In this article, we are going to talk about Radio-Listening. It is interesting to learn that there are some areas of the English spoken world where people use a different method of 'Listening and Listening to English'. For instance, in the United States, people tend to be good at talking on their cell phones. But, it seems that when they go to Europe or other English-speaking countries to visit, they have a hard time understanding native English speakers when they are trying to communicate. This is unfortunate, because if these people had listened to Radio-Listening for Dutch learners, they would have been able to understand better just how hard it is to hear everyday English spoken in most places.

Let us start with an example of Radio-Listening in action. In the United States, we often have a whole day without any television during the weekend. Why? Because most of us have become so 'teleprompter' conscious that even if we do manage to find something to watch, it is on a Fox News or CNN show that is prerecorded and are edited for broadcast. That is, of course, unless you have cable and can wait all day for the local news to air.

On the other hand, in many parts of the world, people tend to get up early in the morning to 'listened to the news' over coffee. This morning's news may be about local weather, local business, latest headlines from around the world or political issues that may be important to you. Most of these 'listeners' are native English speakers who are able to fully comprehend the content on their radio and TV screens. Meanwhile, if you are not a 'listener' but rather, you are a fluent reader of a second language like Dutch, you may have some trouble understanding most of what you see on your TV screen.

Does this mean that Radio-listening for Dutch learners is impossible? Actually, it may work in the sense that you are more easily able to comprehend a specific word or phrase that you hear on your radio than you would be able to understand it through another medium. The same is true with reading. If you cannot understand what you read straight away after you read it, chances are you will stop reading and move onto something else. In the same way, if you cannot fully understand what you hear on your audio media player, chances are you will stop listening until you can fully understand what the words on your audio file are actually talking about.

However, while audio files tend to be very easy to comprehend, they are not always the easiest thing for Dutch speakers to understand. While a student can easily learn enough to communicate in everyday conversation, it is not always easy for them to grasp the intricacies of technical speech. So, does the radio-listening for Dutch learners work?

In short, yes, it can. In fact, some of my students have been able to completely grasp the importance of each word by listening to it being spoken. On top of this, as they often listen to Radio Netherlands Worldwide every single day before class, they pick up the accent of the speakers and become very fluent in their own language in a relatively short period of time. However, this approach may not work well for students who only study one language (such as French, German, or English); if you want to learn more than one language then you may have to look towards other learning approaches such as: language modeling, or listening with an English-speaking friend or colleague, or reading text with an English-sounding vocabulary.