The TOEFL® iBT: Improving Your Listening Skills

The TOEFL® iBT: Improving Your Listening Skills
Advice for Listening
Performance Level: Low
Score Range: 0 – 14
1. Practice listening to something in English every day and gradually increase the amount of time that you listen.
o Listen to different kinds of materials.
 Listen actively. Try to answer the "wh" questions.
 who
 what
 when
 where
 why
 how
 Listen passively to get the general idea of what's being said.
o Keep a listening log (a list of everything you listen to each day/week).
 Write a one-sentence summary to remember the main idea of what you heard.
 Write down new expressions, idioms, and vocabulary that you hear.
o Use dictations and other exercises to help your listening ability.
 Ask an English speaker to dictate an article to you. Good sources of material are newspapers, magazines, and textbooks.
 First, write down exactly what you hear
 Then only take notes on the important points that you hear
 Do information gap exercises, using unfamiliar content and complex structures.
2. Use the resources in your community to practice listening to English.
o Visit places in your community where you can practice listening to English.
 If possible, enroll in an English class.
 Go to a museum and take an audio tour in English.
 Follow a guided tour in English in your city.
 Call or visit a hotel where tourists stay and get information in English about room rates, hotel availability, or hotel facilities.
 Call and listen to information recorded in English, such as a movie schedule, a weather report, or information about an airplane flight.
o Watch or listen to programs recorded in English.
 Watch television programs.
 CNN, the Discovery Channel, or National Geographic
 Watch movies, soap operas, or situation comedies on television
 Do this with a friend and talk about the program together
 Rent videos (turn off the captions!) or go to a movie in English.
 Listen to a book on tape in English.
 Listen to music in English and then check your accuracy by finding the lyrics on the Internet (e.g., www.lyrics.com).
 Listen to English language recordings that come with a transcript. Listen to each recording at least three times.
 The first time, take notes about the main ideas you hear.
 The second time, read the transcript and listen for the ideas you wrote down.
 The third time, write down any words and phrases that you didn’t understand and look them up.
o Go to Internet sites to practice listening.
 National Public Radio (www.npr.org)
 CBS News (www.cbsnews.com)
 Randall’s Cyber Listening Lab (www.esl-lab.com)
 BBC World Service.com Learning English (www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish)
o Practice speaking English with others.
 Exchange language lessons with an English speaker who wants to learn your language.
3. Begin to prepare for academic situations.
o Visit academic classes in English.
o Record lectures or presentations and replay them several times.
 Listen to short sections several times until you understand the main points and the flow of ideas.
 Stop the recording in the middle and predict what will come next.
o Become familiar with the organization or structure of academic lectures.
 Pay attention to the difference between main ideas and details presented.
 Listen for the general (main) ideas
 Pay attention to details
 facts
 examples
 opinions
 Pay attention to the structure.
 lecture or presentation — introduction, body, and conclusion
 narrative story — beginning, middle, and end
 Learn to recognize different styles of organization.
 theory and evidence
 cause and effect
 steps of a process
 comparison of two things
o Think carefully about the purpose of the lecture.
 Try to answer the question, "What is the professor trying to accomplish in this lecture?"
 Write down only the information that you hear. Be careful not to interpret information based on your personal understanding or knowledge of the topic.
o Take notes while you listen to a talk or lecture. This will help you identify the main ideas of the talk.
 Practice doing simple dictations to work on your ability to listen and write at the same time.
 Work with a partner. Listen to a talk and take notes individually.
 Compare your notes with your partner’s and check for differences (and similarities)
 Use your notes to tell your partner what you heard
 Use your notes to write an outline or summary.
 Gradually increase the length of the talks (and your summaries).
4. Listen for signals that will help you understand the organization of a talk, connections between ideas, and the importance of ideas.
o Listen for expressions and vocabulary that tell you the type of information being given.
 Think carefully about the type of information that these phrases show.
 opinion (I think, It appears that, It is thought that)
 theory (In theory)
 inference (therefore, then)
 negatives (not, words that begin with "un," "non," "dis" "a")
 fillers (non-essential information) (uh, er, um)
 Identify digressions (discussion of a different topic from the main topic) or jokes that are not important to the main lecture. [It’s okay not to understand these!]
o Listen for signal words or phrases that connect ideas in order to recognize the relationship between ideas.
 Think carefully about the connection between ideas that these words show.
 reasons (because, since)
 results (as a result, so, therefore, thus, consequently)
 examples (for example, such as)
 comparisons (in contrast, than)
 an opposing idea (on the other hand, however)
 another idea (furthermore, moreover, besides)
 a similar idea (similarly, likewise)
 restatements of information (in other words, that is)
 conclusions (in conclusion, in summary)
 Pay attention to the connections between examples.
 When you hear two details, identify the relationship between them
 Write a sentence connecting the examples using the appropriate connecting word
o Pay attention to intonation and other ways that speakers indicate that information is important.
 Important key words are often
 repeated
 paraphrased (repeated information but using different words)
 said louder and clearer
 stressed
 Pay attention to body language and intonation patterns used to express different emotions.
 Emotions are often expressed through changes in intonation or stress
 Facial expressions or word choices can indicate excitement, anger, happiness, or frustration
 Listen for pauses between important points.
 During a lecture, pay attention to words that are written on the board.
 Listen for numbers that you might hear in prices, times, or addresses
 Listen for verbs and other expressions that show if an event is happening in the past, present, or future
Note: References to other sources and Internet sites are provided as a service and should not be understood as endorsements of their content.