Listen to NPR Every Day

 Want to improve you English Listening, Pronunciation & Vocabulary all at once?

Listen to National Public Radio! 

One of the very best ways to improve multiple English skills at one time is to go National Public Radio! Students tell me that this activity is a great way to build their English Listening skills over time, and also a good way to learn new vocabulary words by seeing and hearing them used in a “real world” context.

It usually takes about 1 month of listening every day for you to see improvement in your listening skills, and about 2-3 months to see improvement in pronunciation and vocabulary skills.

1. Go to www.npr.org.
2. Click on Programs.
3. Click on Morning Edition or All Things Considered.
4. Click on Rundown.
5. Find a news report about Business, Politics, or Economy.
6. Listen to the news report, taking notes on Main Ideas, Major Details and Numbers.
7. Click on Transcript and study the transcript for new words.
8. Listen to and read the news report at the same time for pronunciation practice.
9. Listen to the news report one more time to reinforce what you have learned.
10. Find 5 more news reports on the same topic and listen to one each day for the next 5 days.

I recommend you only do 1 or 2 news reports each day. Most students find it takes from 30-minutes to 1 hour for each report, depending on their English skill level.

“Actively listen to TOEIC-like English every day”

It may sound obvious, but actively listening to English every day for at least 15 minutes is one of the most powerful ways to improve you listening skills. “Actively listening” means you are not watching TV or a movie (a very passive activity)—it means you are listening to English radio or online audio files, focusing on hearing details and thinking about the important, main ideas the speaker is trying to tell.

READ BELOW FOR MORE DETAILS ON HOW TO LISTEN:

 1. Go to www.npr.org.

2. Click on Programs.

3. Click on Morning Edition or All Things Considered. National Public Radio (NPR, www.npr.org) has two news programs you want to listen to: Morning Edition & All Things Considered:



4. Click on Rundown.



5. Find a news report about Business, Politics, or Economy. You will see a list of different news reports. Next to each Headline, you will see what Topic the news is about, and the how long the news report runs.



You will want to look for news reports for Topics such as Business, Politics, or Economy. These reports often use words you will find in the TOEIC.

6. Listen to the news report, taking notes on Main Ideas, Major Details and Numbers.Once you have picked a news report, click on the Audio Button and listen to the news report. Listen to news report once and take notes on what you think are the Main Ideas and Major Details. Also take notes of any numbers that are being used. Numbers are often tested in the Short Talks section of the TOEIC.



Even though you can’t take notes on the TOEIC, note taking helps you develop memory skills.

7. Click on Transcript and study the transcript for new words.Now click on Transcript and read the report. Check to see if you misunderstood anything or missed a major idea or detail. You can also look for Vocabulary Words you don’t know. You will want to also look for any Phrasal Verbs which you didn’t understand.



8. Listen to and read the news report at the same time for pronunciation practice.Next, with the Transcript on your computer screen, listen to and read the news report again, following the speaker as they talk. This will help you with Pronunciation of English words, too.

9. Listen to the news report one more time to reinforce what you have learned.Finally, now that you understand the report better, close the Transcript and listen to the news report one more time. This will help reinforce the new English you learned.

10. Find 5 more news reports on the same topic and listen to one each day for the next 5 days.For the next 5 days, listen to different news reports about the same topic (you can do a news search at the NPR website on any page at their website).

Happy Listening!