Learn how to improve your English listening skills with these tips to help you prepare for the TOEFL iBT® test and university study. Practice listening to something in English every day, and gradually increase the amount of time that you listen.- Listen to different types of materials.
- Listen actively. Try to answer the following questions:
- Listen passively to get the general idea of what's being said.
- Keep a listening log (a list of everything you listen to in English each day/week).
- Write a 1-sentence summary to remember the main idea of what you heard.
- Write down new expressions, idioms and vocabulary that you hear.
- Use dictation and other exercises to help your listening ability.
- Ask an English speaker to dictate an article to you. Good sources ofmaterial are podcasts,magazines or online articles or 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.
- Visit places where you can practice listening.
- 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 airline flight.
- Watch or listen to TV programs and podcasts recorded in English.
- Some helpful TV channels to listen to are CNN®, Discovery Channel® and National Geographic®, as well as soap operas or situation comedies.
- Do this with a friend and talk about the program together.
- Watch movies or other videos online (turn off the captions!) or go to a movie in English.
- Listen to an audiobook in English.
- Listen to English-language recordings that come with a transcript. Listen to each recording at least 3 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.
- Practice speaking English with others.
- Exchange language lessons with an English speaker who wants to learn your language.
Begin to prepare for academic situations.- Visit academic classes conducted in English.
- 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.
- 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 2 things
- 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.
- Develop a note-taking strategy to help you organize information into the 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.
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-" or "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 OK not to understand these!
- 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 2 details, identify the relationship between them.
- Write a sentence connecting the examples, using the appropriate connecting word.
- 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 to how native English 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 be sure you get the whole idea of the talk.
- Listen for pauses between important points.
- Listen for numbers 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.
- During a lecture, pay attention to words that are written on the board.
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