In this episode, we discuss listening skills for IELTS success with ex-IELTS examiner Robert.

Let’s start with the word “listening” itself. It means what it says. Listening is paying attention. It’s not the same as “hearing” When we come into contact with another language, we first hear it as noise, the sounds are indistinguishable. After that, we go through progressive stages of understanding, making sense of the noise, able to pick out the meaning. 

But we usually listen for a reason and this reason may mean we are listening for different things. In fact, some language experts say there are at least four different skills involved in listening for a purpose and today we’ll discuss the first two of these. 

Listening skills for IELTS Success: Anticipation

The first is anticipation. What this means is simply the fact that we normally listen to something for a reason and we more or less know what type of information we are going to hear, from the topic, its content, to details such as the types of words we hear in any given context (nouns, adjectives or whatever). 

When in IELTS listening, you are given around 30 seconds before the test starts and around the same amount of time between each Section too, so as to overview the questions you have to answer. This time gives you that vital period of anticipation to look at the types of questions and the topic. 

Now then, a good way to practice for Section 1 of the Listening Test is to go through as many practice tests as you have available and don’t do them! Well, don’t do them yet. The first thing would be to note down the general topic for each one. Here are 3 topics taken from the Cambridge IELTS 14 practice series. 

Crime Report Form

Health Clinic

Conference Hotel 

We know that Section 1 is always a question of completing a form. Now, with these three general topic headings, we can note down (individually or in small study groups) a list of possible information and vocabulary we can anticipate in each. 

* Crime Report Form: details of an item or items stolen, or amount of cash stolen, description of the thief, personal contact details, details of crime …when it happened and where, for example. 

* Health Clinic: let me see, address and contact details of course, plus brief medical history, details of problem – pain etc., name of insurance company and so on. 

* Conference Hotel: well, the obvious I guess, room number, length of stay, description of hotel facilities, hours of meals.  

From there we could develop our own possible questions and answers for our Crime Report Form. For instance: 

* Description of suspect:  Early 20s. Quite tall with short ________ hair. 

* Possible answer: hair colour.  For example: brown, black, blond. 

Building up a collection of possible topics, and anticipating what type of information would be included in each is a very worthwhile exercise. It’s a little like putting ourselves into the scene, becoming part of it and thus making any listening we do afterwards so much more realistic. 

Listening skills for IELTS Success: Targeting

In Section 1 and Section 2 as well, we have to listen for specific information, such as flight numbers, hotel rooms, phone numbers, the spelling of names and addresses as well as amounts and dates. Again, this type of listening is quite natural of course. Sit in that airport and your ears are trained to pick out that Gate Number you are waiting for. It’s anticipating of course because context and experience help make us familiar with different scenarios. But it’s also a separate skill of what we could call “active listening, targeted to specific aims”. Let’s call it targeting.