Make the most of your time; I hate to state the obvious but it is as simple as that. It is fundamental to practice your «listening skills» outside class as much as possible, but the great thing about practicing «listening» is that you can multitask. As a student of French, I can honestly say that my French listening skills have improved greatly since I took up this habit.
Listening several times a week while you cook lunch or dinner, or even while you carry out some household chores such as ironing or cleaning your flat, both are great ways to make the most of your time. It even makes household chores more enjoyable. Therefore, you can combine education with daily chores. Another important thing about improving your listening, is that it also improves your own pronunciation as you familiarize your ear with the sounds of the English language.
Everybody talks about having a musical ear, but the same can be applied to language acquisition. If you are fond of music and are able to memorize tunes, harmonies and choruses, in addition to distinguishing different instruments within the mix, then it is highly probable that you may also understand new languages with greater ease as well.
In short, your need to train your ear so as to be able to identify the subtle sounds within the phonetics of English as our language is full of contractions and homophones; not only that as now that English has become the language of the world, it means that it has more accents than any other language as everyone uses it as a second language we have English spoken with a French accent, German accent, Italian accent, Polish accent, Scandinavian accent and so forth.
Take my word for it, and start multitasking 😉
