Instructions for the Listening

Section
 Part A
 Directions: In Part A, you will hear short
conversations between two people. After
each conversation, you will hear a question
about the conversation. The conversations
and questions will not be repeated. After
you hear a question, read the four possible
answers in your test book and choose the
best answer. Then, on your answer sheet,
find the number of the question and fill in
the space that corresponds to the letter of
the answer you have chosen.
Instructions for the Listening
Section
 Part B
 Directions: In this part of the test you will hear
longer conversations. After each conversation you will
hear several questions. The conversations and
questions will not be repeated.
 After you hear a question, read the four possible
answers in your test book and choose the best
answer. Then, on your answer sheet, find the number
of the question and fill in the space that corresponds
to the letter of the answer you have chosen.
 Remember, you are not allowed to take notes or
write in your test book.
Instructions for the Listening
Section
 Part C
 Directions: In this part of the test you will
hear several talks. After each talk, you will
hear some questions. The talks and
questions will not be repeated.
 After you hear a question, read the four
possible answers in your test book and
choose the best answer. Then, on your
answer sheet, find the number of the
question and fill in the space that
corresponds to the letter of the answer you
have chosen.
Vocabulary Listening Strategies
 Listening Strategies There are three types of listening
strategy in this section outlining what you can do before,
during and after a lecture or seminar.Before
listeningIn order to get the most out of your lectures
and seminars, you not only need to sit, listen and think,
you also need to prepare for them. You may already do
some of the following, but if not, try them out before
your next lecture or seminar.Read up on the content
beforehandEach lecture series is usually accompanied
by a list of texts which you should read in advance of
the lecture. This will familiarise you with the ideas and
information you will hear. It also gives you the
opportunity to check important vocabulary which is likely
to be used in the lecture.
Vocabulary Listening Strategies
 Predicting the content of the lecture
 As we listen, we unconsciously compare
what we hear with what we already know.
This allows us to identify what is new
information and what is already known. In
order to help this process, spend a few
minutes before the lecture thinking about
what you expect to hear. Focus on the title
of the lecture and think about what you
already know, or questions that you would
like answered.
Vocabulary Listening Strategies
 While listening
 Listening in lectures and seminars is an active
process.
 Selecting what is important or useful
 Listen for signposts which tell you what the lecturer
thinks is important, eg. "There are three main
points ...", "On the other hand ...", "Interestingly, ...".
 Like paragraphs in writing, the lecturer's voice will
tell you when they are starting a new point. Listen for
changes in their intonation: loud and high sounds
often indicate importance.
Vocabulary Listening Strategies
 Develop your own note-taking style
 Develop your own method for writing different types
of information in different ways. You could use:
- colour (eg. different colours for main points and
examples)
- abbreviations (gov't, aesth, pysch'y, globn)
- symbols (–», +)
- pictures
- the space on the page (eg. write the lecturer's
points on the left, your ideas on the right, new words
in the margin)
 Look at the lecturer
Don’t forget to look at the lecturer from time to time:
a large part of communication is visual. When you do
this, try writing without looking at your pen.
Vocabulary Listening Strategies
 Don’t listen for every word
 We all have lapses of concentration or find that we
have missed or not understood something while we
are listening for a long time. When this happens we
have a choice: either we try to recall what we have
just heard and try to reconstruct it from memory, or
we leave it and move on. Unless you can remember
things extremely easily and quickly, it is often best to
just move on. You can always ask someone else later.
By thinking about what it was, you can often miss
even more of what is being said.
 After listening
 Recycling
 By trying to remember what you have
heard, you will increase your chances of
remembering it later. Try:
- talking about it with your classmates;
- making a mind-map of the lecture
content;
- writing a few sentences which summarise
the main points.
Vocabulary Listening Strategies
 Key Word: Remembering a new word in the second
language by 1) identifying a familiar word in the first
language that sounds like or otherwise resembles the new
word, and 2) generating easily recalled images of some
relationship between the new word and the familiar word.
 NHK Radio I heard the word, "gigantic". That's a new word
for me. I was surprised that there are so many words which
mean "big" in English, for example, large, huge, gigantic.
Contextualization: Placing a word or phrase in a
meaningful language sequence.
 Listening and Recall I dictated Lesson 26. Lesson 26 said about
undergraduate students and graduate students. When I heard
first, I could not dictate "bachelor's degrees." But in last
sentence, there were "master's degrees" and "doctor's
degrees." So I could understand what he said.
 Transfer: Using previously acquired linguistic and/or
conceptual knowledge to facilitate a new language learning
task.
 VTR - Music TV It's great fun for me to hear most of
interviews in English. It's easy for me to understand about
music in English because I have many knowledge about it
(...I can't understand daily news so easily...)
 Movie - Tess Last year we learned English Linguistics and I
knew I can hear a dialect (Southern dialects of England) in
this movie. I could catch just a few words:... I zaid (said)
"Good night" ...near a month ago (about or nearly)
 Wow by Bananarama There is a long line in this song. It
seems difficult to sing along the tape. But it's not so hard to
sing that part if I add rhythm.
 **Noticing: Being alert to new information.

