get ready for IELTS listening hi there --
is about language skills the second part is about exam skills if you want to score 7 or
above you need to be proficient competent in both of these disciplines and perhaps and
also with exam skills I've heard of native English speakers failing the IELTS exam especially
the writing but sometimes the other disciplines as well and the reason is because they have
a serious lack of exam skills now what I see with students preparing for the IELTS like
non-native English speakers I see they're overly biased on preparing for the exam skills
when really they should be working on their language skills anyway let's jump straight
into this now before I jump into this well actually yeah before I jump into this it's
worth considering depending on how soon the exam is will determine which tip you're going
to use or which strategy you're going to adopt into your learning and to your IELTS preparation
and halfway through as well I'll tell you a story about a student it's quite funny regarding
his listening skills anyway let's jump straight into this I want to start first with the language
skills if you've got solid language skills that's the best foundation if you've got really
good ability with the English language obviously this is the best foundation on which to do
on which to improve your exam skills however if you've got a shaky foundation with your
language skills with for example your listening then no matter how many exam skills you learn
no matter how many tips you learn it's still going to be below par it's still going to
– it’s going to be much more difficult to improve so anyway let's jump into this
now as I said before depending on how soon your exam is will determine which strategy
you're going to adopt the first strategy that I want to share with you is listen to a range
of accents now you probably understand me quite easily because I vocalize and I speak
relatively clear before when I was living in the UK and I lived in Manchester actually
I remember the first time I went to Australia even the Australians had difficulty understanding
me especially certain words I quickly discovered that they don't say not well they don't use
not and especially the way I was pronouncing it it's just another word for zero but they
don't use it in Australia I was talking once on the phone and the telephone service is
just what what do you want there you get on with that but anyway so get used to a range
of accents try and listen to some Scottish accent American accent Irish accents Welsh
accents if you want to have a laugh sorry but try and listen to lots of different accents
to train your ears and a good way to do this is to do it in person face to face of course
it's not always possible so the next best thing jump online and you’ll be able to
find the resources there next one listen with earphones when we listen with earphones it's
going to stimulate the auditory nerves which means it's going to be much more effective
to help you learn and just to make you remember as well I don't know the theory all the theory
but I know that a pronunciation expert told me this and from personal experience learning
another language I found it's been much more effective listening with headphones like the
earphones the ones that go in rather than just listening watching a screen you know
just listening from afar so that's the next one the third one put your entire life in
English so as soon as you wake up you flick on the radio or even better you just wake
up to the radio in English and you can do this if you do this enough times it just becomes
habit and you don't even realize that you're listening to English and now this is the ideal
state to be when you're not even consciously you listen to a foreign language it’s just
floating into your brain and you're understanding it without actively having to decode decipher
so this is why it's so important to develop these skills for the exam because then when
you're in the exam you're not having to come focus on understanding the words you're more
focused on understanding the task that's in front of you and you can develop you can assign
more resources in your brain to determine the information rather than understand the
actual words anyway so we want to put our life into English and the best way to do this
is to – with the earphones as well of course is to get hold of authentic native English
material so what do I mean by this I mean you should find podcasts audiobooks radio
stations things like this that are actually native English speakers talking and by authentic
I mean that they're talking at native English speaker speed I speak -- nowadays I speak
slightly slower than a normal person from Britain but after a week or so of being back
home with family in Manchester I soon start speaking faster and my accent comes back and
then when I come back when I leave England again and I start talking to other people
it goes back to how it was the first time I went to Australia nobody understands me
and I have to slow it down but anyway what I'm saying is that you need to listen to material
authentic material like I said podcasts audiobooks and just get used to listening to it decoding
it and most importantly listen to something that you enjoy now I know that a lot of students
my students in the past what they used to do is listen to IELTS exam to exam to exam
to exam and the brain would switch off after 10 minutes because it'd just be bored and
this is why I said look find something that you really enjoy so if you really love cricket
listen to a podcast about cricket and you'll stay like hooked for the whole duration of
the podcast or of the program and this is perfect because you're going to be actively
engaged building those language skills building that solid foundation that we talked about
before and most likely you're going to be there for longer so instead of minutes of
concentrating listening to the exam and then switching off and just going and thinking
about what you're going to have lunch you're going to be there for 40 minutes glued so
