The most rewarding personal activity (6) - No need for specific listening practice, reading aloud is enough

By Xiaolai Li, rewritten in English by Mr. Y

Extensive reading aloud practice can eliminate the need for students to specifically practice "listening". In fact, it's absurd for many students to spend time specifically practicing listening. Normal people who are neither deaf nor mute don't need special listening training, and frankly, there's no way to do it either - everyone’s ears are of the same structure, no matter how hard you try, your ear shape won’t get bigger, and your eardrums won’t become any thinner…

The principle is actually quite simple: if you can speak, you can understand - regardless of the language. Therefore, you only need to practice speaking, there’s no need to practice listening specifically. Many people's so-called "poor listening comprehension" is actually caused by poor speaking skills. However, they ignore the root cause and focus on the superficial problem: they refuse to speak, and instead, focus solely on listening practice. What could be more absurd than that?

In fact, even if you don't speak well, you can still understand. For example, many people in China don't speak standard Mandarin, their speech is mixed with heavy dialect accent, and they even use a lot of dialect vocabulary. But have you ever met any of them complaining that they can't understand CCTV's News Broadcast?

In this respect, training institutions outside the public education system seem even more absurd, often assigning students dedicated "English listening" teachers. As commercial entities, this practice is not surprising and easily understood, catering to students' preferences generates profit. However, it's a complete waste of students' time and, of course, their money - but from another perspective, it's also a voluntary waste of time and money by the students themselves; it's a mutually beneficial arrangement.

In these training institutions, I never saw any listening teacher advocating that students improve their so-called "listening skills" by practicing speaking - because if that were the case, wouldn't that be taking away the jobs of speaking teachers?

Many "listening" teachers tout, even mythologize, the benefits of "dictation"* training - although they may not intend to deceive, they may genuinely believe their method is the most effective. However, dictation training is arguably the most time-consuming and ineffective method. I often encounter students asking, "Teacher, I've been doing dictation for three months, why haven't I improved?" At such times, I'm puzzled, thinking, "You’ve already spent three months perfectly proving it doesn’t work, so why are you asking me why it's ineffective?"

In the field of English teaching, there are far more absurd "methods" than the miraculously effective "panaceas" in the medical field. This is because modern medicine at least has a double-blind testing method to determine whether a drug is truly effective, but in English teaching, it's difficult to use double-blind testing (or similar methods) to determine effectiveness. However, the reason why "dictation" training is ineffective can actually be explained in just two sentences (though perhaps crudely):

• If you didn’t understand it, what the hell are you even writing?

• If you already understood it, why the hell are you writing it down?

Such a simple fact is not even worth arguing about.

In fact, like reading comprehension, listening comprehension emphasizes comprehension rather than just listening or reading. What you hear must ultimately be understood; otherwise, it's meaningless. The so-called "listening practice" is essentially a temporary solution that does not address the root cause of the problem.

Note:

* Dictation is the transcription of spoken text: one person who is "dictating" speaks and another who is "taking dictation" writes down the words as they are spoken. 

Copyright & Republication

Original Chinese text by Xiaolai Li (copyright released). English translation ©2025 Mr. Y.

Republication of this translation is permitted, provided that both the original author (Xiaolai Li) and the translator (Mr. Y) are credited, and a link to the original translation on blossomsblog.com is included.

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