Listening week three

Listening and lectures

Adapted from Unit 1: English for Academic study

Listening diary group

In groups of three or four, present your listening diaries to each other. What have you been listening to? What new language have you learnt? Remember these diaries should be focussed on material which is interesting and engaging, not necessarily academic. Material from music, film, books or even an adverts or conversations you've heard in the street can still give useful language input.

Image taken from http://www.onestopenglish.com/13638.file

Discussion - pronunciation

How different are the sounds used in English to those in your own language? Which sounds (if any) do you have particular difficulty with?
Have you ever encountered the phonemic chart?
Explore the endlessly entertaining interactive phonemic chart on One Stop English (make sure you enable flash in your browser settings first).
- See if you can write your name in phonemic symbols.
Look up a word (any word) in the dictionary. Use the phonemic symbols on the entry to see if you can pronounce it properly.
Practise your vowels and diphthongs by playing the telephone number pronunciation game. Give your partner your phone number by replacing the numbers with the words in the boxes. If you do not trust the person with your phone number then give them a friend's instead. Just make sure you can remember what number you gave so you can check it!

Task 1 - listening in different languages

Which of these types of listening do you think is more difficult or requires more attention in your own language? Why?

Listening to friends as part of your conversation with them.
Listening to the radio.
Listening to announcements at a crowded railway station.
Listening to an academic lecture.

What experiences have you had of listening to spoken English?

What type of listening in English do you find more demanding/less demanding?

Task 2 - Understanding spoken English

Listen to part of a talk in which a lecturer describes some of the problems of listening. Then answer the following questions:
- Which factors can make it difficult to listen to and understand spoken English?
- After talking about the factors which affect listening, the lecturer discusses two additional problems that students may have. What are they?
Now listen to part 2 of the talk. The lecturer asks you to write down a phrase. Do this as you listen.
Listen to part 3 of the talk. Complete the following excerpt by writing two to six words for each space on a separate piece of paper.

So what is the solution to these two problems? Well, firstly, you need to get as much practice listening to natural speech as possible. Listen to ______________________________________________ and try to develop your understanding of how words and phrases are really pronounced, not how you ______________________________________________ pronounced. And secondly, you need to accept that when you listen you may misunderstand what is being said. So you need to be ready to ______________________________________________ about your understanding of the meaning, if what you hear ______________________________________________ compared to what you understood before. And this means taking a flexible, open-minded approach to listening.

Task 3 - Listening to lectures

You are going to listen to a lecturer talking about the differences he perceives between lectures in the UK and China.
- Discuss with a partner your experiences of lectures in your own country compared to those in the country you are studying. Think about:
  - What the lecturers did, e.g. read from notes, used visuals, asked questions.
  - What students did, e.g. asked questions, took notes.
In part 1 of this talk, the lecturer describes aspects of his research. Make notes on the following and then compare with your partner:
- what his main interest is
- where he got his information about lectures in China
- the survey he did and the students he talked to
In part 2 of the talk, the lecturer first talks about some of the characteristics of lectures in China and then compares these with lectures in the UK. Listen and make notes on the main points he makes.
- Characteristics of lectures in China:
- Characteristics of lectures in the UK:

Task 4- Discussion

If you are from China, do you agree with what the speaker reported about lectures in China?
If you are from another country, are the lectures in your country more like the British system, the Chinese one, or a combination of both?
Have you listened to lectures in English before?
Did you take notes (in English or your own language) during the lectures you attended? How difficult was it to take notes?
What did you do before and after your lectures to help you understand more fully and remember the content?

Teacher's notes

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