[General] How much we should concentrate on listening everyday?

[Lumia625]

Hello,

It's a challenging question for me and I really don't know how much I should focus on listening everyday? (30 min, 1 hour, ... how?)

I usually study a lot and try to memories vocabulary. I know many academic and formal vocabulary but they are in my passive mind and I can't use them during speaking.

I want to focus more on listening but I don't know how much I should spend time on it.

Would you please help me with this tough question?

Thank you in advance,

 

[emsr2d2]

Hello,

It's a challenging question for me and I really don't know how much I should focus on listening [STRIKE]everyday?[/STRIKE] every day. (30 min, 1 hour or how long?)

I usually study a lot and try to [STRIKE]memories[/STRIKE] memorise vocabulary. I know [STRIKE]many[/STRIKE] a lot of academic and formal vocabulary but [STRIKE]they are[/STRIKE] it is in my passive mind (I don't know what you mean by this) and I can't use [STRIKE]them[/STRIKE] it during speaking.

I want to focus more on listening but I don't know how much time I should spend [STRIKE]time[/STRIKE] on it.

Would you please help me with this tough question?

Thank you in advance.

There is no "right" answer to that question. If your grammar and vocabulary are pretty good, then listening to English-speaking radio/TV/talks is a great idea. I generally recommend to my students that they spend an equal amount of time on each area of study - reading, watching, listening, grammar and vocabulary.

See my amendments above, marked in red.

 

[Lumia625]

I know many a lot of academic and formal vocabulary but they are it is in my passive mind (I don't know what you mean by this) and I can't use them it during speaking.

It Is said that human beings' brain has constituted from two parts. Some of the vocabulary we learn, will be stored in our passive mind. It means you can just use them when you are reading something. You cannot use them directly during speaking or writing.

On the other hand, we have got active mind which means that we can use some vocabulary in our speaking or writing.

 

[Tdol]

That's fairly normal among native speakers, who routinely have a largely receptive than productive vocabulary.

 

[BobK]

It Is said that human beings' brain has constituted from two parts. Some of the vocabulary we learn, will be stored in our passive mind. It means you can just use them when you are reading something. You cannot use them directly during speaking or writing.

On the other hand, we have got active mind which means that we can use some vocabulary in our speaking or writing.

I've often heard this sort of distinction (active versus passive) with respect to learning or knowledge or understanding , but the collocation 'active mind' is one I haven't met, except in contexts such as those picked up by this COCA search - not referring to different aspects of the mind, but to an active mind (that is, one that is active); COCA records no instances of "passive mind".

On the other hand both BNC and COCA have a few cases of "active vocabulary".

b

PS I'm pretty sure Ems understands "active/passive vocabulary"; language teachers can't not have met the idea; it was the "active/passive mind" that sounded odd; the collocation is wrong.

 

[Tdol]

When I was living in Cambodia, my productive vocabulary and skills outweighed my passive ones, which is unusual for a classroom, but as most of my conversations with locals were simple transactions, I learned to say more than I could hear.

 

[J&K Tutoring]

Communicating in any language is in four parts; roughly listed below in order of difficulty starting with the easiest:

Writing: You use the words you know at the pace you feel comfortable. You can go back and edit easily.

Reading: You absorb the words at your own pace and you can look up the meaning of words you don't know.

Speaking: Again, you use the words you know. Hard to practice, as you need a listener to provide feedback.

Listening: The most difficult because you have no control over the choice of words or the pace unless you are listening directly to the speaker and can ask them to slow down and/or clarify what you don't understand.

For this reason, it's good to spend more time listening- as much as you can spare, and as many different sources as you can find. Don't do all your listening from one place- accents vary a lot from place to place. Here's something you might try: ~http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/ I am in China, and I can reach this site.

It's two pretty everday American guys podcasting about some interesting subjects. They get some things wrong, but generally the information is useful, it's in small chunks, they don't talk too fast, and it's not overly technical.

 

[Lumia625]

Writing: You use the words you know at the pace you feel comfortable. You can go back and edit easily.

Easily? each time that I write something a native English speaker tells me that say in this way, you sentence is ungrammatical.

Reading: You absorb the words at your own pace and you can look up the meaning of words you don't know.

Well, you should have put "reading" first in the hierarchy of requirement skills for communicating.

Speaking: Again, you use the words you know. Hard to practice, as you need a listener to provide feedback.

I have got nobody :-(

Listening: The most difficult because you have no control over the choice of words or the pace unless you are listening directly to the speaker and can ask them to slow down and/or clarify what you don't understand.

1 year ago I promised myself to listen English podcasts or movies everyday (along subtitle) but believe it that when I hide subtitle I cannot understand many part of English movies. Some English. The problem is that some English podcasts are so easy and some are too hard.

For this reason, it's good to spend more time listening- as much as you can spare, and as many different sources as you can find. Don't do all your listening from one place- accents vary a lot from place to place. Here's something you might try: ~http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/ I am in China, and I can reach this site.

It's two pretty everday American guys podcasting about some interesting subjects. They get some things wrong, but generally the information is useful, it's in small chunks, they don't talk too fast, and it's not overly technical.

Thank you :hi:

 

[Tdol]

Can you reach this site? It has lots of listening stuff:

http://elllo.org/

 

[Lumia625]

Can you reach this site? It has lots of listening stuff:

http://elllo.org/

I can but just a few of their podcasts are played for me.

 

[Tdol]

It works for me.