79733139:
How to Get More Practice to Improve Your Listening Skills!

For most people learning French, listening is a lot more difficult than reading - this is because spoken words disappear. With written text, you can linger on a particular word or sentence until you figure out the meaning, the case is totally different with speech, where you have a limited time to hold a set of words in your brain and quickly figure out the meaning... or else you would miss the remaining part of the dialogue or speech.

The only way around this limitation is to listen to each French recording several times so that the next time you hear the words or group of words used in another recording, you brain will be able to decode the meaning very fast (no need to hold it in your memory and try to convert to English first before understanding).

The more you listen, the easier it becomes to understand French without doing the English translation in your head.

So how do you get more time to listen to French?

Use your downtime to listen to French audios that you have already decoded!

What I mean is… after you have listened to maybe 1 hour of dialogue and you have read the transcriptions to check the words that you either didn’t know previously (using Google Translate) or you had troubles deciphering them in fast speech, start listening to these recordings when you are doing other things e.g.,

* waiting at the bus stop
* doing your laundry
* cooking
* doing your general house chores
* using the toilet
* doing nothing (because you are tired)
* commuting to and from work

You could use regular earphones, Bluetooth speakers or headphones. The bottom line is - just use every opportunity to keep putting French in your brain.

That's what I did. I used to listen to French recordings whilst standing on the queue at BRT bus stations, in the BRT bus, while defecating/using the toilet... basically any where possible, I always had my phone and earphones or Bluetooth speakers to listen to French.

However, the number one thing that you MUST accept about listening to French during your downtime is that you will not absorb 100% of the materials during that period... even if you absorb just 10%, it is still something and you have trained your brain a little more during a period of time that normally would have been wasted.

If you are walking on the street/road, don't use earphones/headphones as it could be dangerous - use a Bluetooth speaker instead, this way, you can still hear background noises and you are much safer.

The thing is that there are lots of collocations (groups of words that always go together) in French, just like in English, so when you build up your listening vocabulary by listening to French recordings several times, whenever you are listening to never-before-heard recordings, you will be able to quickly understand the meaning... because sometimes you don't have to actually hear every word, once you recognise the collocation based on the context, your brain will figure out the meaning instantly. Your brain will be able to fill in the gaps even if you didn't hear every word in the dialogue or speech.

Listening to French recordings several times (in conjunction with speaking practice) helps one to reach automaticity faster. Automaticity is when you are speaking French and it doesn't feel as if you are doing a lot of mental calculations in your brain while talking and to get to this stage, you need a lot of repetitions when it comes to listening.

Now let's assume that because of your job, you can only study French deliberately from 6:30pm to 11:30pm, you might not want to use this time to listen to French recordings, to which you have already listen and decoded, over and over again. It is for this reason that using your downtime to listen to French works best. In summary, always keep French playing at the background. Stop watching, premiership matches and highlights, WWE matches and highlights, reality shows, soap operas, Bollywood stuff and whatever entertainment you watch... instead replace it with French recordings, TV shows and films.

Okay, fine, you have read up to this point, does it mean that your listening skills will magically improve? No. First of all, you have to make it a habit, an ongoing thing that you must do daily, and it will also take some time to see results - the process is gradual.

I bought a Bluetooth speaker in December 2019 and it lasted the whole length of my French journey, as for regular earphones (with wires), the lifespan seems to be around 4 - 5 months for Oraimo earphones after which, it is either one of the speakers stops working or both stop working.

As long as you develop the habit of keeping French playing at the background always, you will reap the rewards of improved listening skills.

olabanji88:
it's very difficult to maintain this level of devotion with kids around, work, and personal projects, work projects etc but. I try to do at least 2 hrs of active listening every day's some days higher some days lower

79733139:
You can still do passive listening when you are occupied with something else, just set the proper expectations that you are not going to absorb 100% of the material, even if you absorb 10%, it is still good enough. Only do passive listening with audios to which you have listened and decoded their meanings. Don't do passive listening with new audios.

babakb:


With your experience in this journey, do you think living in a francophone country for 3 months immersion will help in blasting TEF or TCF, especially for someone on A2 level.

I'm looking at embarking on this adventure next year, it'll cost a lot of money so I need some reassurances

79733139:
Yes! That's the perfect environment. You also need to put enough self-study, get a French teacher in the city or town and make friends with young Francophones who have lots of freetime, so that you can be forced to keep speaking French and self correcting.

