Listening is one of the IELTS test skills which requires a lot of practice. This is one of the most critical parts of both IELTS and TOEFL tests, in which the candidate’s listening, comprehension, and analytical ability are measured. There are many ways to enhance listening, and one of them is listening to different podcasts. But why is it important? And what are the benefits? In the following, we will answer these questions. So join us.
1. Improve and enlarge your vocabulary
Knowledge of Vocabulary is one of the basic principles of language learning, and the more you expand your vocabulary, the more successful you will be in answering listening questions. But why do we say listening to a podcast expands the vocabulary? Words are tough to memorize, and forgetting them engages many people’s minds. But one of the best ways to remember these words is to listen to the podcast. Because different podcasts tell different stories, you can learn how to use words in other sentences and memorize them easily.
The number of new words you learn in each podcast is vast, and by memorizing each of them, you are one step closer to passing the IELTS listening test. Because you are no stranger to the new words that you see in the texts of the listening test, this makes it easy to understand the question and answer it correctly.
2. Increases your listening understanding
One great way to practice and improve your listening skills is listening to podcasts with their original subtitles. In this way, you can simulate the test conditions for yourself. When listening to a podcast, try to read the original text simultaneously. Do not worry if you lag behind the text and your speed is slow. With practice and repetition, you can synchronize your rate with the podcast and, in addition, understand the concepts.
By doing this, your listening comprehension will increase, and in the IELTS test, you will be able to easily listen to the text of the question, understand it and answer the questions correctly.
3. You will get acquainted with the pronunciation of words and accents
As you know, in the IELTS speaking test, the tape that is played may have different accents. So if you are not familiar with it, you will not understand the text. You may also know many words, but you have learned them by reading from books and other reading resources and do not know their correct pronunciation. In this case, you will not notice those words on the test day because you have not heard them and are not familiar with their pronunciation.
To avoid this, you can listen to different podcasts with different accents to get acquainted with all the dialects and recognize them on the day of the exam.
On the other hand, by listening to various podcasts, you can hear and learn the correct pronunciation of the words. Also, you can answer the questions on exam day by understanding them correctly.
Conclusion
There are many ways to enhance listening, and listening to a podcast is one of the most important. To get started and avoid boredom, choose podcasts that interest you. Also, try to have these podcasts at your language level to understand the implications.
Don’t forget that you only get results if you persevere and continue to do so until you become familiar with most of the accents and words and your auditory comprehension is significantly enhanced.