IELTS Exam - Listening Section Study Tips

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.

* http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/

* http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/

* http://www.bbc.co.uk/radioscotland

* http://www.cbc.ca/radio/

* http://www.morefm.co.nz/

* http://www.sabc.co.za/safm

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.

ESL Teaching Methods

If you begin to do any research on the topic of English Language Teaching, you are sure to come across Scott Thornbury.

One of Scott Thornbury's major contributions to English Language Teaching is the concept of Dogme.  Dogme is characterized as the

belief that language learning is both socially motivated and socially constructed...We are looking for ways of exploiting the learning opportunities offered by the raw material of the classroom, that is the language that emerges from the need, interests, concerns and desires of the people in the room.  

More can be read about Scott Thornbury and the concept of Dogme on his blog here.

At PLC school, our individual tutoring classes mirror this method very closely.  When working with a single student, the classes are always conversation centered and always centered around the interests of the student.  For a two hour tutoring session, I will often prepare five or six pages of conversation questions.  Some of the conversation questions are simply basic small talk questions.  Others are more in depth questions about the student's life, thoughts, and opinions.  Generally, we fly through pages of questions while we fine tune English grammar and pronunciation.  The hope is that along the way some of my questions will connect and hit on the students interests.  This will create a conversational flow that becomes more in depth and also pulls in new vocabulary, and pronunciation improvement.

One of the great benefits of using this method of allowing the class to be guided by the flow of the conversation is that it naturally pulls in different grammar structures and new vocabulary.  Nothing needs to be forced.  The act of talking about an interesting topic in depth will almost always pull the student toward more complex grammar and topic related vocabulary.

Thornbury's concept of Dogme builds on the ideas and theories of language acquisition proposed by Stephen Krashen and discussed here on June 12.  Some of the major concepts suggested by Krashen are that language acquisition takes place when there is a great deal of "comprehensible input", while anxiety is low and motivation is high, and when the topic is interesting and engaging to the student.  Using Thornbury's Dogme method of teaching, you can be certain that the subject matter will be interesting to the student since the student(s) is guiding the topic of the conversation.  As a teacher, it is my responsibility to ensure that the content is comprehensible and that I am creating a comfortable tutoring environment where the student is not anxious about potential (inevitable) mistakes.

The Dogme method works very well for more advanced students and for individual conversation classes.  However, we use this method much less for group lessons.  Group lessons at PLC often include students of very different ages and skill levels.  I have found that with this type of class, the Rosetta Stone program does a good job of allowing each student to practice and learn at their own pace and at their own level in the program.  However, we always supplement this program with individual instruction that will typically include reading and conversation practice when the student is ready.  Some students are ready and excited to practice English conversation almost immediately after learning some basic words and phrases.  Other students prefer to move a little more slowly when it comes to conversation.

At PLC, we work very hard to customize our programs to the needs of each individual student.  Even in group lessons, individual instruction takes place and it is tailored to the needs, skills, and interests of each student.  As each student achieves higher levels of English mastery, the percentage of conversation driven (Dogme method) instruction is progressively increased.

Tips for Students - Practice!

Me:  Did you practice speaking English with anyone since your last lesson?

Student:  Yes.

 Me:  Great!  Who did you practice with?

Student:  My dog.

Ideally, I would like students to practice English with someone who can provide more meaningful feedback than a dog.  However, the most important thing is to practice any way you can.  As an English language student, the biggest factor in determining your success is not the teacher you select, your intelligence, or your natural ability to learn languages.  The primary factor in successfully learning a language is practice.

My eight year old son studies piano and violin.  He practices both instruments every single day.  This by no means will ensure that he will reach high levels of success in either instrument, but by practicing every day we know that he will continue to improve.

I studied Spanish from the 7th grade through the 12th grade.  I enjoyed learning the language and I was a good language student.  However, my fluency really became much better when I worked in a restaurant with number of coworkers from Mexico.  For 5 or 6 days a week, and for 8 to 10 hours each day; I was able to practice conversational Spanish.  In fact, it was easier for me to speak Spanish to my Mexican coworkers than it was for them to speak English to me.  Unfortunately, when I went to college I stopped studying and speaking Spanish regularly.  Today, my Spanish skills are very poor.  While it would be much easier for me to pick up Spanish than it would be for a complete beginner, I would truly have to re-learn the language.  The vast majority of the skill level that I developed over those many years has been forgotten.

If you are serious about achieving a high level of English, you must practice as much as possible.  Even a short practice session for just 30 minutes a day will help prevent you from forgetting the skills you improved in class.  Most of my students study for one of two days a week.  If you neglect to practice during the other five days in the week, the rate of improvement will be much slower.

