Professor Hu Min talks about listening skill

I'm going to tell you about the specific skills required to improve your listening comprehension. (1)

At a beginner level, it is of course impossible to understand every word that is being spoken, so I recommend that a beginner should try to listen for the gist (2) of what is being said. The gist is the general meaning or sense of something. (6) The easiest way to improve is to practise listening for the stressed words in a sentence (7) because these are the words that carry the weight of meaning.

At an advanced level, students should be able to understand almost every word. They should not only understand the main ideas but also the specific details. You will of course come across words that you don't understand, but you should try to understand the words from the context, (3) which is what native speakers do.

At an intermediate level, (4) that is between beginner and advanced, you should be doing a mixture of the two, (8) but you will be even more dependent on context. If you want to practise on your own, you can listen to language cassettes, radio and TV broadcasts in English, or better still find a language exchange partner, (9) which doesn't have to be a native speaker. (5) Don't choose language cassettes that are too easy (10) or you won't improve. It should be just a little difficult so you are forced to listen carefully.