Suggestions for Improving Listening Skills

Try television!  Find out if you get Univisión, Telemundo or Galavisión television stations.  The children's programming and the commercials are very helpful.  You may recognize a lot of the commercials and be able to figure out what the Spanish means based on the English version.  These stations also run dubbed or subtitled American movies.  I have watched many Clint Eastwood movies which have been subtitled in Spanish.
HBO now offers HBO Latino, airing movies and HBO programs in Spanish.  Top English-language and current movies like Gladiator, Titanic,  El Matrix  and Chicken Run are dubbed into Spanish.  Even if you don't subscribe to HBO Latino, you often can receive a movie in Spanish by identifying which language you want in your cable or VCR set-up.
My favorite television channel is Telemundo which airs bilingual programming.  My favorite show is Los Beltrán  at 8pm on Sundays!  Many shows have a mixed cast of English and Spanish speakers of varying levels of English and Spanish, so you can generally follow the show even with limited Spanish.  On the weekends (especially Sunday nights), Telemundo airs bilingual editions of many of its shows.  They have subtitles in English or Spanish depending upon the language in which the show is presented.
  • Check your area for radio stations.  Most Spanish speaking DJs will shout just as loud and fast as the English speaking DJs, but there will be commercials (like for Blockbuster and local restaurants).
  • And continue to listen to your course listening material.  Just because you have moved onto another section of the textbook does not mean that you shouldn't go back to listen to and practice with the audio exercises from previous sections!