Watching Mouths for Enhanced Listening
February 7, 2025
Episode Notes
You're gonna teach morning there.
You really
Good morning.
What's up?
Nothing. Nothing at all. What's up with you?
Well, you know, actually, actually, I just built uh a new app application for myself. I'm not going to talk about it a lot, but it helps me organize and I get a visual feedback on what I what I have finished. what I have yet to finish and what I have to start. It's super I'm I'm I'm stoked to get to work next week.
Is this like a like a to-do list type thing or like a a a daily planner type of thing? What is this?
Um I can send you a link later, but it's a it's a it's a project monitoring list. I I found to-do lists don't work for me and uh I found that other people's apps don't work, but this is made for me and it's just perfect. Like I made it for myself.
Uh anyway,
yeah,
it's a a project. What did you say? Project organizing project managing application.
Yeah, that's that's I call it my project tracker.
Okay. What is the actual app called?
It's it's only for me. It's not open to the public and I call it my project. That's it.
Did you make it? I I made it with AI in two days. It's super
And it's an app.
It's an app and it's live on the internet right now. You can get it if you want. You can open it up. You can't sign in. I won't let you do that yet, but it's called projects.paris.com
if you want to check.
Anyway, I'm I'm looking for ideas for my listening practice.
Okay. Listening practice. ice listening practice. Well, we talked about your blog which was uh um about how the the brain fills in the blanks when listening to to help fill in um you know what I find really useful in Japanese because I'm not a a native Japanese speaker. When I'm listening to someone speak, I always watch their mouth.
You watch their mouth.
I watch their mouth. I find watching the mouth movement helps me catch the rhythm, helps helps me catch the words and the form of the thing. And um during Corona time, it was hard because everyone was wearing masks and uh that's when I realized I'm like, "Wow, I'm I really need people's mouths to be able to help understand what I'm hearing."
Okay.
Yeah. Masks made it hard. But yeah, I realized that for me being able to watch the person's mouth is really helpful. So radio very difficult for me.
Now, one of the things I do for my students, I tell them, and I actually make them do it in class. I when I say if you're doing listening practice, rule number one, if it goes in the air, it comes out the mouth. But rule number two is not a rule, it's a suggestion. You can put your ears on steroids by closing your eyes.
The minute you close your eyes, all the power that goes to your eyes gets shunted to your ears
and your ears become much more powerful.
Like how people who who are um like blind, their hearing becomes better. or deaf, their eyesight becomes better and and so on. It's it's uh as you said, putting more power into a particular organ or sense.
Yes. Actually, this is a little bit of an aside, but they they think that is part of the reason why we dream
for eight hours or whatever you're asleep, your eyes are not receiving sensory information.
And those cells, if if you were to put on a blindfold for like two weeks your eyes would become weaker but your ears conversely would become stronger. That means the cells that are serving the eyes get redirected. They get repurposed to help the ears. So your actual visual power goes down. But if you dream it maintains the power.
I understand all that. But how does that you say close your eyes to improve your your listening but I always suggest students to do shadowing or shadow reading. while watching TV or watching a video. I guess that's a different
a different type of training as it were.
Yeah.
Okay. Here's here's a quick example to answer you.
Sometimes students say, "Life, you talk about shadowing, but sometimes I listen, I stop it, and then I repeat it."
Yeah.
And which one is better? And my answer is they're not better. They're different.
Yeah. Yeah. The more things you do, the better you get at all things. It's being Cool.
Cool.
Very cool. Thanks, Les. Okay. Thanks a lot. I'll turn this off. See you next week. See you, sir. Byebye.
You really
Good morning.
What's up?
Nothing. Nothing at all. What's up with you?
Well, you know, actually, actually, I just built uh a new app application for myself. I'm not going to talk about it a lot, but it helps me organize and I get a visual feedback on what I what I have finished. what I have yet to finish and what I have to start. It's super I'm I'm I'm stoked to get to work next week.
Is this like a like a to-do list type thing or like a a a daily planner type of thing? What is this?
Um I can send you a link later, but it's a it's a it's a project monitoring list. I I found to-do lists don't work for me and uh I found that other people's apps don't work, but this is made for me and it's just perfect. Like I made it for myself.
Uh anyway,
yeah,
it's a a project. What did you say? Project organizing project managing application.
Yeah, that's that's I call it my project tracker.
Okay. What is the actual app called?
It's it's only for me. It's not open to the public and I call it my project. That's it.
Did you make it? I I made it with AI in two days. It's super
And it's an app.
It's an app and it's live on the internet right now. You can get it if you want. You can open it up. You can't sign in. I won't let you do that yet, but it's called projects.paris.com
if you want to check.
Anyway, I'm I'm looking for ideas for my listening practice.
Okay. Listening practice. ice listening practice. Well, we talked about your blog which was uh um about how the the brain fills in the blanks when listening to to help fill in um you know what I find really useful in Japanese because I'm not a a native Japanese speaker. When I'm listening to someone speak, I always watch their mouth.
You watch their mouth.
I watch their mouth. I find watching the mouth movement helps me catch the rhythm, helps helps me catch the words and the form of the thing. And um during Corona time, it was hard because everyone was wearing masks and uh that's when I realized I'm like, "Wow, I'm I really need people's mouths to be able to help understand what I'm hearing."
Okay.
Yeah. Masks made it hard. But yeah, I realized that for me being able to watch the person's mouth is really helpful. So radio very difficult for me.
Now, one of the things I do for my students, I tell them, and I actually make them do it in class. I when I say if you're doing listening practice, rule number one, if it goes in the air, it comes out the mouth. But rule number two is not a rule, it's a suggestion. You can put your ears on steroids by closing your eyes.
The minute you close your eyes, all the power that goes to your eyes gets shunted to your ears
and your ears become much more powerful.
Like how people who who are um like blind, their hearing becomes better. or deaf, their eyesight becomes better and and so on. It's it's uh as you said, putting more power into a particular organ or sense.
Yes. Actually, this is a little bit of an aside, but they they think that is part of the reason why we dream
for eight hours or whatever you're asleep, your eyes are not receiving sensory information.
And those cells, if if you were to put on a blindfold for like two weeks your eyes would become weaker but your ears conversely would become stronger. That means the cells that are serving the eyes get redirected. They get repurposed to help the ears. So your actual visual power goes down. But if you dream it maintains the power.
I understand all that. But how does that you say close your eyes to improve your your listening but I always suggest students to do shadowing or shadow reading. while watching TV or watching a video. I guess that's a different
a different type of training as it were.
Yeah.
Okay. Here's here's a quick example to answer you.
Sometimes students say, "Life, you talk about shadowing, but sometimes I listen, I stop it, and then I repeat it."
Yeah.
And which one is better? And my answer is they're not better. They're different.
Yeah. Yeah. The more things you do, the better you get at all things. It's being Cool.
Cool.
Very cool. Thanks, Les. Okay. Thanks a lot. I'll turn this off. See you next week. See you, sir. Byebye.