How can I develop listening fluency to score high in IELTS?

In this series of blogs on building fluency for IELTS, we have discussed the basics of speaking, reading and writing fluencies, their barriers and ways to overcome these barriers. Please read the blogs titled How can I develop speaking fluency to score high in IELTS - Part I to read about hesitation and fear related barriers; how can I develop speaking fluency to score high in IELTS - Part II to read about the barriers related to fillers, repetition and mistake correction; How can I develop reading fluency to score high in IELTS to read about reading fluency barriers and ways to overcome; and How can I develop writing fluency to score high in IELTS to read about writing fluency barriers and ways to overcome.

In this blog, our focus will be on listening fluency. As mentioned earlier, this fluency has not been explored much. Not many experts write on this fluency. Let’s understand the basic concepts, the barriers and the ways to overcome writing fluency.

Fluency in listening simply means that you can listen to the provided IELTS audio smoothly – without breaking the listening flow. You should be acting like an active listener. Or we can say that being an active listener is the first requirement of increasing listing fluency. Let’s assume that you have already prepared for a listening test for IELTS and during that test you had to pause the audio or replay it. It indicates that you have a low fluency in listening. You surely need to improve upon the listening fluency.

This happens due to the inadequate exposure to listening English in a foreign accent. Hence the subsequent phase would include enhancing the English listening exposure especially in foreign accent. There are two means of doing it. The first is watching English news channels, English movies with subtitles turned OFF, listening to English songs if you have an interest, etc.all these are generic tools. One should not solely depend upon these generic methods. One can listen to more IELTS specific content. You can also visit the best IELTS coaching center in Dwarka to access a vast library of audio and other resources for enhancing your fluency for IELTS.

So far, we have discussed all the four fluencies their internal barriers. In the next blog, we will deliberate upon the external barriers. Though it is easy to work on the external barriers as compared to the internal barriers yet we need to be aware of the external barriers. All the more we should have a workable action plan to combat these challenges.