Jennifer Smith is a firefighter. She is one of the first female firefighters. Jennifer works hard every day. Jennifer exercises every day. She lifts weights. She wants her muscles to be very strong. She saves people's lives every day. She is very strong.

Jennifer is married. Her husband is a school teacher. Jennifer's husband is proud of her. Jennifer is a mother. She has two daughters. Jennifer's daughters are proud of her too. Jennifer is happy being a firefighter. Jennifer is happy being a wife. Jennifer is happy being a mother.

My name is Sarah. I am 14 years old. I have a pet cat. My cat's name is Milo. My cat is black and white. Milo's paws are white. Milo's body is black. She is very cute. Milo's fur is very soft. Milo was a very small kitten. Milo is a very big cat. Milo can not have kittens. She is fixed. Milo likes to eat. Milo likes to play outside. Milo likes to hunt for birds. Milo likes to hunt for mice. She likes her ears scratched. Milo likes to sit in my lap. Milo likes to sleep on my bed. Milo is a good pet.

I live in a house. My house is small. My house has two bedrooms. My Mom and Dad sleep in one bedroom. My sister and I share the other bedroom. My house has a kitchen. My Mom and Dad cook dinner there every night. My house has a living room. My family watches television there every night. My house has a big bathroom. My house has a lot of closets. My house has a basement. My Dad has a workshop in the basement. My Dad makes wood furniture. My house does not have a second floor. My house has a garage. My house has a big backyard. My backyard has a maple tree. My backyard has a swimming pool. My backyard has a vegetable garden. My family likes our house.

The Bright family went camping on the weekend. The Bright family went to Silent Lake. The Bright family left on Friday. The Bright family brought a big tent. They brought a lot of food. They brought insect repellent. The Bright family had a campfire on Friday. They roasted marshmallows. They sang campfire songs. On Saturday they went canoeing. On Saturday they went fishing. On Saturday they went swimming. They went hiking on Sunday. The Bright family saw many birds. They saw blue jays. They saw hummingbirds. The Bright family saw many animals. They saw a raccoon. They saw a squirrel. But they didn't see a bear. The Bright family had a fun vacation.

My name is Anne. I love flowers. I have a flower garden. My garden is in front of my house. My neighbour has a garden too. My garden has different types of flowers. I have roses in my garden. I have tulips in my garden. I have petunias in my garden. My garden has different colours. I plant red flowers. I plant blue flowers. I plant purple flowers. I take care of my garden. I water my garden every day. I kill the weeds in my garden. I kill insects that eat my flowers. I love my beautiful garden. I plant orange flowers.

Today is Jessica's first day of kindergarten. Jessica and her parents walk to school. Jessica's Mom walks with her to her classroom. Jessica meets her teacher. His name is Mr Parker. The school bell rings at eight forty five AM. Jessica hugs and kisses her Mom goodbye. Jessica's Mom says I love you. At nine AM Jessica stands for the National anthem. Mr Parker calls out children's names. Each child yells back here. Mr Parker teaches them about letters. Mr Parker teaches them about numbers. At ten fifteen AM the students have recess. Recess is fun. The students get to play and eat. At ten thirty AM the students go to gym class. At 11:15 AM the students return to Mr Parker's classroom. Mr Parker tells the students to sit on the carpet. Mr Parker reads the students a story. Mr Parker teaches the students a song The lunch bell rings. Jessica's first day of school is over.

Today is November 26th. It snowed all day today. The snow is beautiful. The snow finally stopped. My sister and I are excited. My Mom doesn't like the snow. My Mom has to shovel the drive way. My sister and I get to play. I put on my hat and mittens. My Mom puts on my scarf. My Mom zippers my jacket. My sister puts on her hat and mittens. My Mom puts on my scarf. My Mom zippers her jacket. My sister and I go outside. We begin to make a snow man. My Mom starts to shovel the snow. My sister and I make snow angels. My sister and I throw snowballs. It starts to snow again. We go inside for hot chocolate.

How do you improve your English listening skills? If you ask this question to English teachers they will tell you the same thing. They will tell you to go watch movies. They will say that watching movies is a great way to improve your listening.

But there's a problem. A lot of English learners watch movies with subtitles. Some people use English subtitles. Other people use subtitles in their native languages. Now it doesn't matter what kind of subtitles you use. Watching movies with subtitles is a really really bad way to improve your listening and in this video, I'm going to explain to you why it's such a bad idea.

But first let me share with you my personal experience. So back when I was in college I wanted to improve my English listening skills. So what did I do? Well, I started to watch movies with English subtitles. I thought that was the best way to improve my listening. I was really optimistic I thought in two or three years. I would be able to understand native speakers. Unfortunately it didn't work. After six years of doing that I still could not understand native speakers. I still needed subtitles when watching a movie. I was really disappointed. I watch a lot of movies. But I still could not understand native speakers at that point. I didn't really know why didn't work. But now I do so let's talk about that right now.

