Learning to speak by listening. Is it possible ?

Hello !

I want to know if it is possible to learn to speak English by listening to audio records and trying to repeat what is said. I ask this question because I have read somewhere in this site that some students had been given cassettes by their teacher because they were very interested in learning American English.

Pre-learning is very important for speaking practice. Your pronunciation will improve a lot if you do repetitive listening many times and trying to imitate how words are being spoken by native speakers. According to a recent thesis conducted by Dr. Paula Tallal, it says that all other skills will automatically develop (like reading, speaking and writing) by just listening a lot. Your problem/question is also answered there under the headline of "Trouble learning to talk or read".

Go to her interview's link:
http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/tallal.htm