All of my students are either serious school students or adult professionals with jobs and families.  Setting time aside to practice English when there is so much else going on in life can be difficult.  However, practice does not have to be tedious or boring.  In fact, I recommend the opposite.  I think practicing English should be fun and entertaining.

There are many fun ways to practice English between lessons.  Again, you don't have to dedicate huge amounts of time for these activities, but English practice can be in the form of emailing or Facebook chatting with a friend in English instead of Thai.  You may choose to watch TV shows or movies in English.  YouTube videos in English that are about topics that interest you or excite you are great.  You may consider reading English websites about subjects of interest, or you can learn about a subject you are studying in school in English on the internet.  If you have a friend or family member that can knows some English, you can try and practice English conversation with them each day.  If you are a music lover, you could listen to English pop songs and try and write down the lyrics.  This is very difficult, but it could be rewarding because you will be able to sing along in English the next time you hear it.

This type of fun activity will also help you with many of the standard English exams such as TOEIC, TOEFL, and IELTS.  All of these exams have a listening portion, and almost all of the activities that I have listed above include listening to English.  Many of my students who are preparing for one of these tests are most concerned with the listening and/or speaking portion of the test.  Thai students tend to be well trained in English grammar and vocabulary.  Many Thai students lack confidence when it comes to actually speaking and understanding spoken English.  These fun English language activities are a great way to gain confidence and improve on these listening and speaking skills.

Tips for ESL Students - Finding a Teacher

It is difficult to learn a foreign language.  It is very difficult if you reside in your home country and speak your native language all the time.  Despite the challenges and frustrations related to learning a new language, it can be done.  The first step is find a teacher or teaching method that you can connect with.

Teaching a foreign language is a hard job and there are many different styles.  Different students feel more comfortable with different types of teachers.  Some teachers focus on conversation.  Some will provide lots of grammar lessons.  Some will assign reading and test students on their comprehension.  Other teachers will provide a huge number or exercises and work sheets for students to complete.

Even those that focus on conversation will vary in terms of how they go about it.  Some teachers will call on students randomly to answer a question.  Some will wait for their students to volunteer to speak.  Some classroom conversations are designed to drill home a specific grammar lesson or a group of vocabulary words.  Other conversation lessons are more, well, conversational.  They may touch on a wide variety of topics and they will incorporate a wide variety of grammar based on the direction that the conversation ends up going.

My lessons tend to be focused on conversation and they tend to be less formal.  There are two reasons for this.  Most importantly, these are the types of lessons that I enjoy.  I enjoy talking to people.  I enjoy learning about their likes, dislikes, family history, hobbies, aspirations, and everything else that may come up.  This type of lesson tends to be lively.  At times it is funny.  In general, the purpose of this type of lesson is to find topics that excite the students enough that they forget that they are speaking in English.  By generating a lively conversation that entertains and interests the students, I can get them to listen attentively and use the grammar and vocabulary they have learned.  If a new word comes up, the students will be much more likely to remember the meaning if it is related to a topic that they have an interest in.

In addition to being enjoyable, I think that this type of lesson is very beneficial.  It creates a "real life" type of interaction that gives the students more confidence if they are in a situation where they are speaking with a native English speaker.  For example, if you study grammar rules and work sheets in English class all the time, you will develop a skill level and confidence level in work sheets but you will not be confident in a real life speaking situation.  This describes many of my Thai students.  In school, the lessons are centered on vocabulary and grammar.  When students are confronted with a speaking and listening (conversational) situation, they become anxious and tentative.  By practicing conversation skills, the student develops confidence and it solidifies the grammar rules he/she has been taught in school.

Some students do not like to learn English with this method.  I have had a few students decide to go to a different English class because they were looking for grammar drills and practice work sheets.  The important thing is for you as a student to find a teacher and a method that you are comfortable with.  If you  are not comfortable with your teacher or with the teaching method, it is best to find another teacher that meets your expectations.

ESL teachers can be found many different ways, but I think it is best ask friends, family members, or teachers.  These people will give you an honest opinion and they should be able to give you some idea of the teaching style and method featured at a specific school or by a specific teacher.

How to Learn a New Language

I have been learning about a well known linguistic professor named Stephen Krashen.  He proposes a couple of ideas that connect very well with my experience as an ESL teacher.  Mr. Krashen's theories about language acquisition support many of the teaching methods we use at PLC school.  

I will not get into every aspect of Stephen Krashen's theories here, but there are a few ideas that I have found to be very interesting and relevant.  First, Stephen Krashen suggests that language is acquired subconsciously through conprehensible input.  In other words, by receiving messages in another language that are understandable, the brain of the learner starts to make connections between the word and the object or idea.  According to Krashen, learning grammar rules, memorizing vocabulary lists, and completing work sheets will not help you become fluent in a language.  The brain will naturally acquire languagage through repetition and a large volume of comprehensible input.