to speak listening so next tip is to transcribe YouTube is perfect for this because you can
download the transcription after then you watch or you listen and you write down everything
that you hear this will not only improve your writing abilities your spelling abilities
your hearing abilities but you also develop an important exam skill which is the ability
to write listen at the same time or simultaneously so this is where it's really important if
you can do I don't know 20 minutes or an hour a week or 20 minutes a day you decide and
by the way I just remembered a very important tip is that if you can do this daily if you
can get into the habit of doing it rather than relying on your own self-discipline willpower
you'll need those to get it started but if you can develop a habit then you're much likely
to stay with it for a longer period of time so that's when it becomes very very valuable
this is what I was referring to before when you don't even realize you're doing it it's
just habit it's automatic this is what you want to be aiming for especially even if you
want to keep your English skills after the exam which I obviously recommend you do but
develop the habits now and they'll stick now let's go into exam skills now you've heard
me before saying maybe for you listening to the exam a proper IELTS listening exam is
of the best but this depends on how soon your exam is if you've got your exam in the next
20 days then the exam IELTS practice exams the listening are going to be useful for you
because with it being so soon it's highly unlikely that you don't want but if you've
got your exam in three months’ time then practice material that you'll enjoy as I said
so listen to practice exams but don't just sit there on the bus listening you know you
want to be actively listening and this means sitting down in an assigned hour sitting down
at the table listen to the IELTS exam pen and paper and doing an actual practice test
and don't just do practice test after practice test after practice test do about two or three
and then determine where you're making mistakes and then just focus on that part of the exam
so if it's labeling a diagram or if it's true-false are given whatever just one of those sections
just focus on that section specifically and really master that skill and then move on
to the other ones and by the way when you're doing this you'll realize that at the end
of the test it's generally for the students aiming for like -- so you might want to bear
that into – you might as well bear that in mind if you're going just for a 7 so next
one when we are listening to these exams you need to be aware that during a conversation
the speaker or speakers they can switch the -- they can switch their answer so for example
they might say ah yes Friday is an excellent idea let's go to the fair on Friday morning
and then you write the answer they're going to the fair on Friday morning but then later
in the conversation they’ll be like ah actually Friday morning for the fair is not a good
idea how about Wednesday yeah that's good or maybe the day before that's even better
so what they'll do is they'll maybe go from Friday to Wednesday and then contradict themselves
and then they possibly might not even say the actual day it might be Tuesday they might
just say uh how about two days before or how about a day before so it's up to you to have
the ability to follow the conversation and know that if they say it's two days before
that they're referring to Tuesday or Wednesday whatever it would be okay so this is one of
the specific exam skills that you need to develop in order to get a 7 or above now then
the final tip is learn how to predict the answers okay so if you can see that I don't
know maybe it looks as though like I said before that they might be talking about an
event or something like that then just be so like ready or half expecting data about
events like maybe the prepositions related to the events at the weekend on Monday at
three o'clock and just get ready sort of like keep your ear out or just pay attention to
those specific terms and then you're more likely to spot them when they are spoken in
the exam okay so that's it almost finished now and I just want to tell you one funny
story about a student that he was in the speaking exam and this student he was a little bit
despondent he was like a little bit away with the fairies as we say or lalala it was just
that he didn't always manage to pay attention all of the time just his mind would wander
anyway he sat down at the exam he was doing the exam and then afterwards it comes and
I said how was it Roberto and he was just like hmm it's a bit strange and then I was
like why and he said well the examiner said to me she said are you even listening to me
and I was like oh my word and then Roberto said he said yeah she said are you even listening
to me then Roberto said he says I thought it was such a strange way to start a conversation
so obviously she'd been talking to him and he wasn't -- he had no idea he was just away
with the clouds and then he snapped out of it when she said are you even listening to
me anyway I won't tell you what score he got it’s pretty obvious but so yeah this is
why it's really important to develop your listening skills and also solid decent advanced
listening skills will help you in the other disciplines as well to help you with the speaking
so you'll be able to respond with the right answer when the examiner asks you that question
okay so if you need any more help with your IELTS exam go to ieltspodcast.com and if you've
watched this far I really appreciate if you just like the video that'd be a massive help
okay have a great weekend have a great week and all the best with your IELTS preparation
thank you okay yeah maybe I'll start doing a timetable for life it's a good idea I'm
going to think about it hopefully every morning 10:30 Monday to Friday 10:30 European CE tea
time okay multiple-choice for the listening I'll put that on my list and I'll try and
get a video together for you in the next week okay Almed all right have a great day you
guys and all the best with your IELTS preparation