I recently read an article written by Reid Wilson entitled Activities for Building Vocabulary Recognition and thought I would share the idea as a language learning tip.  Wilson, whose writing about the MP3 player in language learning was a big part of inspiring the Turkish Listening Library used this method on his journey toward fluency in colloquial Arabic but I think it is something we all could do as well.  Wilson had a few 30 minute blocks of time with his friend (they were exchanging English for Arabic instruction) and wanted to maximize the time.  What he did was to sit down with a friend and a recording device and have his friend share for two minutes about what he did the day before.  After making the recording, they immediately went back and began to listen through the audio together, one section at a time. After words and expressions were clarified, Wilson would immediately rewind and listen once more and then write down a note about the word and meaning.  In this manor, he continued through the entire two minute recording which took up the remainder of the 30 minutes.  That day, Wilson continued to listen back through the two minute recording.  At their next meeting, Wison again asked his friend to record a two minute audio of what he did the day before.  This created a narrow listening opportunity where much of the core of what he learned the time before was repeated and reviewed, but a lot of new vocabulary and topics were added in as well.  Overall, it seems like a great way to take control of the input and provide for multiple contacts with the new things you are learning.  There are lots of questions I can imagine you can ask of people to multiple times to get this kind of narrow listening opportunity.  Give it a try and let me know what you think.  And check out the full article by clicking on the title above.