What is your name?"

"My name is Cynthia."

"Nice to meet you, Cynthia."

"This is a pen."

So, textbook English is not very natural

and they doesn't really teach you conversation or words or phrases that we would say normally day to day when we speak English,

So, to more natural things, the very first thing is: watching movies.

The really good thing about movies is: maybe you like movies and they're fun!

So, don't ever be afraid to watch a movie and tell people that you're studying in english

That's what I do!

My suggestion to you is when you watch a movie, don't go to a theater,

because they would not have what we called "subtitles".

subtitles are "Hi".

Umm... sub means under, and titles means like words.

T-I-T-L-E, oh you can spell things

Umm.. subtitles are words under the picture or over the picture,

that tell you what the actors or actresses are saying.

It would be very very difficult for you... to watch a movie with English subtitles

So my very first suggestion is when you watching a movie is to watch with your language subtitles

So the very first time, you're gonna use your native language

first time your native language subtitles

then when you understand the movie and you know what's happened,

you can change it to English subtitles,

so then you're actually seeing what the people are saying

so you're studying how they form the words, pronunciation, and you're actually learning vocabulary, too

and slang, a lot of slang!

The only bad thing about movies is that they're very long

and some of there are boring.

Movies are about an hour to hour and a half

A better thing to do when you first starting out learning English or listening is to watch TV.

TV programs are usually 20 minutes

and you can find them from all over the world.

so, if you want to listen to british english or american english

you can choose TV shows from Britain or TV shows from America

We even have Canadian TV shows.

so... TV shows I think are better than movies because they're shorter

the more time you stay in front of the television or the movie screen and have to translate stuffs

your brain's gonna get tired, and you're gonna give up, it's gonna be just too much like homework.

so, 20 minutes watching a TV show.

first with your language subtitles and then with English, will improve your listening

Once you've done this a couple times, if you really, really want to try.

you can take out the subtitles

and just listen to what the people are saying

I warn you, they do speak really really quickly.

So you have to use the subtitles first, it will help you a lot.

Um, the next one is one of my favorite things, is music

everyone loves music, don't they?

Um, when you listened to music

you have to understand that music is not grammar

music is never grammatically correct

It's absolutely crazily wrong grammar

the grammar is awful

they say things like "I ain't got no you, baby.", which is not grammar.

So, please do not listen to music and think you can learn grammar

but what you can do is you can get the lyrics.

lyrics basically mean the words to the song.

so when you have a CD or MP3 or whatever form you use, a record

look on the internet and get the lyrics to the song, print them out or watch them on the screen

and listen with the music and listen to the words

This again will help you listening AND you can dance if you want to

if you don't want to, don't dance, it's up to you

Um, so lyrics are very important when you listen to them

And the last thing you can do to improve your listening is... go out!

Do not stay at home.

If you live in a country where people do not speak English,

You can't really listen to English outside of your house,

but if you have come to Canada or English-speaking country and you're a student studying,

please don't just stay at home and watch TV. Go out!

Go to the mall, go to the store, listen to people talking, go for a walk in the park,

follow people around, stock people, hide behind the trees, see what they're saying.

It's really important to one skill that you will learn is listening.

It's very much as well as subconscious thing when you're out in the environment,

when you're in the world people are all speaking English,

you will pick it up and it will be easier for you to learn because it's always around you.

If you live in the big city like Toronto,

it's a little bit harder because not everyone speaks English all the time.

When I go on the subway, if I have to go on the subway,

I noticed that a lot of people are not speaking English.

But any store, or any shop or shopping mall, or service center that you go to,

they will speak English, and they will have conversation with you.

Um, it's their job, they have to.

You can go on bother people in clothing stores, or just listen to what other people are saying around you.

So, to improve your listening, go out! Do things!

Make friends, if you can, with people who speak English.

I live in Toronto and a lot of people do not talk to each other. I don't know why.

Even if I'm on the subway, people don't really talk to each other.

It's really sad, but what you can do is if two people are talking, you can listen to what they're saying.

Um, it's hard to make friend in the big city,

but if you go to an ESL school in Toronto, makes friends with people who are not from your country.

Your English will improve a lot.

If you have any suggestion on how to improve your listening,

or if you like more help, e-mail us, engVid.com, bye!