Bilingualism:


I am happy you are talking about Mr Francis /marius. If you check my last post I recommended him.

I don’t know how he was not out here all the while.

I hope he still has more slot for people .

He is very humble and down to earth.

79733139:
Hello it's Monsieur Tayo again, concerning the writing and speaking tests of the TEF Canada exam, I have three books that would help you a lot with your preparation, they are:

TEF CANADA EXPRESSION ÉCRITE: 150 TOPICS TO SUCCEED by Jean K. Mathieu
TEF CANADA EXPRESSION ORALE: 150 TOPICS TO SUCCEED by Jean K. Mathieu
RÉUSSIR SON TEF/TEFAQ/TEF CANADA: EXPRESSION ORALE by Hourieh Marvi

Send an email to me (tayomassive@gmail.com) with subject title: "The three books for TEF speaking and writing tests" and I will send them to you.

Check my profile for other details.

aurorae1:
Date and time of round: July 18, 2024 at 14:58:28 UTC
CRS score: 400 (French language proficiency (Version 1))
Invitations: 1,800

French is still relevant!
Félicitations à tous ceux qui ont décroché leur ITA!!
For all still studying, Godspeed. You can do it!!!

AYOBAMI2017:


I agree. He's quite humble and will ensure you get what he's teaching.

If you don't understand, ask him repeatedly because sometimes he can be fast while teaching.

I've learned so much in a short time since I started my French class with him.

I'll recommend him as an expert french tutor.

aurorae1:
Date and time of round: July 18, 2024 at 14:58:28 UTC
CRS score: 400 (French language proficiency (Version 1))
Invitations: 1,800

French is still relevant!
Félicitations à tous ceux qui ont décroché leur ITA!!
For all still studying, Godspeed. You can do it!!!

79733139:
One of my Nairaland friends just got an ITA via the recent French category draws. French is still hot right now...

Need a French tutor? Check my profile for details.

babakb:


I just sent u a mail for the speaking and writing test, if you have anything for reading kindly add it too.

Merci beaucoup 👍

Etinosajay:
Bonjour à tous

At the risk of repeating a question already I asked. I want to simply get your opinion.

Which is better in learning French ?
Online tutor
Physical tutor
French books

Which is better for language immersion? Visiting francophone ? Or listening regularly to French podcasts/radio

My target is a B2/C1

Etinosajay:
Bonjour à tous

At the risk of repeating a question already I asked. I want to simply get your opinion.

Which is better in learning French ?
Online tutor
Physical tutor
French books

Which is better for language immersion? Visiting francophone ? Or listening regularly to French podcasts/radio

My target is a B2/C1

thelma76:


Hello Lovely People ! An update I owe to this platform, following my previous post and your words of encouragement, j’ai repasse l’examen le 10 Juin et par la grace de Dieu, c’est termine!

CO 505 C1
CE 518 C1
EO 13 B2
EE 13 B2

I have said this story so many times, so I’d spare you the details. I’d close this with three points:

1. It’s definitely attainable! I heard about this French route a few years ago but I kept telling myself “nahh, the scores would go down, I shouldn’t have to go to this length or kill myself this much”. Last year confirmed this wouldn’t be the case with the trend of the draws, and I had to dive into action. All thanks to people who shared their timelines and stories honestly on this platform to encourage others. I saw it was possible for others juggling job, family, and many other things and figured I could do this also.

2. Find a community! This is super important. This journey is challenging especially for English speakers, starting from scratch (A0,A1 etc). It is not one of those things or hurdles you navigate privately ooo 😂, it is emotionally and mentally arduous. Thus, you need ALL the support you can get (from relatable stories/experiences, astuces, conseils, and exam stories). One of the communities you can leverage is the Telegram group (I discovered this only after my first attempt). Shoutout to those amazing human beings!!! Madam Labelle, ma belle (in her words), you all are too too much! God Bless You!

3. Leverage all resources possible but don’t overwhelm yourself with them. Get a tutor that can guide you and narrow your focus on the most important tools/resources. My tutor was instrumental in this entire journey (I posted previously about this). If you can, try to enjoy the process. If you can’t enjoy it for whatever reason…. just focus on the target and do your best. Ca va aller. Que Dieu nous aide

EuniqueBabe:
Hello everyone, please I want to know. Aside writing TEF, does anyone have an idea of someone that got study permit approval to study French as a course in Canada? If yes, which school?

