On a morning train, even with earphones in, it can be so crowded you can't look at the screen. At night, in a room where your family is sleeping, you can open your materials but you can't speak aloud. In a hospital waiting room, you forgot your earphones so you can't play sound, but you can look at a screen instead.
Lumping all of these together as 'days I can't speak aloud' costs you. What you can do is completely different in each situation. First, divide the conditions into three. If this stays vague, the task will always end up half-finished.
- Can you hear the audio? Do you have earphones, and will it be drowned out by the sounds around you
- Can you look at a screen or paper?
- Can you speak aloud?
The dividing line is the first one. Don't treat a day you can listen and a day you can't the same way. The moment you separate these two, what to do that day is almost decided. What remains is how to connect it to a time when you can speak aloud.
On a Day You Can Listen, Follow the Direction of the Reply, Not the Words
On a day when you can hear sound but can't speak aloud, there's no need to look for a substitute for moving your mouth. Listening practice stands perfectly well as listening practice. Narrow the task to one thing. Follow only which way a reply moved the conversation.
Suppose you hear an exchange like this.
A: It's starting to rain. Shall we get a taxi?
B: We could, but it's only about ten minutes on foot.
Did B accept the proposal, or turn it down? The answer is neither. With We could, B takes up the taxi idea for a moment, then places the material 'about ten minutes on foot' after but and nudges the conversation toward walking. B hasn't clearly refused. But B hasn't just gone along, either. What happens next depends on A's next line.
So the task comes down to 'choosing one role for the reply.' Accepting, refusing, offering another idea, adding a condition. This example is 'offering another idea.' Whether you caught every word can take second place. If you can see which way B tried to move the conversation in response to A's proposal, your listening that day has succeeded.
Making someone write a long answer while listening is harsh. Keep responses short, and take time to think between listening. TeachingEnglish's explanation of listening lesson design also recommends arrangements like that. The approach of narrowing things to one task brings that idea into a train where you're listening standing up.
If you can't look at a screen, choose your material and get it playing before you leave. Set it up so you need neither rewind nor subtitle controls, and go out with only the task of 'choosing one role for the reply.' When you get off and can look at a screen, note down just the role you chose and one word that was the deciding clue. In this example, that's but. That's enough.
On a Day You Can't Listen, Don't Try to Listen — Write Your Next Line
You have no earphones. It's quiet around you and you can't play sound. But you can look at a screen. On a day like that, there's no point forcing yourself to keep doing a listening task. Switch to a writing task. That's the right answer.
Place one question you're likely to be asked in conversation.
What do you usually do after work?
Write your own reply to it, just one or two sentences.
I usually cook something simple and watch a show.
If I'm not too tired, I go for a short walk.
You don't need elaborate English. Make it what you would really answer. Do you cook dinner, or buy it on the way home? Do you go out after getting home, or stay in? If it's a reply that fits your life, then when you later say it aloud, the work of rethinking the content disappears. Your own sentences, rather than impressive ones.
Writing also makes clear the places you can't say. You could write 'after work,' but you don't know how to say 'space out,' and so on. Whether to look it up in a dictionary or replace it with an expression you can say can be decided at this stage. The one or two sentences you write this way become the script for the time when you can speak aloud.
In a situation where you can neither look at a screen nor listen, such as while you're walking, don't push it. Just decide one thing about the content of your reply in your head, and write it down when you can look at a screen.
Time When You Can Speak Aloud Is Not Time to Start Something New
When you can be alone, when you find a place where you can speak aloud, like in a car. That time is not for opening new material; it's for using what you've prepared.
- Read aloud the reply you wrote down. If there's a place that's hard to say, rewrite it into a shorter way of saying it on the spot
- Try saying B's reply from the conversation you heard yourself. After but, you can rephrase it with a different reason, such as having an umbrella, or the rain likely stopping soon
With this, the time you listened, the time you wrote, and the time you spoke connect within the flow of the same conversation. If you record the rephrased B reply, then on the next day you can't speak aloud, it becomes material for checking the role from the listener's side this time.
However, you don't need to turn all of your listening time into a task. It's because there are programs you keep purely for enjoyment that practice like this continues. That line is drawn in Keeping Your Favorite Programs from All Becoming 'Study Material' as well. Don't turn all your quiet time into studying. That's also an important decision for keeping going.