Many students come to our school to
prepare for the IELTS test, and the listening portion of the test is one of the
most difficult sections for many students.
I have found that Thai students are more comfortable working with
written English than with spoken English.
The good news is that there are many ways to study for the listening
portion of the IELTS exam and frankly these methods will work for just about
any other standardized English language test as well. Some of the best ways to improve your
listening skills are through English conversation practice, listening to
English media, and of course, practice tests.
There are a number of places where you can practice the specific skills that you will need to use
during the listening test. When possible, it
is often best to replicate the exam conditions when you are practicing. For example, when you are using a website to
practice the listening exam, make sure that you spend time practicing listening
to the recording only once. When taking the IELTS,
you will not be able to listen to the recording multiple times, so it is
important that you prepare accordingly.
Similarly, when working with these practice tests and practice
questions, I recommend that you write the answers down while you are
listening. It is important that you
become comfortable listening to a recording and writing the answers down at the
same time. Lastly, when appropriate, monitor your time when you practice. The IELTS is a timed exam, so you must practice answering the questions in a timely manner.
Additionally, when you prepare for the listening test, make sure you become familiar with all the different task types. The listening portion of the IELTS test includes a wide variety of different types of questions and tasks. Some common question types include matching,
diagram labeling, form completion, note completion, table completion, flow-chart
completion, summary completion, and sentence completion. The purpose of preparing for the test is to eliminate surprises and to maximize your score. Therefore, it is important to be as detailed as possible and to prepare for each type of question or task that may be presented to you during the exam.
There are a number of websites that offer students the opportunity to practice their listening skills. Two of the best are http://www.esl-lab.com/ and http://www.ieltsgym.com/. However, even a simple YouTube search will give you a number of listening comprehension videos with questions that you can practice answering.
Beyond practice tests, there
are many ways to improve your basic listening skills under non-exam
conditions. Simple conversation practice
with either a native English speaker or with simply another English language
learner is a great way to improve your English across many different skill
sets. Frequent conversations in English
will help improve your listening skills and your speaking skills. There are additional benefits in that you
will likely improve your vocabulary or at least solidify the meanings of
certain words that you were familiar with but had never had the opportunity to use. Conversation practice will also
help solidify grammar concepts and help you to use different constructions more
easily and fluently. This is a big portion of how we prepare students for the IELTS at PLC School.
There are many other non-exam
specific ways to prepare for the listening portion of the IELTS exam. One
of the best ways is to listen to English programs on the radio for at least
half an hour a day. There are many
benefits to this practice. First, you can
listen for free online. Second, while English language TV shows and movies can be helpful, radio is
better than TV for this purpose because TV is visual & scenes & visuals
easily distract us. Radio is better because it forces you to
concentrate solely on listening. It is
also important to listen and not just hear! You must make sure that it doesn't become
background noise. You must use this time
to train yourself to focus and understand what is being said. Do not worry if you don’t understand every
word. In fact, it is good practice to
write down words that you do not understand while you are listening and look
them up after you are finished listening.
This strategy will help you to improve your English vocabulary and it
will also give you the chance to practice writing and listening at the same time. Again, this skill is a very important skill to have
on test day.
Here are some links to get you
started, but again, a few minutes of web searching should help you find free
online radio stations that fall within your areas of interest. Make this practice time FUN. The practice tests are tedious, and
memorizing vocabulary is not something that most people would choose to do on a
weekend afternoon. However, the
conversation practice and listening to the radio should be light and enjoyable
in addition to being beneficial.
I strongly recommend visiting each
of the above links at least once or twice. These
links offer a range of accents that you will want to become familiar with. The listening portion of the
IELTS exam may be a recording of British English, Australian English, Canadian
English, etc. Similarly, the voice on the recording may be a woman, a man, a young person, or an old person. Again, the purpose of
preparation is to eliminate potential surprises and that may cause confusion
and lower your score. Each of the above
links offer a range of radio programs, so you should be able to find some
programs that interest you spoken in each of the different accents represented
here.
Using these methods, you will improve your overall English listening comprehension skills, as well as, develop the specific test taking skills that will be required during the listening portion of the IELTS exam.
