1. LISTENING & SPEAKING SESSION 2 / AUGUST 2015

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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!]

5.  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)

6.  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.