The importance of listening comprehension in English

[Competent]

The actual process of oral communication consists of two integral parts: listening and speaking.

People develop not only listening comprehension skills in English by watching English movies (films) and other programmes on video, on TV or on the Internet, or by listening to BBC English, the Voice of America and other programmes, and to audio/video recordings for learning English.
People also listen to and learn different accents and peculiarities of English usage in real life settings in different English speaking countries by native English speakers in terms of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and style (formal and informal English). Informal English includes colloquial, slang and dialectal usage.

Regular long-term listening to various authentic English audio and video materials helps a learner produce his or her own sentences more quickly and with better wording when speaking than without adequate practice in listening comprehension in English.

Listening practice in English is also very important because foreign learners of English living and learning English in non-English speaking countries have limited opportunities for regular long-term oral communication in English with native speakers of English on a variety of topics and issues using comprehensive content and extensive vocabulary.

And both listening and speaking content of various topics and extensive vocabulary can be covered in practising listening comprehension in English using audio and video materials (for example, in listening to dialogues, discussions, debates, interviews, narrations, etc).

It is a good idea to practise speaking and discussions of issues in English after listening to texts in English.