When foreign learners first have the opportunity to speak to an English-speaking person, they may have a shock, they often have great difficulty in understanding.

There are a number of reasons for this. I'll just mention three of them. Firstly, it seems to students that English people speak very quickly. Secondly, they speak with a variety of accents. Thirdly, different styles of speech are used in different situations, e.g. everyday spoken English, which is colloquial and idiomatic, is different from the English used for academic purposes.

For all of these reasons, students will have difficulty, mainly because they lack practice in listening to English people speaking English, don't forget by the way, that if students have difficulty in understanding English speaking people, these people may also have difficulty in understanding the students.

What can a student do then to overcome these difficulties? Well, obviously, he can benefit from attending English classes and if a language laboratory is available use it as much as possible. He should also listen to programmes in English on the radio and TV.

Perhaps most important of all, he should take every available opportunity to meet and speak with native English-speaking people. He should be aware, however, that English people are by temperament, often reserved and may be unwilling to start a conversation.