part 1 basic skills for listening. pre-listening skills step 1: study the situation and your role...
TRANSCRIPT
Part 1 Basic Skills for Listening
Pre-listening skills
Step 1: Study the situation and your role
You will be given a realistic situation which sets the scene for the listening activities. The situation could be an orientation session followed by an informal meeting; or two guides giving visitors general information about a theme park and answering visitors’ questions about the theme park; or a seminar on the prevention of crime followed by a question-and-answer session; or a radio interview and question-and-answer phone-ins.
Some previous roles and situations:
Role General situation2007 Hotel employee 2007 A training session on terrorism
2006 English teacher 2006 A tour of the home of the future
2005 A member of an editorial team 2005 A study of life in Hong
Kong during World War II
2004 A police constable 2004 A police training seminar
2003 Someone who is planning to
join a three-month summer cruise
2003 A three-month summer study
cruise
2002 Someone who works for an
entertainment company
2002 A tour of a European theme
park
2001 A member of a student group 2001 Community crime awareness
and prevention
2000 A student who is going to take
part in a survey conducted by an
Australian university
2000 A survey on the health of youths
Step 2: Anticipate the answers based on the framework
Even before you listen to the recording, you may be able to predict some of the answers through context and common sense.
Can you predict the answer to Question 1 from the note-heading of Question 2?
1. What does Mary want to know?
2. Three reasons why the tour will help Mary with her Geology studies:
(a)
(b)
(c)
In this example, the wording of Question 2: ‘why the tour will help Mary with her
Geology studies’ gives you the clue to the answer to Question 1
Example
If the tour will help her with her Geology studies
Exercise 3
Predict some of the answers to the following questions by considering the context and the note-headings. Then listen to the recording to see how successful you were at predicting the answers.
2. The question Susie asks:
_______________________________________________________
Mrs. Smith’s views on how the pollution situation in Hong Kong differs from that in the United States:
(a) ____________________________________________________________
(b) ____________________________________________________________
(c) ____________________________________________________________
(d) ____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
How does pollution in Hong Kong differ from that in the United States?
It is a much greater problem in Hong Kong
There is a much greater concentration of construction in Hong Kong
A great deal of the pollution in Hong Kong comes from outside sources
Hong Kong hasn’t had as strong a public environmental agenda as the
United States
While-listening skillsStep 3: Listen carefully for hints
The forum Nancy just attended:
1. Title of the forum: _______________________________________
2. Objectives of the forum:
(a) ____________________________________________________
(b) ____________________________________________________
Tapescript
The title of today’s forum is ‘Run for Lives’. We’ll be discussing the latest charity marathon which has been organized to raise money for the AIDS Foundation. The objectives of the forum are to increase awareness of the charity project and to inform the public about AIDS.
You should be aware that the wording used for hints may differ slightly on the recording. In this example,' The title of today’s forum can be changed to ‘today’s forum is entitled; instead of the ‘The objectives of the forum’, the speaker may say ‘The aims of the forum’.
Example
Run for Lives
increase awareness of the charity project
inform the public about AIDS
Step 4: Using contextual clues to understand difficult words
A difficult word will normally be either repeated, presented as one of several alternative answers, or explained through contextual clues, so listen carefully for clues and hints that will help you understand the word. If there are no contextual clues given, then you should make an educated guess at the meaning of the word by linking the context to the word.
(a) Alternative answers Some questions have more than one answer, and there is a chance that there will be an
alternative answer if there are difficult words
(b) Omit elaborations In the Listening Test, you are only required to write down key points. There is no need
to elaborate on the ideas. Therefore, you must learn to distinguish key words from elaborations, which may take the form of examples or explanations of key ideas.
Travel planning that Joe did:
Step 1: ______________________ ______________________
Step 2: ______________________ ______________________
decide on the route
check the travel regulations
It is not necessary to include the explanation of ‘route’ or example or travel regulations in your answers because you have neither time nor space to copy it all down. As part of the listening process, you have to discriminate between necessary and unnecessary information
Exercise 11
Listen to the recording and write the answers as briefly as possible, but include all of the key words.