This concept is clearly an idea that is featured by the Rosetta Stone software.  Rosetta Stone presents students with pictures, written, and verbal clues about the meanings of words and phrases.  The software constantly feeds the learner with a steady stream of comprehensible input.  Rosetta Stone is not asking the student to memorize vocabulary.  Using the software, you learn new vocabulary by hearing the word, seeing the written word, and deducing the meaning of the word from photographs presented.

Another aspect of Stephen Krashen's theory is that language learning happens faster when anxiety is low, self-esteem is high, and the student is motivated.  Again, Rosetta Stone gives begining students a low anxiety way to learn English.  Students are able to practice pronunciation in private using the head set instead in front of a classroom full of other students.  Similarly, if a student answers a question incorrectly, it is privately scored at their individual work station instead of getting a wrong answer in front of the teacher or other students.

I have noted this phenomenon many times with the students at PLC.  In many cases, students are comfortable and confident using the Rosetta Stone software, but they are not ready to have a real conversation with a native speaker.  Applying Krashen's theory to this situation, we can say that the student is in a low anxiety situation using the software.  The benefit of this is that they are able to receive and process the comprehensible input fed to them through the Rosetta Stone program.  Over time, Krashen would suggest that the student will internalize or take ownership of the comprehensible input and be able to naturally use the language in a conversation.  As a teacher, I work hard to create a comfortable classroom environment.  I also bring students along at their own pace.  If they are not ready to have a conversation with me in English, we start with some basic reading practice.  Over time, I will begin to ask simple questions related to what the student just read.  From there, I will try to start a simple conversation from time to time.  This progression helps keep anxiety at a minimum while expanding the learner's use of English.

I dissagree with one aspect of Stephen Krashen's theories of language acquisition.  Krashen suggests that output is the result of learning from comprehensible input and that output does not create learning.  In other words, the ability to speak a new language only develops naturally from listening and reading understandable messages presented repeatedly in the new language.  He goes on to suggest that new learning does not take place when speaking (output) a new language. 

I feel that speaking excersises and simply the act of speaking a new language helps a great deal in making language acquisition occur more rapidly.  First of all, by practicing speaking, you improve pronunciation which is vital to acheiving fluency.  Second, I think that speaking practice helps to convert memorized words from short term memory to long term memory.  I don't have research to back up this claim, but my observations in the classroom suggest that when students use new words and phrases they become less easily forgotten.  Krashen suggests that speaking conversationally is valuable to he student in that it elicits more comprehensible input from the conversation partner.  I feel that the process of using the new language in a conversation helps make the use of those words and phases more natural in subsequent conversations.

Stephen Krashen clarifies that these theories are vital for the begining stages of learning a language.  Once a learner has a baseline of skills, a great deal of learning occurs through conversation.  At PLC, we work hard to encourage students to develop their skill level to a point where real conversation can become an major component in the learning process.  Our philosophy at PLC is that Rosetta Stone is very effective at providing a low anxiety way to develop some of the basic foundation skills required in learning English.  However, it is important that our students progress to a level where they are not simply mastering a computer program but mastering the English language so that they can speak it outside of the classroom. 

Learning English is difficult.  It takes a long time to acheive a level of fluency, and as Krashen describes, the process of acheiving fluency is subconscious and therefore it can be difficult monitor progress.  Stephen Krashen and his ideas are new to me, but they are obviously not new to the developers of Rosetta Stone.  I was happy to learn about his ideas and to see that many of his theories are already being actively used at PLC School.

The information described about about Stephen Krashen and his theories came from the videos below:

Thai Education System

The Thai educational system has been criticized in the news lately.  Very low scores overall and particularly low scores in English have drawn a lot of attention.  

Thailand's scores on the respected international PISA test have remained almost static since 2003 whereas Indonesia, for instance, has been moving up from a lower base. In another recent competitiveness report Thailand ranked 54th out of 56 countries globally for English-language proficiency, the second-lowest in Asia.

The chief problem is that children's educational attainments are falling, even as more money is being lavished on the schools. Thailand now spends about 20% of the national budget on education, more than it devotes to any other sector. The budget has doubled over a decade. Yet results are getting worse, both in absolute terms and relative to other countries in South-East Asia.  source

One of the ways the prime minister has addressed the deficiencies in the educational system is by purchasing tablet computers for the children of Thailand.  While I agree that it is important to expose children to technology, I fear that many students will use the tablets for games instead of educational applications.  It is fair to question if the money spent on tablets could have been used in another more meaningful way to improve the educational system in Thailand.

