IELTS Listening Tactics Discussion Questions and Tips

IELTS Listening tactics discussion questions

Look at the listening task(s) you have in front of you. What could be difficult about it/ them?

 

How can you avoid or tackle those difficulties?

 

What things about the task(s) could make them easier? How can you use those things to help you?

 

What should you do when the instructions are read out before you open your paper?

 

What should you first do when you can open the Listening paper and see the first task?

 

What things are almost always the same from exam to exam? How can you be ready for those typical things?

 

What things can vary from exam to exam? How can you make sure you aren’t caught out if those things vary?

 

What kinds of things should you underline on the question sheet? Which of those should you underline first?

 

What should you do if you’ve underlined what you need to and the recording still hasn’t started?

 

What should you do while you are listening? What should you not do?

 

How can you make sure that you don’t miss (too many) answers?

 

What should you do if you don’t know an answer? How can you make it easier to guess?

 

What should you do if you’re sure that you have all the answers in that part but the recording hasn’t finished yet?

 

What things can make you lose marks at the transferring answers stage at the end? How can you avoid those problems with transferring your answers?

 

What should you do if you still have time after transferring your answers?

 

If you are at home, how can you make sure that the listening practice is realistic practice for the exam?

 

If you are at home, what should you do after you have done a whole timed Listening exam paper?

 

How else can you prepare for the listening exam outside of class?

IELTS Listening self-study discussion

Choose the top five things to help improve your IELTS listening score from this list:

• Action movies
• Australian TV and movies
• Australian radio/ podcasts (e.g. ABC RN radio podcasts)
• British TV and movies
• British radio/ podcasts
• Comedy (e.g. sitcoms)
• Educational radio/ podcasts for young kids/ kids/ teens
• English language learning radio programmes/ podcasts
• English-language pop songs
• Watching with subtitles (in English/ in your own language)
• Graded readers (= easy readers for language learners) with recordings
• Historical dramas
• (Lots of) (timed) IELTS Listening exam papers (under exam conditions)
• IELTS Listening self-study books
• Learning all the vocabulary from IELTS Listening exam transcripts
• Learning how to pronounce gapfill answers from IELTS Listening practice exams
• Learning lists of phrases for agreeing and disagreeing
• Learning the spelling of gapfill answers from IELTS Listening practice exams
• Listening again to IELTS Listening exam recordings
• Listening and reading at the same time
• Listening to the same thing over and over again
• Lists of academic vocabulary
• Music radio with English-speaking DJs
• Phrasebook-style recordings (in the post office, in a restaurant, etc)
• Podcasts with transcripts
• Pronunciation practice (of minimal pairs, fast natural linked speech, silent letters, etc)
• Radio documentaries (e.g. BBC science podcasts)
• Radio news
• Reading IELTS Listening exam transcripts (before/ after checking your answers)
• Recordings of real university lectures
• Science fiction or fantasy (TV/ movies)
• Shadow reading difficult sentences from IELTS Listening exam recordings
• Shadow reading materials (reading, listening and speaking at the same time)
• Something you can understand 50% of
• Something you can understand 70% or 80% of
• Something you can understand 90% of
• (IELTS/ General English) textbook listenings
• TV documentaries, e.g. nature documentaries
• TV dramas
• TV news
• Videos of lectures (e.g. TED.com)
• YouTube videos of people taking IELTS Speaking tests

Can you think of any other suitable preparation? Should any of your other ideas be in the top five list that you made?