TOEFL Strategies for Listening Section

TOEFL Strategies for Listening Section

TOEFL listening section, tests the ability of a student, especially a non-native English speaker, to understand spoken English (accentuated) in educational setting. Listening is an important skill to understand the concepts and ideas. Only when the concepts are understood completely it becomes a lighter task to score in the listening section of TOEFL test. In order to develop the listening skills for TOEFL, there are certain set of listening strategies or steps. They are explained in detail given below.

Requirements for TOEFL Listening Strategy

Listening strategies for TOEFL aims at providing each and every minute detail that are required to respond to all the questions within the given time in this section. Responding to the questions in time is very important because, it will help TOEFL candidates to save time, which they might spend on, one specific part of the test section.

There are certain steps in strategies that would help in managing time in each part of listening test section (recordings). There are some basic requirements for listening skills which serves the steps in TOEFL listening strategies as detailed below:

§  Basic Comprehension

When students listen to a recorded lecture or a conversation, they should understand the central or main idea in it. Then they should skim the recording for key points, important facts, purpose and the relevant details that connects the key points.

§  Practical Understanding

It may also be called as “pragmatic understanding” where the meaning of a word should be taken, according to the context. Students are needed to find the intended meaning of the speaker i.e. from his point of view. A wide range of vocabulary is necessary for this process because, the recordings in listening test are usually from academic background. Practical understanding also becomes a must to find the purpose of a lecture or a conversation.

§   Relate Ideas given in multiple information sources

Relating ideas is the final state where the key points and the important facts are compared to find the relationship between them. This method would initially lead to construct an argument. Then a string of supportive and non supportive elements are categorized and as a result the causes for the events are traced. This is where a student would end up identifying the conclusion which is expressed indirectly.

§   Inference

Inference is to find the implied conclusion in recordings from the author’s point of view. The conclusion might be implied or expressed indirectly anywhere in the passage.

These are the basic requirements necessary, in each part of the strategy of listening section, which consists of two recorded lectures and one long conversation. These fundamentals are to be followed, in the following few preparatory steps.

Strategies in Preparation

§  Spoken English From Various Sources And Accents

There are variations between the accents of English. It is the best to listen to English from various sources like television, music, radio etc. And also it is good to listen to the native speakers of English with different pronunciation and dialect. By doing this students would be able to improve their listening skills and also they will get used to different kinds of accents. It will be helpful very much if they listen to academic passages or conversations.

§  Making Notes

While listening to a recording, notes should be jot down. These notes would help you to remember the important points given by speaker. The reason is also that, during the test you will be given only one chance to listen to a passage. Note making will help you to remember the details and the clues effectively.

§  Main Idea

The main idea of a passage should be identified in a recording, as a first task while taking notes. Main idea of a lecture is usually given in the introductory part. The other details would be given in the rest of a lecture. Once the main idea is found it becomes a lighter task to find the purpose of the speaker.

§  Pointer Words, Important Facts And Relationship Between The Facts

The pointer words may be defined as signal words or clues, given by the speaker. These keywords should be collected along with important facts and events. This should be done in order to compare them and identify the relationship between them. In turn this would give you the cause of the events.

§  Summary of Observation

Give a summary of the recording which was listened, using the notes that are taken down. During this process, only important facts, relevant details, main idea and the key facts are covered. This is a good time saving technique, to prevent going through the notes again and again.

§  Building your Vocabulary

Above all it is also important to build a student’s vocabulary, to find the meaning of a word, according to the context of the speaker. Students should get familiar with the words which they consider as new ones and practice them in their everyday life.

The steps and the requirements in TOEFL strategies for listening section, which are elaborated above should be followed and practiced to manage time while taking up the test. The most important part in listening section is to concentrate on the subject of the speaker, and a student does not have to be distracted by the accent.

 Tips to Improve TOEFL Listening Skills

1. Use the resources in your community to practice listening to English.
• Visit places in your community where you can hear English spoken.
• Go to an English school, an embassy or an English-speaking Chamber of Commerce.
• Go to a museum and take an audio tour in English.
• Follow a guided tour in English of your city.
• Call or visit a hotel where tourists stay and get information in English about room rates, hotel availability or hotel facilities.
• Call and listen to information recorded in English, such as a movie schedule, a weather report or information about an airplane flight.
• 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)

• Get CDs with full-length lectures. Full-length lectures/presentations are available from UC Berkeley.
• Practice speaking English with others.
• Look for a conversation partner and exchange language lessons with an English speaker who wants to learn your language.

     2. Begin to prepare for academic situations.

• Visit academic classes, cultural centers, or museums where people are invited to talk in English about their work.
• Before you listen to a lecture in English, read assigned chapters or background information on academic topics.
• Visit lectures on a wide variety of topics.
• Record lectures or presentations and replay them several times.
• Listen to different types of talks on various topics, including subjects in which you have limited or little background.
• Listen to short sections several times until you understand the main points and the flow of ideas.
• Stop the recording in the middle and predict what will come next.
• Practice listening to longer lectures.
• 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.

   3. 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!]
• 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)
• 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.

4.  Keep it simple. Remember: you don’t have to write everything down.  The TOEFL listening section does not want or expect you to write down every single detail – such a feat would be impossible, even for a native speaker.  When taking notes for conversations, differentiating by columns what the male speaker says versus the female is quite useful, as there will more than likely be questions regarding opinions and statements from each speaker. With lectures, make sure to write down key words and not get bogged down with too many details.  You don’t want to lose track of the lecture or conversation because you’re so concerned with specifics.

5.  Organize your notes. It’s always a smart idea to number or letter your notes by section, particularly if the speaker gives examples. Be aware that when any sort of process is described in a lecture or conversation there will be questions later on in the test regarding what order the process comes in.  Organizing your notes as you hear them will save you time later and be invaluable when answering “rhetorical function” questions, which are very common on the listening section.

6.      Listen to academic audio recordings. If you can, go to your library or search online for academic lectures; specifically, history, science, philosophy or the arts.  The lectures presented on the TOEFL exam are lectures that would be typically heard by freshmen or sophomore students at a university.  Challenge yourself by seeking these types of audio recordings out so you can be familiar with the structure and language.  If you can’t find academic recordings, then try listening to the news online, which is usually spoken in Standard American Dialect and uses advanced vocabulary words, all of which are applicable to the TOEFL.

7.      Watch TV. Yes – believe it or not, you’re being given advice to watch TV to study for the listening section on the TOEFL.  Not just any type of TV program, either: sitcoms and hour-long dramas.  Why? These are useful to the conversations presented to you in the TOEFL listening section because they are spoken in dialogue and deal, ultimately, with problems and solutions.  When watching a sitcom or hour-long drama, take notes and make sure to identify the problem and the solution.Research any idioms or slang you might hear – this will also come in handy, as many rhetorical function questions deal directly with idiomatic expressions.

8.      Listen to less music and more spoken words. Download news articles from the BBC or Business English from I-Tunes and try to listen to them instead of music for thirty minutes a day.  Pick topics that interest you – there are a wide variety of podcasts to choose from.  This will sharpen your listening skills and expand your vocabulary, not to mention make you more well-informed.