Personally, I have a very limited perspective on the Thai educational system, but my experience has been very positive.  I have found Thai students and parents to be very ambitious and aggressive.  Most of my students attend other tutoring schools for other subjects besides English.  The weekends for many of my students include hours of additional instruction not required by their school.  Similarly, I am very impressed that such a large percentage of Thai students attend summer school as a way to get ahead on the upcoming term.

In the United States, both of these practices are very rare.  Summer school is primarily a program for children who have failed a subject or subjects to get caught up and remain at the same grade level with their classmates.  Summer school is almost never used as a way to get ahead.  Tutoring in the United States is usually used as a way to help a struggling student.  Rarely does a child in the United States go to tutoring schools on the weekends if they are doing well in school.  

Of course, I recognize that the Thai students that I know personally are the ones who can afford to pay for additional schooling.  I also recognize that these students come from families that place a high value and importance on education.  When we think about the low international test scores from Thai students we have to recognize that the students tested come from every region in the country and from all different types of families. 

I also recognize that some of the hours spent studying may not be with engaging and effective teachers.  Just from an English perspective, I have seen homework from some of my students where they are occasionally being taught incorrect pronunciation and at times incorrect grammar.

I am not qualified to make far reaching suggestions about how Thailand can improve its school system.  However, the Bangkok Post discussed the importance of tutoring houses as one step to solve the problem.

Local individuals and communities can work together to provide affordable after-school programs to improve the prospects of students. Working within local communities through tutoring houses allows classes to be smaller, and for parents to keep closer tabs on what their children are learning and how.  The more tutoring houses that are created, and the quicker they begin making a positive impact, the more difficult it will be for the government to regulate or restrict them.  the full article in the Bangkok Post

When looking at the nation of Thailand as a whole, the number of students we can impact is relatively small.  However, we at PLC are happy that we are doing our part in giving our students an improved English learning experience than they may be receiving in their Monday through Friday schools.  The additional English practice and instruction will help them be more successful in school and more competitive in the job market when they are ready to start a career.

Individual English Language Instruction

PLC offers individual tutoring for students of all ages.  However, even in our group classes, we make sure that each student receives some individual instruction.  This individual instruction time ensures that each student is encouraged to get the maximum benefit from their time at school.  Any time there are more than 6 students attending a class we will have two teachers working.  Additionally, we will not schedule a class with more than 15 students.  These policies ensure that every student will get the personal attention they need.

Younger students often have a difficult time remaining focused on English studies for a two hour period.  With younger students, we change the tasks periodically to ensure that they don't lose concentration.  For example, these students will begin by practicing English using the Rosetta Stone language learning program.  After a period of time, teachers will spend some one on one time with each student.  We may ask the student to practice some writing exercises.  During this individual instruction time, we will incorporate some simple English conversation and spoken vocabulary practice.  We also have found that young learners are very receptive to English language games.  These methods ensure that young students don't lose interest, and that they learn English throughout the entire time.  The individual attention and instruction also ensures that the activities and exercises assigned to the student are appropriate to their individual skill level.

Older and more accomplished students are better able to concentrate for the entire two hour class.  The individual instruction with these students will often include English conversation practice, reading practice to improve pronunciation and comprehension, and at times, assistance with homework assignments.  As students demonstrate better English conversation skills, the conversation topics presented become more challenging.

We at PLC feel that the one on one time spent with older students is very important to ensuring that they are getting the maximum benefit from the course.  The language lab work on the Rosetta Stone program is beneficial and time well spent.  However, we think that it is very important that each student gets practice using English (speaking, listening, and reading) under the supervision of a teacher.  It is vital that students are able transfer the skills they are developing on the computer into real life situations.  Of course, we want students to improve their ability to score well on English exams in school, but it is equally important that our students are able to have conversations in English and improve their ability to read and understand what they have read.

Even the Rosetta Stone program is individualized.  When using this language learning software, students are able to learn at their own pace.  In many traditional classroom environments, students all study the same topics at the same time and progress at the same speed.  With the Rosetta Stone software, students advance to the next level when they have completed all the units in a lesson.  If a student fails to pass a unit, the software requires the student to go back and attempt the exercises again and again until the student is able to pass the unit.  This allows advanced students to quickly progress through topics that they have already mastered and forces the students who need more practice to continue to repeat the exercises until they are able to learn the material.

Regardless of the age or skill level of the student.  We have a strong commitment to make sure that every PLC student is receiving individual attention and is demonstrating continued improvement.  Many of our students attend other tutoring schools to improve their knowledge in other subjects.  The children that attend our school are serious about learning and doing well in school.  When they come to PLC, we work very hard to make sure that they receive the maximum amount of benefit during the time they spend with us.