20th September 2020

Some notes I found as I was cleaning my old Apple Mac. I’m not sure where they are from; a book, website or centre notes. I thought they may be of some use to teachers of IELTS.

IELTS Listening

Before I do a listening practice, I tell my students to R.U.P.

read, underline key words and predict the answer.

TOP-DOWN LISTENING

(Going from meaning to language, using background knowledge to understand the meaning of a message).

Activities:

     Students generate a list of things they already know about a topic and things they would like to learn more about, then listen and compare.

     Students generate a set of questions they expect to hear about a topic, then listen to see if they are answered.

     Students look at the question sheet and identify its structure before listening.

     Students read a list of key points to be covered in a talk, then listen to see which ones are mentioned.

BOTTOM-UP LISTENING

(Going from language to meaning, using linguistic knowledge clues to understand the message).

Activities:

     Students listen and distinguish between positive and negative statements.

     Students listen and identify key words that occur in a spoken text.

     Students listen to a conservation and complete a form.

     Students use stress and intonation to identify word and sentence functions.

SOME EXAMPLES OF MICRO LISTENING SKILLS:

     Discriminate among the distinctive sounds

   Recognize the functions of stress patterns, intonation contours

     Recognize reduced forms of words (contractions)

     Recognize grammatical word classes (noun, verb, etc.), systems (tense, agreement, pluralization), patterns, rules and elliptical forms

     Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different grammatical forms

   Recognize cohesive devices in spoken discourse

So, I made a lesson plan for teaching section 4 of the listening test like this.

Pre-listening:

1.       read the instructions carefully to see what they are expected to do (especially the number of words they can write for each answer) R.U.P.

2.       identify the topic of the lecture. Teacher can activate their background knowledge by asking them what they know about it, maybe showing a short video clip

3.       identify the structure of the test (how many parts, key words) so that students do not get lost in the middle of the listening

4.       pair a weak student and a strong student so that they can help each other in predicting the answers

a.       part of speech (e.g. expressions or idioms)

b.      collocations

c.       meaning (make a list of guesses to help the weaker students)

While-listening:

1.       Students listen to the recording and do the task individually.

2.       Peer check

3.       Task correction (the teacher then plays the recording again bit by bit to check the answers)

Post-listening:

1.       Students work in group to share their experience after doing the task. What difficulties they had or how they could recognize the answers. (5minutes).

To build confidence, I often play a recording up to three times, highlighting new vocabulary or expressions. I then let the students write the answer on the board, so everyone can see, correcting if necessary.

2.       sharpening the macro skils:

Activity to help students recognize paraphrases:

Students stand in 2 lines. There are 2 circles in front. The teacher shows 1 word (e.g crowded) and plays the recording. When the students hear the paraphrase of that word (e.g a lot of people), the first pair jump into the circle. Who can do that first gets 1 point for his team. The first pair then go the back and the procedure is repeated with another word. This can be adapted for older and adult students.

Activity to teach new vocabulary after listening:

The teacher can choose 5 or 6 words that he would like to teach and print them out. Then, put students into groups with a set of words for each group and play the recording. When students hear the word from that set, they have to quickly knock on their desk and take that piece of paper. Who gets the most words wins. The students in group read the words and explain the meaning. Teacher checks the pronunciation and meaning as a class.

The Teacher may wish to set a speaking task related to the topic as a post-listening  activity

I believe the students can do better if they are well-prepared in ‘pre-listening’, and for ‘post-listening’, if we can make use of the recording to teach them some skills in doing the task, they will perform better the next time.