Learning English

"I'm scared, scared when I don't understand the other people.” - Paola

"It's really hard to understand British accent. Like when I ate dinner with my family, I couldn't understand their speaking, and they couldn't understand my speaking." – Gyuri

All episodes 
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Watch Georgie's video about listening

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Introduction

When we think about language anxiety, we often think about the fear of speaking, but that's only one part of a conversation. We also have to listen. Learn from experts about this topic and get tips on how to improve your listening skills, and what to do when you can’t understand the person you’re speaking to.

With Erhan Aslan, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Reading.

Reflect 

Discuss in pairs/groups or make self-reflections.

Before listening: 

• Do you ever feel nervous when you don’t understand someone speaking English? What do you do when this happens?
• What kind of English accents are easiest for you to understand? Which are hardest? Why?

After listening: 

• What strategies help you when you don’t understand something in your first language? Can you use the same strategies in English?
• What do you like watching or listening to in your first language? Could you do that in English? For example, listening to podcasts, watching movies, watching talk shows.

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Vocabulary 

sort (something) out
fix something

proficiency
how good someone is at something

accumulate 
collect a large number or amount of something over time  

be exposed to (something)
come into contact with something  

talk/chat show
a TV or radio show where famous guests are interviewed

hesitation
the act of pausing before saying or doing something   

native language 
the first language(s) someone learns during childhood

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Transcript 

Georgie
Do you struggle to understand people when you're having a conversation in English?

Paola, Italy
I'm scared, scared when I don't understand the other people.

Gyuri, South Korea
It's really hard to understand British accent. Like when I ate dinner with my family, I couldn't understand their speaking, and they couldn't understand my speaking.

Lenka
You have to understand that it's about communication. It doesn't matter how many times, times you ask how many times you don't understand it.

Hanan
When we think about language anxiety, we often think about the fear of speaking, but that's only one part of a conversation. We also have to listen.

Georgie
In today's episode of Beating Speaking Anxiety, we'll look at what to do when you don't understand the other person.
Hello and welcome to Beating Speaking Anxiety. In this podcast, we help you understand speaking anxiety and fight your fears of speaking English. I'm Georgie, an English teacher and presenter at BBC Learning English.

Hanan
And I am Hanan, a bilingual correspondent for BBC Arabic and presenter of the Arabic educational series, Dars.

Georgie
Find a transcript for this episode to read along on our website bbclearningenglish.com.

So we heard from some learners at the start of the programme about the difficulty they have understanding English speakers, particularly native English speakers. And it's a very common problem.

Hanan
Yes, let's hear from Lenka. Lenka is now an English teacher in the UK, but she's also experienced difficulty understanding people in the past.

Lenka
English is not my first language, so I learned English at school. I started when I was young, but I didn't travel until much later. So first time I actually went abroad and it was London and no one speaks slowly, no one takes any notice, so that was a shock – how much different language is in the classroom to the real world.

Georgie
The English Lenka learned in the classroom wasn't very helpful in real life situations. And when you're travelling in a foreign country, that is really stressful, especially when things go wrong.

Lenka
I almost wanted to cry because we went into the airport with the connecting flight, so trying to sort it out, didn't really understand what they were saying. So I was shocked really, because I thought I was good at English, but I couldn't actually communicate.

Hanan
I completely understand what Lenka is saying about trying to understand people in London. When I first moved here, I found it really difficult because, you know, the day-to-day language is fairly different from what I'd learned at school. So, for example, when I meet someone, I know the first thing I say, 'How are you?' Or maybe 'What's up?' as I used to hear in American movies. But after moving to London, I'd run into a colleague and they'd say, 'You alright?' and in my head I'm like, 'I'm fine, what's wrong?' Also, natives speak so fast. So sometimes I had to guess what they were saying. If I was waiting to check out at a shop, for example, I remember, especially if I was returning or exchanging an item, there were times I'd just catch one word and tried to guess what they were saying. And I'm not going to tell you how many times my guess was actually wrong.

