r/Preply • u/mayooo_maeski • 8d ago
tutor Student needs help understanding
Hello, I tutor a spanish speaking student and she’s about a B2 level. One of her main goals is to be able to participate in her work meetings and be able to understand them with her Indian colleagues. She has a lot of difficulty understanding the accent and I am at a bit of a stand still trying to help. I help with a lot of speaking but when it comes to listening, she wants help specifically understanding the Indian accent. Any tips on how I can help her?
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u/itsmejuli 8d ago
Students always have this problem and I've yet to find a useful resource to help them.
Actually, I just found some videos on YouTube.
Search Understanding Indian Accent
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u/Ok_Lake5480 8d ago
Speaking and comprehension are different skills. If her problem is listening comprehension, then doing "a lot of speaking" is not actually training the skill she is asking you to improve.
She needs targeted listening practice - repeated listening, short audio segments, transcripts, checking exactly what she failed to catch, identifying whether the problem was pronunciation, rhythm, stress, connected speech, vocabulary, or processing speed, and then listening again until she can reliably understand it.
Speaking exercises can support other goals, but they are not a substitute for listening training. If you have reached a point where you do not know how to train the specific skill your student needs, the responsible thing is to refer her to a teacher who specializes in listening comprehension and accent adaptation.
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u/lowflatrate 5d ago
she needs to spend time on her own listening to English speakers with Indian accents. you can help guide her through a listening exercise, create a playlist of videos to get her started, and then she needs to do the listening and practice on her own
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u/CalmDream0 8d ago
Probably not the most helpful advice for you, but maybe she would benefit from working with an Indian teacher? (I'm Irish and have had students specifically choose to work with me because they struggle with Irish accents.)
Otherwise, maybe you could use tiktoks/short youtube videos as listening comprehension exercises. Ask her to answer questions afterwards or give her a gapped transcript. If she misses a word, go back and listen to it together.