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Welcome to the Speak English Now Podcast, your resource for practicing your\\xa0English speaking\\xa0and\\xa0listening. You will also learn about lifestyle and culture, language, vocabulary, and how to learn English more effectively.

Transcript:

Hi, everybody! I am Georgiana, your English teacher and founder of\\xa0SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently.\\xa0

In this episode:

• I\\u2019ll be talking about passive listening, or in other words, listening in the background.\\xa0
• Later on, we\\u2019ll practice conversation skills with the powerful Question & Answer technique.

Ok, let\\u2019s get started!

In the language industry, there\\u2019s an approach called\\xa0passive listening. This means playing some English in the background while performing other tasks. In theory, you\\u2019re learning because the brain is always learning, no matter how.

Interesting, huh? You just need to play some English while you\\u2019re cleaning, jogging, surfing the Internet, etc.

Well, although this approach may be appealing to many of you, here\\u2019s the bad news:\\xa0It doesn\\u2019t work as a whole system for developing a complete fluency in English.

The main drawback is that when we need to learn new content, our brain needs to pay attention, to be active.

So, in an ideal world, we would be 100% focused all the time while listening: We\\u2019d pay attention to every tiny detail: vocabulary, pronunciation, intonation, etc.

However, as you may already know, idyllic things are sometimes hard to achieve. If you need perfect conditions every time you listen: for example, feeling rested, motivated, in a quiet place, then you will never start listening.

What you need is a compromise. It\\u2019s ok to lose concentration from time to time.\\xa0

Here\\u2019s my suggestion: For\\xa0new content, try to\\xa0maintain your concentration as much as possible.

However,\\xa0when you\\u2019re repeating the same content, you don\\u2019t need to focus 100% of your attention\\xa0anymore because, in this case, you\\u2019re just remembering and consolidating.

Another aspect to keep in mind: in this case, quantity is more important than quality. It means that when you listen for two hours, and you only focus on 70% of your attention, it\\u2019s still more efficient than when you\\u2019re listening for only 20 minutes, and you succeed to focus 100%.

The accumulation of hours and hours of listening, it\\u2019s what truly helps you to become fluent.

Just think about children. They\\u2019re not always focused when they listen, but they always learn.

My takeaway for today is: Try to listen as much as you can. Being focused is essential when you\\u2019re learning new content, but when you\\u2019re already familiar with the material, what matters the most, it\\u2019s the amount of time you spend listening.

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Get the full text here: SpeakEnglishPodcast.com/podcast

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