Georgie
Yeah, that can be really stressful. And even if you feel confident in your English and you can speak well, if you can't understand what the other person is saying, it's really difficult to do anything. Like with Lenka, she missed her flight at the airport, and she couldn't understand the staff to try and sort the problem out.

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Watch an explainer video

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Hanan
To understand more about the difficulty lots of learners have understanding English in these real-life situations. We spoke to Erhan Aslan, associate professor of applied linguistics at the University of Reading.

Erhan
When a student doesn't have enough English language proficiency, they cannot really perform real life tasks like, um, ordering coffee in a coffee shop or opening a bank account on the phone. Some students may have listening anxiety like they can't really talk on the phone because they have more difficulty understanding people in this really natural, fast-paced speech.

Georgie
Erhan says that difficulty understanding fast, natural speech can hold learners back. The problem is, learners need to practise using English to improve, but a few bad experiences can increase their anxiety.

Erhan
These kinds of instances can accumulate and create, um, this barrier in how they use language, how they hear language, and how they encounter language in different situations.

Hanan
According to Erhan, bad experiences can accumulate, this means they can collect together inside the mind of a learner. Erhan believes that part of the problem is that learners don't hear a wide enough range of voices speaking English.

Erhan
One main issue, I think, uh, when that anxiety happens is when your students are not familiar with different accents and when you look at their experience, they're always exposed to one variety of English, and that tends to be the American English because of the movies, the pop culture, um, music and that sort of thing.

Georgie
Watching films, TV and hearing American English voices is a great way to improve your English, but it might not help you that much on a street in the UK, as you know Hanan,

Hanan
Totally.

Georgie
where you’ll hear lots of different English accents. And of course, English is spoken in many other places around the world, and everyone uses it a bit differently.

Erhan
In real life, students don't always communicate with native English speakers, right? So they also need to develop strategies and abilities to to understand different accents of the world. So that's that's also very important.

Hanan
So trying to watch and listen to things in English from different places can help prepare us for real-life English conversations. But Erhan says we should also think about the kind of things we watch and listen to.

Erhan
I always tell my students, um, or told in the past, always listen to like, talk shows, because in talk shows, people use more natural flowing language as opposed to movies and TV shows, it's more scripted.

Georgie
Films and TV dramas are great, but they're scripted, so they don't always give you the best idea of how natural conversation works. Think about how you talk on the phone in your own language. It's probably very different to what you've seen in the films.

Erhan
Interviews are always more, uh, natural to me, so I would always say listen to them and see like how they speak, how they like pause, um, how they show hesitation, these different kinds of functions.

Georgie
At BBC Learning English, lots of our podcasts and programmes include natural speech. Try Real Easy English for a whole conversation in simple English, or listen to 6 Minute English, to hear clips from BBC programmes featuring interviews from around the world.

Hanan
Georgie, I have one more question for you. If someone finds themselves in a situation like Lenka did at the airport, where they need to speak in English to fix a problem but they’re struggling to understand, what would you suggest?

Georgie
Well, the first thing is to try to stay calm. This is easier said than done, but don't be afraid to ask someone to speak more slowly. Say 'English is not my first language. Can you speak more slowly and clearly?' Or, try this: 'Sorry, I didn't understand that. Can you say it again?' If there's one word you didn't understand, say, 'What does this word mean?' And in the end, Lenka was able to sort her flight out. And she says that even though it's hard, you just have to keep trying.

Lenka
You have to understand that it's about communication. It doesn't matter how many times, times you ask how many times you don't understand it. It doesn't have to be perfect because communication is not perfect. So you have to just keep going and get the result.

Hanan
Thanks for listening to this episode of Beating Speaking Anxiety. You can find more resources to help with the fear of not understanding people. On the BBC Learning English website, visit bbclearningenglish.com.

Georgie
In the next episode, we'll be talking about how to improve your public speaking in English. See you then.

Hanan
Bye bye.

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