Don’t know why I didn’t think to do this before as I’ve known about the
Listening Labs site for a long time. It has many simple conversations between two people rated as easy, medium, and hard. Each conversation has audio, a script, and a quiz. This is the process I’ve been following:
1. Listen to audio with no help.
2. Read quiz while listening to audio, which provides conversation cues.
3. Answer quiz.
4. Read script while listening to audio.
5. Listen to another audio.
6. Repeat steps 1 – 4 for a couple of more scenarios.
7. Listen to previously reviewed audio to see how much I remember / grasp.
It’s a simple process taking as little as five minutes making it possible
for me to fit it into my overwhelming schedule. It also gives me a nice
break from computer work when my eyes get tired. The best part is when I do catch words and sometimes sentences in the first step. Sometimes, however, when I think I catch a phrase isn’t so. For example, I thought I heard, “watch TV and talking on the cell phone.”
It was actually, “watch TV and talk until 10 o’clock.” I listened to it again and it still sounds like ‘cell phone’ even knowing it’s ’10 o’clock.’
The script with a 5-year-old girl gave me a headache. Her voice sounded
whiny. Hmm, I have a 5-year-old, could that be why I’m dizzy all the time? 🙂