DEVELOPING ACADEMIC LISTENING SKILLS ONLINE MODULE
Bataan Peninsula State University | English Skills Enhancement | DEVELOPING ACADEMIC LISTENING SKILLS
Bataan Peninsula State University | English Skills Enhancement | DEVELOPING ACADEMIC LISTENING SKILLS
Listening tests evaluate your core listening skills including following conversations, discerning opinions and drawing accurate conclusions. Here’s why these abilities are so important for your studies and career.
Your Listening test isn’t just a mandatory section of your overall test to get through, an essential life skill is being evaluated here! The Listening test, for both General Training and Academic, assesses your ability to listen to conversations, understand the ideas shared, follow the narrative and draw conclusions on them.
Listening skills are the foundation of succeeding in both the workplace and the university campus and should be consistently mastered throughout your life.
It forms the foundation for developing yourself into a more attentive student, a better business negotiator, and overall, a more empathetic individual.
In this online module, we will go through what the Listening test evaluates (particularly the IELTS Listening Test) and why listening skills are essential for your future career success!
1. Your ability to follow conversations
Listening is easy but effectively following conversations isn’t that easy. The Listening test will feature two recordings that are conversations between:
Two people in an everyday social context
A group of four people set in an educational or training context
The difficulty here is to make out what each individual is talking about, their motivations, opinions and general attitudes when it comes to the topic and ideas being discussed.
2. The ability to understand and discern monologues
Monologues are often hard to follow and are a challenge to anyone’s attention. Details can be easily missed and losing the point is something that commonly happens if you aren’t used to hearing monologues.
The test will evaluate how well you can understand the main points being shared and if you follow the development of the ideas being showcased.
3. Your ability to retain information and digest factual details
Listening is not enough to score, you’ll also have to retain and process key information. During the test, there will be a whole host of factual details sprinkled throughout the conversations and monologues.
You will need to listen carefully in detail to effectively answer a variety of questions that can range from multiple choice to matching facts and diagram labelling.
4. The ability to draw conclusions from information gathered
One of the biggest challenges of the Listening test is drawing conclusions fast from the information you are taking in.
Because you can only hear the recording once, you will need to process the opinions, facts and attitudes of the speakers all at once. This is necessary, especially to complete key tasks such as summary completion.
Whether you are attending a course lecture or a business conference, you will be exposed to a myriad of facts, opinions and narratives.
Listening skills will allow you to effectively follow the conversation and analyse the information on the go while you listen.
The ability to assess information for better judgement is crucial in both the business and academic world. It helps you to become an effective communicator in the classroom as well as a fluid negotiator in the boardroom.
There will often be little time for you to privately draw conclusions, good listening skills allow you to simultaneously listen and pick apart arguments to come out with good answers and solutions.
There will be times when disagreements and arguments can happen between team members or colleagues.
Effective listening skills allow you to be objective and cut through the tensed emotions to really determine right from wrong. It also allows you to come up with the most empathetic solution where both parties can benefit or at least mitigate further disagreements.
Often, every conversation or monologue will contain bias or a leaning towards a certain point of view.
Solid listening skills help you to swiftly identify the opinions and attitudes of the speakers, allowing you to quickly discern facts from potential viewpoints that aren’t rooted in fact.
Good listening skills allow you to be a really effective team player. In university and in the office, deadlines are really important, with consequences tied to them.
The ability to effectively take in and process verbal information quickly makes you more productive and overall, a more reliable employee or student people can trust to get the job done.
Dig into different strategies that can improve your listening skills so you can become a high quality listener.
It’s easy to tell when someone’s not paying attention, but it can be surprisingly tricky to know what good listening looks like. Good listening is one of the most important things we can do to improve our relationships, develop our worldview, and potentially change people’s minds. So what can we do to become better listeners? Dig into different strategies that can improve your listening skills.
Directed by Maryna Buchynska, and action agency.
WATCH THIS VIDEO | Active listening skills, which some people call reflective listening, are critical for professionals, leaders, students, parents, customer service, and counselors. In short, active listening is the foundation of effective listening.
As explained in the video, it involves 1) both verbal and nonverbal cues, 2) asking good questions, and 3) giving an informed response.
The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is designed to help you achieve your ambition of working, studying or moving to a country where English is spoken.
IELTS test scores are accepted as proof of English language ability at thousands of universities, colleges and workplaces around the world, and also by immigration authorities in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK.
If you're looking to emigrate, an IELTS test score will put you on the right path to getting your visa. Score requirements are different from country to country and may depend on the visa that you are applying for.
