American English PodcastShana ThompsonAll episodes

208 - How to Improve the Four Skills in English: Listening, Reading, Speaking & Writing

In this episode, we go back to the fundamentals of language learning:listening, reading, speaking, and writing.

But here’s the key idea: You’ll learn faster when these skills overlap.

Instead of practicing each skill separately, you’ll discover how to combine them so new vocabulary moves from something you recognize… to something you can actually use.

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What the episode covers:

• Why comprehensible input (at your level) is essential
• How many times you really need to see a word to remember it
• Why simply listening or reading is not enough
• The science behind retrieval practice (and why it works)
• How to improve your speaking—even if you don’t live abroad
• Why extensive reading builds vocabulary naturally
• How writing helps you notice and fix your mistakes

⭐ ⁠⁠Want to take your learning further?

Inside the Academy, you’ll find the full transcript and bonus learning materials designed to help you understand and use the English from this episode.

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