1. Problems experienced on Anna’s trip through Beijing:
(a) _____________________________________________________
(b) _____________________________________________________
2. Characteristics of a bully:
(a) ____________________________________________________________
(b) ____________________________________________________________
(c) ____________________________________________________________
3. (a) Alternative suggestion:
____________________________________________________________
(b) Advantages of the alternative suggestion:
_____________________________________________________________
dealing with bureaucracy
finding spare parts to repair bicycle
low self-confidence
a history of child abuse in the family
low achievement at school
apply for a grant from the government
wouldn’t discourage the public from using the library
Part 2 Latest Developments
The examinationQuestion formats
• Labelling questions • Map questions
• Questions involving similar pictures • Related questions
• Matching questions • Tone questions
• Flow chart questions • Multiple-choice questions involving pictures, photos or graphs
Labelling questions Every paper in the past few years have included a labelling question o
f some kind. This could be labelling a floor plan (2003), labelling the different parts of an item (2005 and 2007) or even putting details onto a map (2007).
You will have to orientate yourself quickly when you listen to the recording. The task will be easier to do if you study and underline the key words in the question and the worked example, and note any noticeable features in terms of differences or similarities. At times, it is useful to draw a schematic diagram beside the picture to help you locate the various parts as you take notes from the listening material.
Questions involving similar pictures
Questions involving distinguishing similar pictures have been in use for many years and was prominently featured in the 2005 UE exam, where candidates were required to compare a number of similar pictures of objects of the same nature and assign each of those pictures to a letter.
Unlike pictures given in a multiple-choice question, where the differences among the pictures are relatively easy to spot, the differences among the stamps in the following example are too numerous to be compared in detail, but the similarities or common features are quite obvious: they all carry country name, a postage value and, of course the image of a bird. So the answers you will be listening for would most likely be connected with differences in these common areas.
A $ 5000
Related questions
At times, two consecutive questions may be related and share some common information. This type of question has appeared in listening exams almost every year since 2003 and some are very difficult to do.
You should approach this type of question by finding out how the two questions are related to each other. You should then find out what common information is shared. You can also use the key words in the note-headings and the worked example(s) given in the first question as clues for some of the answers to the related questions or vice versa.
Can you tell how Question 1 is related to Question 2 in the exercise below, or vice versa?
Tone questions
Questions involving tone have become a regular feature of listening exams recently. They formed a part of a longer task in the 2004 and 2007 exams, and they were stand-alone questions in the 2002, 2005 and 2006 exams.
You can prepare for this type of question by underlining the key words, and then relate the key words to the conversational context or the situation on the recording. Tone refers to the quality of the speaker’s voice when he or she tries to express a particular emotion. Therefore, it
is important to understand the background and circumstances that give rise to such an emotion.
Here are some of the tone words used in the Use of English examinations:
2003 sure, unsure, interesting, funny, annoying, scary
2004 angry, pleading, shocked, apologetic, threatening 2004 angry, amused, unconcerned, worried, disbelief, fear, delight, satisfaction, relief, anxiety, exhausted, hope
2006 relaxed, uneasy, excited, bored, satisfied, surprised, disappointed, afraid
2007 confused, apathetic, nervous, impatient, suspicious
Flow chart questions
With this type of question, you are required to record a chain of events based on what you hear on the recording. Since the information provided on the recording is usually closely related and appears in sequence, it is very helpful if you number the note-headings or the blank spaces to make the flow chart easier to follow as you listen to the recording.
Exercise
Conversation between the flight attendant and the passenger
2. What the flight attendant does or says:
She asks the passenger to return to his seat
She asks the passenger again to return to his seat
She warns him of the dangers of not
fastening his seatbelt
She threatens to inform the captain / police
Background noises
Examiners have included various different background noises into the recordings. They range from environmental noises like doors opening and closing (2006), the rustling of paper (2004), to people murmuring (2004) and muttering barely audible comments (2007).
You should smartly ignore these noises and
concentrate only on the key points that you need to listen for.
Interjections
An interjection is a sound, word or phrase spoken by someone in the middle of a conversation or a monologue. In the case of a tone question, some interjections can be important as they help you recognize the speaker’s emotions. For example, ‘Wow’ could mean appreciation, admiration or amazement as dictated by the situation.