Millions of students study abroad every year. If you want to study in a country where English is spoken, such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, or the USA, IELTS could be the key to your future.
Employers and professional bodies around the world rely on IELTS to help them select the right people. Taking an IELTS test can boost your chances of employment as it shows your employer that you are committed to working and living in the country.
Having an IELTS score may be necessary for registration with professional bodies in sectors where English-language competence is critical to the work.
Many professional registration bodies representing healthcare accept IELTS and they cover jobs in nursing, medicine, and pharmacy. Required proficiency levels vary between organisations and professions, by country and by jurisdiction. It is up to individual professional registration bodies to determine the IELTS band score and test type (Academic or General Training) they require.
Other professional bodies that may require an IELTS result include those in accounting, engineering, law and veterinary practice. Employers in finance, government, construction, energy, aviation and tourism may also require IELTS.
In IELTS, there are four papers: Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking. The Speaking and Listening tests are the same in both the Academic and the General Training tests, but the Reading and Writing tests are different.
IELTS ACADEMIC TEST VS IELTS GENERAL TRAINING TEST
The IELTS Academic test is designed to assess your English-language skills, especially those skills that are relevant when studying at undergraduate or postgraduate levels. Check which academic institutions accept IELTS and the scores they require for acceptance onto their degree programmes.
The IELTS Academic test features vocabulary that is common within an academic setting and may also be a requirement for registration with professional bodies.
Choose the IELTS General Training test if you wish to migrate to a country where English is spoken, (e.g. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and UK) or if you wish to train or study at below degree level.
Listening
The paper has four parts, with ten questions in each part. The questions are in the same order as the information in the recording, so the answer to the first question will be before the answer to the second question, and so on.
Parts 1 and 2 deal with everyday, social situations. There is a conversation between two speakers in Part 1 (for example, a conversation about travel arrangements). Only one person speaks in Part 2 (for example, a speech about local facilities).
Parts 3 and 4 deal with educational and training situations. In Part 3 there is a conversation between two main speakers (for example, two university students in discussion, perhaps guided by a tutor). In Part 4 only one person speaks on an academic subject.
You will hear the recordings once only. Different accents, including British, Australian, New Zealand and North American, are used.
You will need to transfer your answers to an answer sheet. You will have 10 minutes at the end of the test to do this. You should be careful when writing your answers on the answer sheet because you will lose marks for incorrect spelling and grammar.
Summary
Time allowed: Approximately 30 minutes (plus 10 minutes to transfer your answers to an answer sheet)
Number of parts: 4
Number of questions: 40
Marking: Each correct answer receives 1 mark. Your final score is given as a band score in whole or half bands, e.g. 5.5 or 7.0.
Types of question
A. Listening Question Type 1 – Multiple choice
What's involved?
This type of question may be a question with three possible answers or the first half of a sentence with three possible sentence endings. You have to choose one correct answer, A, B or C, then write the correct letter on the answer sheet.
Sometimes you are given a longer list of possible answers and you have to choose more than one answer. You should read the question carefully to check how many answers you need to choose.
What skills are tested?
This type of question tests many listening skills, e.g. a detailed understanding of specific points, or general understanding of the main points of the recording.
How many questions are there?
Variable.
B. Listening Question Type 2 – Matching
What's involved?
In this type of question, you have to match a list of items from the recording to a list of options on the question paper, then write the correct letter on the answer sheet.
What skills are tested?
This type of question tests your ability to:
1. listen for detailed information. For example, whether you can understand information about the type of hotel or guest house accommodation in an everyday conversation
2. follow a conversation between two people
3. recognise how facts in the recording are connected to each other.
How many questions are there?
Variable.
C. Listening Question Type 3 – Plan/map/diagram labelling
What's involved?
In this type of question, you have to complete labels on a visual which may be:
1. a diagram (e.g. a piece of equipment)
2. a set of pictures
3. a plan (e.g. of a building)
4. a map (e.g. of part of a town).
You may have to:
· select your answers from a list on the question paper, then write the correct letter on the answer sheet
· select words from the recording which fit into gaps on the question paper. In this case, you will need to keep to the word limit given in the instructions. You do not have to change the words in the recording in any way.
You should read the instructions very carefully as the number of words or numbers you may use to fill the gaps can change. A word limit is given, for example, ‘NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER’. You will lose the mark for writing more than the word limit. Contracted words such as ‘they’re’ will not be tested. Hyphenated words such as ‘check-in’ count as single words.
Write the words that fit into the gap on the answer sheet.
What skills are tested?
