In earlier blog posts I wrote about the importance of listening in language learning. I wrote about why listening is important in language learning, the value of listening to authentic material, and the benefits of listening to conversations as opposed to monologues.
In Episode 7 of the podcast, Nick and Wendy talked about their experience seeing gorillas in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). To accompany that episode, Nick has republished a blog post that he wrote at the time, describing the trip in more detail.
In the first two posts of this blog series, I wrote about the importance of listening in language learning, and the importance of listening to authentic material. But what exactly is authentic material? There are numerous audio texts that can be considered authentic material, but not all of them take the same form, or help you in the same way.
In my last blog post, I discussed why listening is important in language learning. It’s clear that being a regular and active listener in your target language can significantly improve not just your listening skills, but your speaking skills too. But not all listening is created equal.
A quick question to begin with: what do you think is the most common form of communication – speaking, listening, reading or writing? You might think that the correct answer is speaking, but it isn’t – it’s listening.