Tips for the Listening Test! In general The Listening Test is probably the one people get most scared of. To help yourself overcome that fear, start watching TV programs in English. It is better than radio or audio books, because you also see images that help you understand the words you hear. Listening – a skill, not a gift! From my experience, in many cases Listening is the least developed skill. So if you feel especially weak in that area - pay attention to the following tips, that will help you improve your Listening ability. Remember – nobody is born with it, it’s just a skill and you learn it. If you think your Listening needs no improvements – skip the “Teach yourself the words” part, move forward to the next tips. Teach yourself the words The only way to improve your Listening ability is to train your “ears” to separate and understand the words you hear in the flow of sentence. Often what you hear is a Blablablablabla”, which you cant to break into words, and for that reason it makes no sense to you. When training, take a recording of the news, lecture, television program movie or an actual IELTS Listening test and work with it. I suggest using MP3 player. You can easily record English from the radio or any other source to it. It is also easy to repeat (re-play) sentences you didnt understand. MP3 player is small and light, so you can use it in any spare moment that you have – riding the bus or tram, walking the dog, taking a walk yourself, etc. First, listen, remember what you heard and stop the recording after each phrase. Even if you didn’t understand the phrase, play it in your head a couple of times, like a broken record – “Tonight we have a special guest”, “Tonight we have a special guest”, “Tonight we have a special guest”. Then say it out loud. If you understood that phrase at first, this exercise will improve your pronunciation. If you didn’t understand the phrase for the first time, this repetition will give you more time to hear it better, break it into words and make sense out of them. And if it is still difficult, you can always rewind and hear the phrase again. There is a big difference between seeing a word printed on paper while reading and hearing it. If you saw a word, it doesn’t mean you will recognize it when you hear it. So every word you have seen, you must hear at list once. Instructions will keep you safe Every task in IELTS Listening test has its instructions. It may sound stupid, but you really need to read them carefully. Why? Because they will tell you exactly what to do with the information: how many words you can use to answer, is there a table you must fill, is there a list to chose words from, how many items you must name, etc. And if the answer must be in 3 words – write EXACTLY 3 WORDS, because writing four or two words will get you 0 score. To make my point crystal clear, let’s take the following scenario for example: The speaker on a tape says: “Well, if you are dieting, try to avoid fruits with lots of fructose like watermelon, mango, peaches or grapes.” The question in the booklet is: “Name 2 fruits a person on a diet should not eat”. The answer may be “watermelon, mango” or “mango, peaches” or any combination of two items, but never three or four!!! Anyone who writes “just in case” – watermelon, mango, peaches, grapes – receives 0 score for that question. Note: when counting words – “a” or “the” counts as a word. Divide and concur! The recording divides questions into groups, so every time you are instructed to answer a group of 4-5 questions. There are 20-30 seconds of silence before each group. First thing you should do when the tape starts playing, is understand which group of questions you need to answer. For example the tape says: “Look at questions one to four”. It means that you have about 20 seconds to look at those questions. Go over questions, read them and underline keywords. Keywords are words that contain the main idea of the question. They will help you guess what you will hear – numbers, opening hours, names, locations, etc. Draw a line under question four, so you won’t look further before it’s time. Then you will hear a piece of passage and answer the questions one to four as you listen. It means that you should be able to write one answer and listen to another. After that, the tape will say the numbers of questions in the next group. Repeat the same process, including drawing the line. This dividing technique is very efficient because every time you concentrate on limited number of questions, so it makes you more focused and in control. Distractions Dont get confused by all the different voices you are going to hear. The recording uses several different voices – of younger and older people, men and women. You may also hear different accents - Australian, British, American, Japanese, etc. The background noise is also varies. It can be of airport, cafe-shop, street, University lecture hall, you name it. Be ready for it and dont let it distract you – because that is exactly what they want. Ignore the noises and listen for the answers. Listen for specifics When you are listening, look for descriptions and details, such as dates, places, telephone numbers, opening hours, years (1995), transportation (car, bike, train) If you hear them, but don’t know where to place them yet – write them on margins of the Listening booklet. Later you will have some time to check your answers. Going over the questions that you couldn’t answer during the Listening passage, you might see that what you’ve written on the margins fits. Answer as you listen The reason you have to “answer as you listen” is that you immediately forget the sentences after you have heard them – because of stress, foreign language, constant flow of information, etc. After hearing the third sentence you won’t be able to repeat the first. It means that when any part of Listening is over – you won‘t be able to remember any of the answers. So write them as you hear them, leave nothing for later. Keep moving forward! A worst case scenario is you “loosing the sequence of answers” – so you miss one answer and then you miss another one and so on. To prevent that from happening, always look one or two questions ahead. It sounds confusing, but after a little practice becomes very natural and helps a lot. Even if you have missed the answer to a question – admit it and move to the next one, otherwise you will lose it too. Know your clues The answer is usually pronounced louder and clearer, it is easier to hear and understand. If you can’t hear something clear (because the speaker swallows words or whispers), then probably the answer is not there. With some practice you will be able to tell the difference. A good clue to answer is when you hear a repetition of a word, a word being spelled out (G A R F U N K E L) or a number dictated. Spelling tasks As simple as it sounds, the spelling task is not so easy. You should practice a little to be prepared for it. Just ask someone to spell the names of cities from the following list for you. If you study alone, you could record yourself spell those names and numbers, and then play it. The same goes for the list of telephone numbers I include here. It is a good practice and will only add to your confidence. Note: in numbers 00 sometimes is read as “double o” instead of “zero-zero”. Cities Numbers Antananarivo 423-5207-0074 Brazzaville 628-2087-2311 Conakry 5167-832-0155 Gaborone 8746-221-0302 Johannesburg 5337-298-0132 Kinshasa 5900-231-7621 Libreville 4348-663-980 Lilongwe 11-267-55410 Mogadiscio 101-9020-7624 Ouagadougou 413-2567-9011 Windhoek 782-6721-0412 Islamabad 479-2001-6792 Rangoon 821-6283-1382 Ascension 492-5241-8921 Vancouver 941-2042-9142 Al Minuya 871-5466-0098 Qandahar 917-5422-3333 Jharkhand 244-1449-2100
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 07:41:32 +0000
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