 Movie - Peggy Sue Got Married Fourth time.

Everytime I find new things. That's interesting.
 Julian Lennon Live He said, maybe, "We're gonna
have a _____" Compotition - I hear like this. I
couldn't catch that word correctly for a long time. But
I recently find it, competition. I was so happy when I
realized It. It was just "e" or "o", but I couldn't find it
for a long time.
 Sherlock Holmes story A school boy answered, "Yes,
sir," "No, sir," "He sometimes cries, sir". He always
added "sir" at the end.
 Inferencing: Using available information to guess
meanings of new items, predict outcomes or fill in
missing information.
 Elaboration: Relating new information to other
concepts in memory.
 Madonna songs I don't have the words' cards of some
of the songs in this tape. But recently I heard
commotion meant a kind of fight or disturbance. I hear
she was singing like this, maybe: "(You got a
commotion). If we got together, we be causing a
commotion." I don't think this is right but I know what
she means.
Listening Skills
 Listen to some specific words:
 What does the person mean?
 What does the person suggest?
 What does the person say about somebody else?
 What does the person imply?
 What had the person thought?
 What had the person assumed?
 Who is the person?
 What will the person probably do next?
 Where does this conversation probably take place?
 What does the person need to do?
 What does the person mean?
Listening Skills
 A restatement of the words or ideas of the second line in the
conversation or the second speaker’s lines.
 Choose the answer that sounds the most different from what you
heard
 Never choose an answer because it sounds like what you heard in
the conversation. Avoid similar sounds
 Choose answers with synonyms
 Draw conclusion (who, where, what)
 Listen for WHO and WHAT in passives. If the conversation
contains a statement in active voice the answer to that question
is probably in passive.
 Listen for negative expressions
 Listen for double negative expressions
 Listen for almost negative expressions:
 Almost none: hardly, barely, scarcely, only
 Almost never: Scarcely, seldom
Listening Skills
 Listen for expressions of agreements
 Agreements with positive statements:
 So do I, Me, too, I’ll say!, Isn’t it!,
You can say that again!
 Agreements with negative statements:
 Neither do I, I don’t either
 Listen for expressions of uncertainty and suggestions
 Uncertainty:
 Isn’t it? (tag)?, As far as I know
As far as I can tell
 Suggestions:
 Why not ………….. Let’s …………
 Listen for emphatic expressions of surprise
 Listen for wishes
 A affirmative wish implies a negative reality
 A negative wish implies an affirmative reality
Listening Skills
 A past tense verb implies a present reality
 A past perfect tense implies a past reality
 Listen for untrue conditions
 Similar to 15
 Had can be used without if
 Listen for two- and three-part verbs
 Example: call off = cancel
 Listen for idioms
 Part B
 Anticipate the topics
 Anticipate the question
 Determine the topic
 Draw conclusions about WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN
 Listen for answers in order
Listening Skills
 Part C
 If you have time, preview the answers to the listening part C questions.
While you are looking at the answers, you should try to do the following:
 Anticipate the topics of the talks you will hear.
 Anticipate the questions for each of the groups of the answers
 Listen carefully to the first line of the talk. It often contains the main idea,
subject or topic of the talk, and you will often be asked this type of
question.
 As you listen to the talk, draw conclusions about the situations of the talk:
who is talking, where or when the talk takes place, which course this lecture
might be given in. You will often be asked to make such inferences about
the talk.
 As you listen to the talk, follow along with the answers and try to determine
the correct answers. Detail questions are generally answered in order in the
talk, and the answers often sound the same as what is said in the
recording.
 Use any remaining time to look ahead at the answers to the questions that
follow.
Listening Skills
 Structure tips:
 Be sure that the sentence has a subject and a verb
 Be careful of objects of prepositions because they can be
mistaken for the subject of the sentence. The object of the
preposition is a noun or a pronoun that comes after a
preposition such as: in, at, on, of, to, by, behind, etc, to
form a prepositional phrase.
 Be careful of appositives. An appositive is a noun that
comes before or after another noun and has the same
meaning. Appositives can be left out the phrase and it still
makes sense.
 Be careful of present participles: they can either be as part
of the verb or an adjective
 Be careful of past participles
 Use coordinate connectors correctly: and, but, so, or, yet
 Parallel structure
Listening Skills
 Invert the subject and verb with
question words
 Invert the subject and verb with
negatives
 Subject verb agreement
Links to practice
 http://www.englishelearning.com/index.p
 http://www.near-online.net/2000/flash/ni
 http://home.earthlink.net/~eslstuden
t/testing/TOEFL.html#listen
Sources
 http://www.real.gold.ac.uk/listening/strat
 http://www.lang.nagoya-
u.ac.jp/bunai/dep/eigog/listening/fuji
wara.html