Small portable receiver
I believe the use of a small portable air band receiver is a good idea. It’s what I did. Initially I borrowed a large general purpose scanner that included the air bands from a friend and tried to record some samples. I then got my own small air band that I took around with me to local airfields. I found this very helpful along with airfields that make their radio available as an audio feed on the internet. This was several years ago. I passed my radio and finished my licence and now fly an old Cessna F172H around the UK – mostly East Anglia.
I still use the air band receiver to build up an awareness of what’s going on at my home airfield as I drive towards it. When travelling outside the UK I take it with me to listen to ATIS on the way to airport, and if I have time to spare I sit and listen in to the airport frequencies to build up experience of radio procedures at major airports both in and out of the UK.