Make sure you face the person you are talking to. This is helpful because you can watch for extra clues, such as gestures and lip-reading. The volume of the speaker’s voice will also be louder when they are looking directly at you.
Most hearing aids have directional microphones. This means that the hearing aids automatically focus on the speaker directly in front of you. This helps improve speech understanding, so the conversation sounds more clear. That’s why hearing aid wearers will struggle to hear someone if they are not facing the speaker.
It is also helpful to keep the sources of any other noise behind you, such as other conversations you aren’t a part of, a television, music speaker, and so on. The directional microphones will adapt to pick up sound in front of you and dampen the noise from behind you.