NwunyeAlberta:
Felicitations Thelma!
Hi..Please who was your tutor? please can you share contact/school on how to reach them

Dauphine:
Finally wrote my TCF exam today and…

It wasn’t what I expected at all.

Expression orale (EO):
The first part, I was taken by surprise and I forgot some of what I practiced for the introduction part because it was jarring to say everything I had memorised before an actual person. She was nice and cool and she tried to be friendly to ease my nerves but it was my first experience speaking French with someone apart from my teacher online and it caught me off guard. Also the question part, I tried to ask as many questions as possible but I didn’t know how to gauge how much time I had spent (she said there was a timer but she didn’t set it and she also took time to respond to my questions). The task 2 was about finding an apartment in Quebec ( one of the easiest questions tbh) but at some point I was struggling to find the words. The last task was to compare between watching a movie at the cinema or at home (something like theatre or movies which do I prefer?) I chose movies and tried to highlight that for me, the ease of access thanks to apps like Netflix, was more important. Also the kind of movies I prefer are documentaries, crime investigations movies like Monk (similar to Sherlock Holmes) etc.

Comprehension orale (CO):
My easiest section because I had soaked myself in formation TCF paid past questions for the last 5 weeks. Anyways, we’ll see how it goes. It was also shocking to me that the audio was played over a speaker and you get a booklet containing the questions with the options. At first I was alarmed at the thought of them reading the options as well but when I saw the options in the booklet, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was just glad that I really worked on the past questions because the audio quality could have been better. At least when I did IELTS we had our personal headsets to listen to the recordings.

Comprehension écrite (CE):
The next section after CO and just like CO, it was manual as well so you shade the answers on the answer sheet and use the booklet to see the questions. I rushed through this section because it was also a repetition of the past questions. Basically the fact that you get to start the next section once you’ve completed the previous made me rush through this section.

Expression écrite (EE):
I had a lot of time left over from the previous sections so I took time to complete the tasks. First task, write a letter to your friends detailing the gift of clothes that you expect from them for your next birthday (something like that). Second task, submit an essay about the traditional dishes in your country and what you like or don’t like about them. Final task, video games are good for the health or not. Summarise both points of view in your first paragraph and give your opinion in the second paragraph. I tried to stick to the word limit and reduce my mistakes to avoid my writing being illegible.

Overall impression, I was wondering if it was possible to quickly flip through the booklet and answer the CO questions before the recording played. CO was my biggest concern but I’m glad I scaled through. I didn’t like that the exam was manual and I had to rewrite my third EE task after I finished because of the mistakes I made, it wasn’t convenient. Manually counting the words was not ideal too, I feel they could have done better but I guess they don’t have a lot of people writing the exam (we were just two) so they were cutting costs. Also I wrote my exam outside Nigeria so I didn’t get any results today, they said they would send it to France and we should expect our results in three weeks. Its going to be a very long three weeks but I’ve deactivated all my alarms for my French lessons with the faith that I won’t have to rewrite the exam 🤞🏾

babakb:


With your experience in this journey, do you think living in a francophone country for 3 months immersion will help in blasting TEF or TCF, especially for someone on A2 level.

I'm looking at embarking on this adventure next year, it'll cost a lot of money so I need some assurances

79733139:
If you are having problems with your French listening, here is a useful resource that I used to improve my listening skills before I started attempting the listening tests of TEF. The website FrenchPod closed down over 4 years ago but the audios and transcriptions are still available.

NwunyeAlberta:
Hi Dauphin, have you got your results yet?

Dauphine:


Hi, after 6 weeks long wait, I finally did but I will have to rewrite because I didn’t pass my EO and EE got A2 and B1. CO and CE were C2 and C1 respectively

Dauphine:


Hi, after 6 weeks long wait, I finally did but I will have to rewrite because I didn’t pass my EO and EE got A2 and B1. CO and CE were C2 and C1 respectively

aurorae1:


It's to refire! Just keep on.
You'll get it soon.👍

NwunyeAlberta:

You're almost there.
N'abandonnez pas!

Dauphine:


Hi, after 6 weeks long wait, I finally did but I will have to rewrite because I didn’t pass my EO and EE got A2 and B1. CO and CE were C2 and C1 respectively