LISTENING & SPEAKING
SESSION 2 / AUGUST 2015
TIPS FOR THE LISTENING & SPEAKING SECTION
1. Use the resources in your community to practice listening to English.
 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
 Rent videos 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).
 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)
 Practice speaking English with others.
 Look for a conversation partner and exchange language lessons with an English speaker who wants to
learn your language.
MORE TIPS FOR LISTENING & SPEAKING
Begin to prepare for academic situations.
 Become familiar with the organization or structure of lectures.
 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
 Think carefully about the purpose of a 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.
 Answer questions based on what was actually discussed in the talk
 Develop a note-taking strategy to help you organize information into a hierarchy of main points and supporting
details.
 Make sure your notes follow the organization of the lecture.
 Listen for related ideas and relationships within a lecture and make sure you summarize similar information
together.
 Use your notes to write a summary.
FEW MORE! 
Listen for signals that will help you understand the organization of a talk, connections
between ideas, and the importance of ideas.
 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!]
 Listen for signal words and 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 intonation and other ways that speakers indicate that information is
important.
 Listen for emotions expressed through changes in intonation or stress.
 Facial expressions or word choices can indicate excitement, anger, happiness, frustration,
etc.
 Listen how native speakers divide long sentences into "thought groups" to make them easier
to understand. (A thought group is a spoken phrase or short sentence. Thought groups are
separated by short pauses.)
 Listen to sets of thought groups to make sure you get the whole idea of the talk
 Listen for important key words and phrases which are often ...
 repeated
 paraphrased (repeated information but using different words)
 said louder and clearer
 stressed
 Listen for pauses between important points.
 In a lecture, pay attention to words that are written on the board.