Mark Twain famously said, “Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.” Of course, he must have said that with a wink. Anyone who has suffered from hangovers must know that too much good whiskey can still do some damage. Even the best things in excess ultimately lead to harm.  Though oxygen and water are essential to our lives, both can become toxic to us in great quantity. The same truth can be found in English learning; despite the fact that your listening skill is important, it cannot be the only aspect you work on. Since the just-listen-and-you’ll-be-fluent approach is so popular, I want to take some time to explain how it can actually be bad for you.  

Thousands of years ago, the written text was born

From the perspective of human civilization, that was a huge achievement. Being able to create written records and then access them in another place or at another time is simply magical.

The invention opened up countless doors, and the world as we know it today is only possible because we have this power to read and write.

It’s little wonder then, that governments around the world have been working hard to raise the level of literacy in their countries so that people can get better jobs and lead better lives.

Why then, do we expect fluency to come to us when we choose to ignore aspects of English that are so important to modern life?

Much of our daily life requires working with the written language

To name just a few examples: we need to be able to read in order to do research on the internet, and we need to write well in order to excel at school or at work.

The pure-listening approach ignores this reality and instead, encourages learners to pick up sounds as if they exist all by themselves. The disconnection between letters and sounds then leads to difficulties in reading and writing.

Think about it: we may have learned a word somewhere already

However, if we can’t imagine how it might be spelled because we have no idea how sounds translate into letters, then when we see it in writing, it’s as if the word doesn’t exist in our knowledge at all.

Likewise, if we don’t understand the relationship between sounds and letters, it will be difficult for us to reproduce a word we know in writing because we’re not sure about the spelling.

What about spell check or auto correct? 

Sure, most computers and mobile devices come with software that helps us improve our spelling nowadays, but they only work if we are able to roughly spell a word in a way that’s sensible enough for the technology to make a good guess.

Without a basic understanding of sounds and letters, we can’t even feed the computer enough information to do the job for us.

Now that we have examined the problem of disconnecting the spoken word from the written word, we’ll take a step further and see another problem that may result from the pure-listening approach: inaccuracy.

Have you ever played the Telephone Game?

Some call it Chinese Whispers. In the game, people usually sit in a circle, and a message is passed around as one person whispers it to another.

Usually, when the final version of the message is announced, everyone laughs because it’s rarely identical to the one that’s first whispered. We find it hilarious that the words can be twisted to such an extreme.

This game works because sounds are known to be unreliable

A while ago, my members in English Ever After and I discussed the idea of eggcorns, which are words or phrases created from the mishearing of existing words. “Eggcorn” in itself is an example that came from the word “acorn”.

This whole group of words exists because of how easily people can mishear sounds — and these are native speakers we’re talking about.

Imagine how much easier it is to mishear a word for non-native speakers

We tend to hear what we expect to hear. If a sound isn’t a part of our native language, and we are not aware of its existence, chances are, we won’t hear it at all, no matter how much time we spend on listening to various kinds of material.

Many Chinese speakers, for example, do not hear the consonants at the end of English words because in Chinese, we do not have those sounds. Without this heightened awareness and without the written word to remind us, the sounds simply go in one ear and out the other.

Learning only through listening can easily lead to misunderstanding, which often takes a long time to fix… and worse: if no one points out the mistakes to us, we may never figure them out.

In addition to inaccuracy, another major problem of the listening-only approach is that it encourages passivity.

Listening, by default, is a passive activity

As a listener, you are on the receiving end of information. Without making use of your speaking and writing skills to fully engage with the listening activity, it’s easy to let the sounds wash over you without benefiting much from the exercise.

Some people believe that simply by surrounding themselves with the sounds of a language, they can absorb everything, so they turn on the radio and listen to English programs all day long. This, in itself, isn’t bad, but believing that this is all you need to do can be harmful because then, you’re not doing the important active work that can actually lead to mastery.

To be sure, improving your listening skills is important

But it isn’t everything. We only have 24 hours in a day, and we spend the bulk of that time sleeping, eating or working. There really isn’t that much time left for English learning, so it’s especially vital that we work on the language in an effective way and avoid the extreme paths that can end up hurting us.

To become fluent, we should work on all of the essential skills.

Aside from listening, we still have reading, writing, speaking, and much more to cover. Instead of always being on the receiving end of information, we need to take what we know and go out there in the world to create something of our own: conversations, bits of writing etc.

The function of language is communication, and communication is a two-way street. We need to be active as well as passive.

Don’t let anyone fool you with the idea that just by doing any one thing a lot, you can fully grasp a language.

Let’s sum up what we’ve covered!

Here are 3 reasons why we shouldn’t expect to become fluent solely by listening to a lot of English:

1. Disconnecting sounds from text leads to problems in reading and writing, which are extremely important language skills in modern society.

2. Focusing only on sounds can easily result in misunderstanding, especially for non-native speakers.

3. Listening puts us in a passive role whereas communication requires us to be active as well.

Remember Mark Twain’s wise words

“Too much of anything is bad”. Keep your learning well balanced (and take it easy on that whiskey too). Working on your listening is definitely important, but don’t spend all of your time on just one part of the language.

If your ultimate goal is to bring your English to life, then you have to work on it in a way that is practical for your life, which means you need to address all the skills you need.

 

After reading this article…

You may feel that you still need more guidance. If that’s the case, you should consider joining my membership English Ever After, which is designed to help intermediate to advanced English learners take their English to the next level.

Not only have we been talking about eggcorns (as mentioned in the article), but we’ve also been working on strengthening the relationship between sounds and letters. Become a member to get access to our workshop recordings and participate in our engaging discussions.

Click here to find out more about the community.