First there's one thing about listening that you need to know. Listening and hearing are not the same. If you want to improve your listening make sure that when you practice listening you are really listening and not just hearing. So what's the difference between listening and hearing? Well the difference is whether or not you are paying attention. If you're paying attention then you are listening. If you're not paying attention then that's just hearing. So let me give you an example. If you turn on the radio and pay attention to the sound from the radio then that is listening. But if you turn on the radio and that you do something else like reading a book then that's just hearing. You can hear the radio but you're not paying attention to it. You are not listening. And again, if you want to improve your listening, make sure that you are really listening and not just hearing. You need to make sure that you are paying attention.

Now let's talk about watching movies with subtitles. What's wrong with it? Why doesn't it work? As you might have guessed, it doesn't work because you're not listening. You're just hearing, so let me explain when you watch a movie. Your brain is trying to understand the movie but there isn't just one way to do that there are two ways or two options. The first option is to focus on reading the subtitles. The second option is to focus on listening to the sound.

Now I have a question for you. Which option do you think your brain will choose reading or listening? How the answer is obvious your brain is going to focus on reading the subtitles? Why because it's much easier that takes on the screen is clear? So it's very easy for your brain to process. The sounds of people talking on the other hand are not that clear, so it's much more difficult for your brain to figure out what people are saying. As a result, your brain will pay attention to the subtitles and not the sounds, so when you watch a movie with subtitles, you're not really improving your listening. You are actually improving your reading. And that's why it doesn't work. So the best way to improve your listening is to just listen. Don't read and listen at the same time. If you watch a movie in English remove the subtitles, so that your brain will have to focus on listening. If you do that, your listening will improve much faster. That said, there is still a problem. If you remove the subtitles then you won't understand the movie and if you don't understand the movie that is going to be boring so what should you do?

Well here's my suggestion. Don't try to improve your listening by watching movies just watch movies for fun. There's a better and faster way to improve your listening and that is the subject of the next video. In the next video, I'll share with you the method I personally use to improve my English listening skills. So I'll see you again in the next video, and if you don't want to miss that video, make sure you subscribe to this Engfluent channel. And if you want even more advice on how to improve your English, go to Engfluent dot com and sign up for the newsletter or just click these two boxes.

Let's talk about a problem you might have when listening to English, especially when watching a movie. You don't understand what you hear. And this is not because you don't know the vocabulary. If you read the transcript or the subtitles you will understand the material just fine. So you already know the words being used. You just don't recognize them when listening. So what should you do?

According to many research studies. In one study participants were trained to perform a task related to hearing. And there were three levels of difficulty easy normal and difficult. The participants were divided into two groups. The first group was trained to perform only the difficult version of that task. The second group however started with the easy and normal versions first before performing the difficult version. The researchers wanted to know which group would perform the difficult version better. So what was the result? Well despite having less training with the difficult version. The second group actually performed better. Practically speaking this finding suggests that if you have difficulty doing something, instead of just keep doing that it's more effective to start with something easy, and then slowly increase the difficulty as you improve.

So how can you apply this knowledge to improve your listening? I'll tell you. First you have to make it easy in the beginning. For example, if you listen to podcasts in English on your smartphone, find an app that lets you change playback speed. So that you can slow down or speed up what you're listening to. If you listen on your computer there are programs that can do that as well. Then whenever you have trouble understanding, use the app to slow down the audio like this. So now it gets easier right. You have more time to think. You have more time to make out words that aren't pronounced clearly. You have more time to guess the meanings of new words and phrases. The idea here is to make it easy in the beginning. Listen at slower speeds. Listen to speakers that are easy to understand. Listen to easy stuff like podcasts and interviews as opposed to movies. Start small but you're not done yet. Easy to hard training requires you to go from easy to difficult. So once your listening skills improve you have to gradually increase the difficulty, instead of listening at the normal speed, speed it up like this.

Now after you speed it up you must still be able to understand the content, but you should feel a little uncomfortable. This will help you become more familiar with listening to fast speakers. The idea here is to keep pushing yourself. If you keep listening to something easy your listening skills will stop improving. So you have to keep challenging yourself. So listen at faster speeds. Also don't keep listening to the same person. Listen to different people with different speaking styles. And then start watching movies without subtitles. If it's still difficult you can slow down the movie by five percent or ten percent or you can slow it down even more if you don't mind the slowness. Once you get used to it you can then start watching movies at normal speed.

The United States government is composed of three major sections. It is based on the Constitution of the United States of America that was put into effect in May, 1789. The three parts of the US Government are the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Each branch works independently of the other two and each has its own responsibilities. This system is in place to ensure that no branch can carry more power than the other. This is called the separation of powers, which was written into the Constitution.

The executive branch is the branch that most Americans are familiar with. It includes the president of the United States, the vice-president, and the cabinet. The president is the leader of the country and is the commander in chief of the US military. The vice president is second in command, and will act as president if the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office. The cabinet acts as agents of the US President, and carry out the duties they are entrusted with. The legislative branch of government consists of the House of Representatives, and the Senate. Together they form the congress, which can levy and collect taxes, mint money, and establish federal courts. It can also declare war and raise and support the army, navy, and air force to protect the country.

The House of Representatives has four hundred and thirty five members and the Senate consists of one hundred senators, with two from each of the states. Any legislation, or new law must be approved by both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The judicial branch is entrusted to apply the laws created by the legislative branch of government. It has the power to create lower courts under the Supreme Court of the United States. It works closely with state courts, although they are separate.