Academic Listening
By Angela Tsai
2010.6.12
Part 1 - English for Academic
Purposes : Introduction
At the beginning of the programme, I invited you
to reflect on some of the problems that students
experience - and asked you to think about how
they might cope. I wonder how accurate your
predictions were. Next time you listen to some
English - whether it’s a radio programme or a
university lecture - listen out for clues about what’s
coming next… and see if it helps.
Part I : Problems



Understanding lectures - academic
English is quite high level of speaking
therefore the first was to become familiar
with the listening understanding.
I think the pronunciation of English
people is not the same as I learned at
school.
You know how to express yourself in your
own language - you know what you want
to say but it's difficult to put it in the
exact words.
Tips on effective learning



In this first programme, we focus on a special
kind of English course, designed to prepare
students for their studies. It’s called EAP.
If you study EAP, you’ll practice special language
skills for studying at a high level, and you’ll gain
a number of useful strategies to make your
learning more effective.
An EAP course introduces you to the special
language associated with the academic world –
common words, expressions, particular
structures. It provides a range of advanced
study skills.
Tips on effective learning


The listener is paying so much attention
to decoding words that they recognise
and phrases that they recognise – it's
almost like trying to do a word-by-word
translation.
You have to get a global picture, as well
as looking at individual items. The
student pays so much attention to the
language that they miss out on the
content.
Tips on effective learning

Get hold of some texts, perhaps over the
internet, or through a library, or through
journals or magazines that might be
available in newsagents, or through
friends, and then study recurring
specialist words in those texts.
Tips on effective learning




Preparation is the key. Be prepared!
To obtain an English-English dictionary,
and maybe a subject dictionary - of
Medicine, of Law, of Linguistics.
Listening to the radio, watching TV
Try to read books related with your
subject. Even material you already know
in your language. You have to read it in
English to see if you notice substantial
differences.
Part 2 - Lectures: Introduction



The main point of a lecture for students
must be to acquire information on a topic
in a quick and efficient way.
The purpose of a lecture is probably to
stimulate students to do work by
themselves.
Learners need to know that’s the aim of
their course – that they’ll become
individual and independent learners.
Part 2 - Lectures: Problems


It can difficult to hear what a lecturer is
saying because you’re sitting in a large,
echo hall. Speakers may have a strange
accent; they might speak too quickly or
too quietly.
The main problems is the really difficult
skill of listening for the main points,
understanding the main points and
processing the main points and actually
taking notes at the same time.
Part 2 - Lectures: Tips



First : lecturer’s intonation. The sound of
their voice is going to fall, quieter at end of
a topic.
use marker words, such as “right”, “OK”,
“good” – the sort of thing you often hear
teachers say in a school classroom.
Then there’ll be a marker phrase such as:
“I’d like to move on now”, or “turning now
to”, or “let’s now consider” – the speaker is
self-consciously saying what they’re going to
do next in speech terms, in language terms.
Part 2 - Lectures: Tips

1.
2.
3.
These are the three key points:
Understanding the purpose of a lecture
can help students know where to focus
attention
Preparation can help students
understand the language and content of
a lecture
We’ve demonstrated ways in which
speakers can guide listeners to
important information, using intonation,
stress and marker phrases.
Part 3 - How lectures are organised

We’ve focused on the structure of
lectures. We’ve discovered that knowing
what the lecturer is going to talk about,
knowing when they’re moving from one
point to the next and when they’re
starting the individual sections of their
lecture will help you understand it better.
Part 3 : Problems

It's easy when you listen to something
very well structured. But when you go to
lectures, people generally prefer to talk
about the subject. They're not preparing
the structure of their English, basically then, it's difficult.
Part 3 : tips


Most lectures follow a simple structure: they
have a beginning, middle, and an end.
Recognising structures will help the student to
orientate themselves, and to notice when to
take down ideas, and how to organise their
notes. Recognising the type of lecture – whether
chronological; division of ideas; or situation,
problem, solution, evaluation – is really useful in
helping you to predict content and the way it’s
organised, the kind of content that’s going to
come up.
Part 4 - Lectures: Introduction

We’ve focused on the important first
section of a lecture: the introduction…
and in which we’ve heard some advice on
effective note-taking
Part 4 - Lectures: Problem

A problem is that if you try to take notes
you can lose concentration and maybe
you can write but when you try and read
again later it won't make sense. So I
tried to use specific words to make sense
of the lecture.
Part 4 - Lectures: tips

Good note-taking technique is a matter
of confidence. It's no good trying to write
down everything because you won’t then
understand what’s important and what
can be left out. What is important is to
understand how things fit together. So
it’s trying to keep a balance between
understanding and having detail – in
other words, knowing what the general
ideas are and having concrete examples
to back up those ideas.
Part 4 - Lectures: tips

You don’t need to keep a complete record –
otherwise take in a tape recorder. Partly it's a
matter of digesting what’s being said, of
understanding the main points and also, a
revision aid. It's going to be useful to
reconstitute the information into essays and
other texts, to manipulate this material: either
for assessment purposes – essays or exams - or
formulating a list of questions you want to put
to the lecturer or tutor in future meetings. This
might help you in future study directions.
Part 4 - Lectures: tips
Remember: a good student will be looking for
answers to questions like these:
 What’s the context of today’s lecture?
 How is the speaker going to organise his talk?
How many sections will there be, what sort of
approach is he going to take?
 How does the speaker define any key terms?
How does he plan to limit the scope of his talk
so he can finish on time?
 Finally, why is the professor doing this talk today?
Does he have a particular interest in the subject,
for example? Does he think it’s something I
need to know for an exam or a tutorial
discussion?
Part 5 - Lectures: marker phrases

We’ve focused on marker phrases and
suggested that an awareness of a wide
range of these linking phrases can help
you.
Part 5 - Lectures: tips

If he says 'so' then you know that you're
going to expect the result. It could be a
contrast, so if you're listening for
contrasting words it would be a word like
'although', 'nevertheless' or 'however'. If
he uses semantic markers like 'moreover',
'in addition', then you know he's going to
make another point and it could be
another main point - so it's very
important to listen for those kind of
words when you're listening to a lecture.
Part 6 - Lectures: the conclusion

Focused on the final section of a lecture,
and on the role of the student. As we’ve
heard, it’s important for students to
participate as active and critical listeners,
and to be prepared to ask questions.
Part 6 - Lectures: the conclusion
problems


If I think it's something very important, I
ask the lecturer, and in another situation
I can ask my classmates. Sometimes it's
not easy to ask - you might feel shy...
We always looked at lecturers and after
the class said - he's a good journalist but
he's not a speaker, or he might be a good
journalist but he's not a good lecturer.
Sometimes and we spent most of our
times sleeping in class!
Part 6 : tips

Sometimes it’s difficult to know what sort of
questions are welcome. Knowing when to ask,
and what sort of questions to ask is an
important skill to develop. It’s always a good
idea to ask questions. Firstly, it helps you to
clarify things in your mind – in order to get a
question ready – therefore helping you to digest
information and to order it. Secondly, it shows
the lecturer they’ve managed to get over
information and stimulate the students.
Never study English, But learn
第一階段 打通耳朵 完全聽清
 第二階段 聽寫並重 熟練發音
 第三階段 善用辭典 大聲朗讀
 第四階段 聲像結合 活化英語
 第五階段 文化融通 全盤掌握
http://murphymind.blogspot.com/2002/03/
never-study-english-but-learn.html