This type of question tests your ability to understand, for example, a description of a place, and how this description relates to the visual. It may also test your ability to understand explanations of where things are and follow directions (e.g. straight on/through the far door).
How many questions are there?
Variable.
D. Listening Question Type 4 – Form/note/table/flow chart/summary completion
What's involved?
In this type of question, you have to fill in gaps in an outline of part or all of the recording. The outline will focus on the main ideas/facts in the recording and may be:
§ a form: often used for facts, such as names
§ a set of notes: used to summarise information and show how different points relate to one another
§ a table: used to summarise information that can be divided into clear categories, e.g. place/time/price
§ a flow chart: used to summarise the stages in a process, with the direction of the process shown by arrows.
You may have to:
§ select your answers from a list on the question paper, then write the correct letter on the answer sheet
§ select words from the recording which fit into gaps on the question paper. In this case, you will need to keep to the word limit given in the instructions. You do not have to change the words in the recording in any way.
You should read the instructions very carefully as the number of words or numbers you may use to fill the gaps can change. A word limit is given, for example, ‘NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER’. You will lose the mark for writing more than the word limit. Contracted words such as ‘they’re’ will not be tested. Hyphenated words such as ‘check-in’ count as single words.
Write the words that fit into the gap on the answer sheet.
What skills are tested?
This type of question focuses on the main points the person listening would naturally write down.
How many questions are there?
Variable.
E. Listening Question Type 5 – Sentence completion
What's involved?
In this type of question, you have to read sentences that summarise important information from either all of the listening text or from one part of it. You have to fill in a gap in each sentence using information from the recording.
You should read the instructions very carefully as the number of words or numbers you may use to fill the gaps can change. A word limit is given, for example, ‘NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER’. You will lose the mark for writing more than the word limit. Contracted words such as ‘they’re’ will not be tested. Hyphenated words such as ‘check-in’ count as single words.
Write the words that fit into the gap on the answer sheet.
What skills are tested?
This type of question focuses on your ability to identify the important information in a recording. You may also need to understand relationships between ideas/facts/events, such as cause and effect.
How many questions are there?
Variable.
F. Listening Question Type 6 – Short-answer questions
What's involved?
In this type of question, you have to read a question and write a short answer using information from the recording.
You should read the instructions very carefully as the number of words or numbers you may use to fill the gaps can change. A word limit is given, for example, ‘NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER’. You will lose the mark for writing more than the word limit. Contracted words such as ‘they’re’ will not be tested. Hyphenated words such as ‘check-in’ count as single words.
Write your answer on the answer sheet.
Sometimes you are given a question which asks you to write two or three different answers.
What skills are tested?
This type of question focuses on your ability to listen for facts, such as places, prices or times, heard in the recording.
How many questions are there?
Variable.
In this video, we bring you an exciting new strategy for mastering IELTS Listening Multiple Choice questions.
Learn the strategy for Matching questions and test your skills with two practice questions.
In this lesson, we will cover the IELTS Listening - Plan/Map/Diagram Labelling question type, which will test your ability to understand spatial information in the form of directions, instructions, or general information.
4- HOW TO TAKE Form/note/table/flow chart/summary completion
In this video lesson we will look at how to do a sentence completion task for the IELTS Listening test.
Short answer questions come up regularly in the exam and can appear in any section of the test.
STEP 1. Download and print this test paper: https://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/blank-answer-sheet-listening.pdf
STEP 2. Go to this website and take IELTS LISTENING TEST 1. Please be able to follow instructions.
Go to this website to take the practice tests: https://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/take-ielts/prepare/free-ielts-english-practice-tests/listening
(Please note that the answer key is available on the website. However, PLEASE DO NOT LOOK AT THE ANSWER KEY UNTIL YOU ARE ABLE TO TAKE THE TEST. Ito ay upang tunay mong masukat and kalagayan ng iyong kakayahan sa English Listening Test.)
The answer key can be found here (PLEASE DO NOT OPEN THIS IF YOU HAVE NOT TAKEN THE EXAM YET):
TEST 1 ANSWER KEY (DO NOT OPEN THIS IF YOU HAVE NOT TAKEN YOUR TEST YET) https://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/listening_practice_answers_121012.doc_0.pdf
STEP 3. Check your own paper and write your own score. The hard copy of your practice test should be kept secured as the copy will be submitted in GClass.
A MESSAGE
Hi guys! I hope you took the time to study listening skills, particularly academic listening skills. I hope these resources will introduce you to academic listening tracked toward an international English Test (i.e. the IELTS). The IELTS may be an important test that you will take in the future. You can always go back to this website in the future. Happy learning!