You already know that using podcasts is a great way to improve your listening skills, but do you know how to make the most (use in a way that’ll give the best result) out of them?

There are a lot of techniques you can use while listening to English podcasts that’ll help you to become a master of English listening.

Listen as background first

To start, you should listen to podcasts in the background while you’re doing something else.

It may seem counterintuitive (unreasonable or the opposite of what you’d expect), but listening to English podcasts while you do other tasks actually helps your brain to get used to the language. That’s because it lets you get comfortable with the sounds without worrying about understanding the words.

Listen a second time, but now pay close attention

Now listen to the podcast a second (and even third) time and pay attention to all the words and expressions you recognize. If you feel the speaker is talking too fast, try reducing the speed of the audio to 75% (when available).

Read the transcript, if it’s available

Reading the transcript while you listen to a podcast is amazingly beneficial because you’re getting the same information through two different channels: your eyes and your ears.

This helps your brain remember and comprehend more of the language.

Repeat words and sentences out loud

Pause the podcast whenever you want to and go back to words and expressions that are new to you or you think are difficult to pronounce. Repeat them over and over until you get them just right.

Having good pronunciation as well as a large vocabulary is essential for a variety of situations such as using English in school or business English at work.

Pick up new vocabulary and grammar from the podcast

If you look up new words and learn and review grammar bits you hear in each podcast you listen to, you’ll likely remember them a lot easier in the future.

Plus, as you already know, learning new vocabulary and grammar is essential to growing as an English language learner.

Continue studying the new information you learned

So maybe you learned some new vocabulary words and a new grammar concept by repeating a line a few times.

You don’t want this new information to just sit in your notebook. You want to actually use it in your English language interactions.

To do that, you’ll need to keep studying everything you just learned until it’s filed away in your long-term memory.

For example, you can turn the new vocabulary words you learned into flashcards—whether you do this by hand or on your favorite flashcard app.