You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November 2009.
Academic Listening and Taking note
Like many students, you may be initially very worried about your listening skills.
Academic listening usually involves trying to follow a lecture or discussion in English and
writing adequate notes on it. If you have difficulties in doing this, you may not be sure
whether the problems are listening problems or language problems. In any case, much
listening to lectures or similar texts is essential. There is also a need for you to be aware of
the way lectures are organised, the particular kind of language that is used in lectures
(Lynch, 1983) and making sure you know the language, particularly the pronunciation of
familiar words, of your own subject. I think the most important skill is for you to learn to
recognise the structure of lectures – the main points and subsidiary points.
You need to practise:
* How to take notes.
* Recognising lecture structure: understanding relationships in the lecture – reference;
understanding relations within the sentence/complex sentences; importance markers,
signposts.
* Deducing the meaning of unfamiliar words and word groups – guessing.
* Recognising implications: information not explicitly stated; recognising the speaker’s
attitude. Evaluating the importance of information – selecting information.
* Understanding intonation, voice emphasis etc.
* Listening skills: skimming – listening to obtain gist; scanning – listening to obtain
specific information; selective extraction of relevant points to summarise text.
Your listening will improve quickly if you hear English often – so make sure you do – films,
television, anything.
Understand
Learn
Have Knowledge
Understand More
Learn More
Know More
So read around the topic before the lecture – or read the newspaper if you want to
understand the news on the radio.
Listening is …
Purposeful
Listening is purposeful. The way you listen to something will depend on your
purpose. You listen to different texts in different ways. In everyday life, you usually know
why you are listening. You have a question and you read to find the answer. You usually
know how the news programmes on the radio or organised – usually a quick headline
followed by details. You know the sports results follow the main news items, so if you want
to know the sports results, you wait until it is time. You do not listen to every word of the
news items. When you read a story or a play, it is different. You start at the beginning and
listen to the end. In academic listening, you need to be flexible when you listen – you may
need to listen carefully at the beginning to find out what is going to come, then listen less
carefully until you hear what you want to know. General efficient listening strategies such
as scanning to find the correct part of the lecture, skimming to get the gist and careful
listening of important passages are necessary as well as learning about how texts are
structured in your subject.
Interactive
Listening is an interactive process – it is a two-way process. As a listener you are
not passive but active. This means you have to work at constructing the meaning from the
sounds heard by your ears, which you use as necessary. You construct the meaning using
your knowledge of the language, your subject and the world, continually predicting and
assessing. You need to be active all the time when you are listening. It is useful, therefore,
before you start listening to try to actively remember what you know, and do not know,
about the subject and as you are listening to, to formulate questions based on the
information you have. Title, sub-titles and section heading can help you formulate question
to keep you interacting.
Summarising
One of the most important aspects of listening for academic study is listening in
order to make use of the ideas of other people. This is important as you need to show that
you have understood the materials you have heard and that you can use their ideas and
findings in your own way. In fact, this is an essential skill for every student. The most
important skill a student can engage in is “the complex activity to write from other texts”,
which is “a major part of their academic experience.” It is very important when you do this
to make sure you use your own words, unless you are quoting. You must make it clear
when the words or ideas that you are using are your own and when they are taken from
another writer. You must not use another person’s words or ideas as if they were your
own: this is Plagiarism and plagiarism is regarded as a very serious offence.
A summary is a shortened version of a text. It contains the main points in the text
and is written in your own words. It is a mixture of reducing a long text to a short text and
selecting relevant information. A good summary shows that you have understood the text.
Look at this example:
The amphibia, which is the animal class to which our frogs and toads belong, were
the first animals to crawl from the sea and inhabit the earth.
Summary
The first animals to leave the sea and live on dry land were the amphibia.
The phrase “which is the animal class to which our frogs and toads belong” is an
example, not a main point, and can be deleted. The rest of the text is rewritten in your
own words.
Academic Listening and Taking Note
Listen to the advertising
According to AJ.Q assignment.
You guys need to upload your poster design to our website instead of sending it to AJ.Q E-mail.
your website for this assignment is
http://www.posterdesign09.wordpress.com
to post your design on the website you need to use this log in
username: student53
password: eng4artstudent
