Speed Listening: How Fast is Too Fast for Learning?

Speaker A: 00:00:00

If you've been a listener of this podcast for a while, you likely know that I love listening to podcasts. It's one of my favorite things to do, actually, and it's certainly one of my favorite ways to drive.

If I have to drive 20 or 30 minutes to grab groceries or to run an errand, or even to battle with Vancouver Island's version of traffic, it's actually not a problem for me. I like it. Why? Well, I've got my phone packed with podcast episodes that I can listen to.

I kind of think of my car as a mobile university, a place where I can learn while I'm on the go. And I've got a fun question for you that has to do with all this. When you're listening to your favorite podcast, what. What playback speed do you use?

Well, hello there and welcome to the Speak English Fearlessly podcast.

This is the podcast for motivated English learners who want to speak English fearlessly and learn practical tips and strategies to conquer the CELPIP exam.

I also love to feature encouraging interviews with regular people, people, people just like you, who are working towards becoming fluent in English so we can learn from their experiences together. Who am I?

My name is Aaron Nelson, and I've been an English teacher for over 17 years, and I now help students prepare for the CELPIP exam through online classes. Okay, today we're talking a little bit about podcast speeds. Well, not podcast speeds.

The playback speed that you use when you're listening to a podcast. Let's talk about it for a minute. Most of the time, in my case, I have my podcast player set to 1.5x when I'm listening.

In other words, one and a half times faster than normal. How about you?

I'm asking because this week I listened to an episode from the Buzzcast podcast that featured a segment about the science of speed listening, and I'm going to link to that episode in my show Notes today. I thought that episode was super interesting, and trust me, it's not as boring as it sounds.

If you're interested in listening to it, the segment begins at the minute, no, at the 8:32 mark of the show. And like I said a moment ago, I'll be linking to it in my notes today.

In the episode, they point to an article on the cbc, which I'll also link to you. I'll link to you.

No, which I'll also link for you in my show Notes today that's talking all about the findings of a study that a UCLA professor and metacognition researcher conducted about the benefits of speed listening. You know, speeding up the audio you are listening to to 1.5x.

For example, their study found that students who listened to university lectures at faster speeds were better able to remain focused on what they were listening to. Isn't that interesting? The study also found that trying to listen beyond 2x speed tended to stop being helpful.

Listening at this speed tended to make information retention fall. In other words, it didn't work. Why this matters to you?

The article I mentioned on the CBC mentions that listening to audio at higher speed, and I quote here, made students less likely to experience mind wandering, which is having distracted thoughts about unrelated topics while you're trying to focus on on the thing in front of you. I think that's kind of interesting and potentially helpful for you.

If you struggle with paying attention during long audio practice sessions, maybe try conducting a little experiment with yourself.

Try speeding up what you're listening to a little to see if that helps you to remain focused as long, of course, as you are able to understand what you're hearing. Experiment with 1.25x and see if that helps. And if it does, try increasing it to 1.5x to see if that does something for you.

Like I said a moment ago, think about this as an experiment with yourself to see if it promotes learning and focus. I know for me, in my case my favorite speed is 1.5x. I find it very easy to remain focused on content in both English and Spanish.

How about you let me know how your experiment goes. Okay? This week I came across an interesting article over@entrepreneur.com and I'm going to be linking to that article today in my show notes as well.

Boy, I think I'm going to have a pretty busy show notes section today.

Anyway, the author explains her process of prepping for weekly progress or performance tracking meetings with her boss and how her process helped her to get regular promotions. Her strategy of tracking her wins each week stuck out to me. I liked all of her ideas and I'm going to be actually trying to use them myself.

But tracking things that went well for you and what you were working on during the week is powerful. In her case, it helped her to be able to talk about her wins and her successes with her manager, which was important for her career.

If you're working with a manager, this might help you too.

As the author rightly points out in the article, your manager might not always be aware of the positive impact you are having each week because because, well, they're dealing with many other people and tasks. It's kind of your job to let your manager know where you have been succeeding instead of assuming that they know. Isn't that a great idea?

But I was thinking about another reason why tracking wins is important. Any idea why? It has to do with our tendency to focus on negative things happening in our life and the world around us versus the positive.

It's super easy for us to focus and dwell on the negative, isn't it? I know it is for me. In fact, according to an article that I'm going to be pointing to and talking about in my newsletter this week.

And by the way, if you're not a subscriber to my free weekly newsletter, you can totally become one. Just go to celpipsuccess.com subscribe I'm going to be talking about this article in my newsletter this week and I hope that you'll join me.

The thing is, we all tend to suffer from a bias towards negativity, which means we latch onto the stuff that goes wrong and we tend to miss the stuff that's going right. And that plays into your journey to build your English skills too.

I bet something I bet that if we were to sit down over coffee together and wouldn't that be great if we could like sit down over coffee and just connect and talk? I would love to be able to do that with you.

But imagine for a minute that we could and that I asked you to tell me about the things that went wrong with your attempts to use English or to get ready for the CELPIP this week. I bet that you'd have an endless list of things that you could talk about with me.

All the mistakes, all the mess ups that happened, all the times that it just didn't work, or that you got embarrassed when you didn't say the right thing. You know, there's a long list of things that I bet you'd be able to come up with.

But what about if I asked you to tell me all the things that you tried that worked? Or the things that you just plain tried?

Because actually taking action to practice your English or a task you're going to encounter on the CELPIP is a positive step. But how often do we keep track of those positives in our lives? My bet? If you're anything like me, it's next to never. How about we change that?

I challenge you to start tracking your wins with English and your prep for the CELPIP this week. I bet that you're making more progress than you might think.

You're just not noticing it because you're busy focusing on everything that probably didn't go the way you hoped it would this week. And again, I'm going to be continuing this conversation in my newsletter this week. Would you like to come along and join in?

My newsletter is totally free. Just go to celpipsuccess.com subscribe thank you so much for listening today.

I hope that you found this episode helpful and that you have an excellent week.