Listening Practice IV

Hello, guys! Today I wanna share my exercises again to you.

First, I watched video from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nAnT3PASak and I feel excited with it. Because in that video, we can see the huge difference between American English and British English. It's quite difficult for me because I always use American English than British. However, some important things that I can learn from this video is about the word 'r' and 't'. In American English, the pronunciation of letter 'r' is clear, not like British English. We can compare it with oxford dictionary. You can see the difference. Like another. In American English that word we should say it clear for the 'r', it's totally different with British without 'r' clearly.

 It's same with letter 't'. The huge difference you can see if we try to say it together. For the example, we want to say matter. In American we don't have to say with 't' but 'd' pronunciation. In British there are no changes.

This is very interesting. As English Student, I know it's important. We should pay attention to the word, and we can start to use British one because our direction is Oxford, it is based on British English, not American English.

                   
Second, I've practiced from http://www.esl-lab.com/. I listened two recordings. 

The first recording is First Date. In this conversation I got the point, the daughter asked to her father to have a date, but the father never know if her daughter has a guy. I got 80% on the score. I know it's shame, because it is an easy level. How about the medium? I chose Haven't We Met Before?. The man and the woman makes a conversation. The man thought he ever met with that woman, so he felt curious and asking the questions. Unfortunately, the woman doesn't feel interested with that man. It proves from the last conversation, she said 'perhaps' when the man asked her to come along with him. I got 80% again because one answer was incorrect.

Listening Practice III (Video)

Good morning everyone! :)
I did the exercise from http://www.esl-lab.com/videoclips.htm. You know, I wanna challenge myself because of that I tried some exercises with video.

First, I listened the video under the title Dinner Time. In this video Randall said about his family and him spent dinner time for keeping the family relationship, also told us his meals during dinner. I love how he speaks actually, his accent is so great and very native speaker. I got 100 in final score.

Second, I listened Food Storage. Randall gave the information how the American usually prepare their foods in emergency case. He told that people usually save the food in a room-fruit room (actually not all the food is fruit item). And then they should save the food that they like to eat. Don't forget about the water filter and cooking stove. My score is 100 again.

Third, the title is Garden Vegetables. He said in his video, he liked to make a garden because it's not expensive as we buy in market and the vegetables more fresh than if we buy it. And let guess, I got 100 again!

Listening Practice II

Hello! I'm back :)

            For right now I want to share my score on the listening practice through the web : http://www.esl-lab.com/

I did the three stages : easy, medium, and hard.

              For the easy I tried listen under the title Christmas is Coming!

The medium is Baking Cookies and the hard is School Report

           I won't to explain it deeply but I just want to share the comparison between those three stages of listening section.

           The easy stage of course easy to listen and understand, the topic is not difficult too. The verb, noun, also the grammatical are not implied, we can catch it easily without spare our time to thinking about.

How about the medium and hard? It's very difficult because I just got lower scores than the easy. We should be focus and give our attention full to the speakers. We can not guess (if we get the lucky, it's okay) but if we just try to guess and no struggle to understand it, we will face the harder problem in TOEFL later. 

           I chose the baking cookies and school report because the title sounds interesting for me but it's not easy to listen it carefully. Both of them I got 40% and 60% in the answer sheets. That's very embarrassing if I remember my status here as the English Department's student.

            You know, I need more practice and try to catch the idea from the speakers.

Listening Practice - The Strategies

            When you listen something fast in English, what do you catch? You catch the point or you will be frustrated because you don’t understand it. For Indonesian, it’s a common problem because we use English just for the foreign language, not as the second language. Honestly, I have a difficulty in listening comprehension too, but I have some strategies to solve it.

            First, you should make usual your habit. Make sure you always watch the movie, series, or listening western music. I can beat you, you will be more fast to understand what the native speakers say about. But you have not to see translate. This is the simply tricks, everybody who want to fluent in listening will try this way first.

            Second, you can buy a book or learn it by yourself. If the first trick is not success, you can try to learning deeply. As we know, the technology is increase during several years. If you don’t have a time to buy a book, you can search through the internet to access web education. Trust yourself, you can learn it. This is will be more good if you combine the first way and this way.

            Third, the last trick is asking the person who expert in the English subject, especially for listening section. If some lesson we can not understand, as the example you will hear some questions with implied answers. It is so difficult, if we are not usual to listening fast conversations. You need a help, maybe you can ask your teacher, friends, or your trainer.  

            My conclusion is there is no achievement if we never do something well. Like the first step, we need to change our habit, make sure our ears can listen all about western’s voice easily. I know those three tricks are so easy and general, but I want to emphasize to you. English is not easy as the people usual think about. This is more confusing than math or chemistry. You should learn and learn, until you master on it. I hope all the English’s students can be more practice and trying to master it, not only listening but all the types of English subject.

Intermediate Listening Practice

Randall's ESL Cyber Listening
That is a link to go to website which provide some listening exercises for us.
I heard some recorders :

Answering machine = easy to be understand it. My score is 80%. It means I could catch what speaker said even though I need three times repetition.

Student’s credit card = a little bit hard to understand because the speakers always use implied meanings in conversation. I got 40% in the exercise.

A university degree = It’s easier than the medium because I got 100% my answer is true. Because I could understand the topic, it’s totally different than the medium one. The expression also the intonation of the speakers were really great, I like it. So, it’s easy for me.

I also watch and listen to the video : http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=www.esl-lab.com 

 

1.      Animal care in public = Randall wants everyone to take their animals to a park with three things :

-     Take a wish, make sure you can control your animals because sometimes soldiers scare the animals.

-          Take a plastic bag because if the animals poop you should pick it back.

-          Make sure you know the temper of the animals.

It’s quite easy but some words are not familiar for me.

2.      Drivers with disabilities = The disabilities can walk in 100 meters but they should make sure that they are in health condition, and require wheel chair in their around. If the normal (not in disabilities) park illegally in that spot’s disabilities, they should pay 125 dollars, when the normal just 15 dollars.

My opinion is this is hard one because many words those I couldn’t know.

3.      A unique educational experiences = In Junior High School or Senior High School there is a parenthood class which the students are assigned an electric baby, it looks like a regular doll. And it will cry every three hours. They should carry it at home. The purposes are challenges to t age (I don’t know how to spell it) pregnancy and the responsibility being the parents.

I think this is an interested topic, but I couldn’t understand some words. 

 Last, I heard a voice from : http://www.gistguide.com/guide/listenings/listenings.php

VOA Special English Half Report

The topic is about hard diseases. The facts say that the victims more women than the men. In a year there are 500 women killed, like heart attack. The heart experts say that high cholesterol, high blood pressure, being overweight, smoking are the cause of hard diseases.

Honestly I don’t like so much with the topic because it’s hard to understand for me. But in fact this is very useful to inform everybody that women usually can get hard disease than the men. All the people should aware with this.