Any type of passive exposure (i.e., listening to podcasts, watching TV shows, reading books, etc.) while useful… isn’t going to do much by itself.
But if you want to want to improve your English, you will need a balance of focused intensive studying… accompanied by extensive passive exposure. And this is because when you study, you’re opening the door for passive exposure to let it do its job. Once you’ve studied English intensively, passive exposure can help make it fluent.
But if you’re only going to rely on watching TV shows and listening to podcasts in English, it’s going to be extremely ineffective. I mean, sure, absolutely, passive exposure can help. Reading books, listening to podcasts, and watching shows in English are great sources of exposure to supplement your study time… but it’s not something that you should ONLY focus on.
Ultimately, if you want to improve your English fast, you’re going to need a balanced, structured routine, which is what I call the Two Track Approach. You can learn more about this when you download the free one-hour training I created.
Hope that helps.
Best,
Dr Julian Northbrook