Hi I'm Ai-Lin. Today,
we're going to learn about how to listen for note taking.
We're going to look at how to prepare,
to listen to a lecture or a talk and things you need to think about
while you're listening. Before we listen, we need to try and prepare,
which really means we need to predict a lot of things.
You might need to attend a lecture or listen to a talk.
You might be watching a TV show or listening to the radio.
These are some examples of listening activities in your daily life.
Before you go to a lecture or a talk,
it's always wise to look at the topic and to prepare for it.
You can do so by reading about the topic,
to familiarise yourself with the possible vocabulary and the main points that
might be covered. For example,
most courses at university will provide students with reading lists and some
lecturers will give you assigned reading before each lecture.
The next thing would be to look at previous lectures on the same
subject. If you know there's a series of 10 lectures,
before you go to lecture number five,
read up on the previous lectures to see if there's some kind of continuation
so that you can predict what the next area would be on the same topic.
Then,
you need to think about the vocabulary and grammar that was used in the previous
lectures or that you encountered in the reading.
This activates your memory and activate all that vocabulary that you learned the
weeks before. And when you hear them again,
it'll just come to mind straightaway. And finally,
you need to take notes as you listen. As you will
need to write many notes continuously,
it would help if you had some abbreviations for big words
or words that are used frequently. We call this shorthand.
Now, before you go to a lecture or a talk, you need to ask yourself:
what's the purpose of listening to the lecture or talk?
It's impossible to write every word you hear in a lecture or a talk.
So you will need to pick and choose the words to write down which will allow you
to make sense of your notes after the lecture.
Generally,
every lecture has a structure so that the lecturer can take you logically from
one idea to another,
give you examples and explain things before they take you to a
different point.
If you know there's a structure for a lecture or a talk,
it will help you in taking notes.
Lecturers often use slides with pictures and dot points of what the lecture
is going to cover. As soon as you see these cues from the lecturer,
you need to write down these main points so that you know when they're going
from one to another. When speakers divide their talks into parts,
they will introduce those parts using particular words.
You also need to consider how the information in that lecture will be
organised. Is it pros/cons, problem/solution,
review of information,
A versus B or a process with a result.
Here are some things to take note of when you're listening to something.
At the beginning and end of a lecture or talk,
the speaker will usually go over the main points of the talk so make sure you
listen carefully to ensure you have written these points down in your notes.
One thing you can do is divide your page into different columns or sections
to make it easier for note taking.
Speakers will use signposts words throughout the lecture to indicate where
they are up to in their lecture.
I have a list of commonly used signposting language here.
For instance,
"first let's look at..." indicates the first point that the speaker
is addressing.
"For example" and "such as" indicate examples used.
It's a good idea to infer meaning from expressions of the speaker.
To infer means to guess. For example,
in a lecture that points out pros and cons of an issue,
hearing words such as unfortunately, terrible,
disastrously talks about the cons the
speakers referring to.
On the other hand, words like luckily, amazingly,
advantage would indicate the pros of that issue.
You don't have to write those words down but it gives you a
sense of which part of the argument they're talking about.
Within a topic, points made by the speaker are often related.
It's important to capture the relationship between points made in a lecture or
talk.
When you're going to a part of a lecture where they're talking about a
cause and effect,
you need to know words like leads to, caused by,
results in, reduction in.
These words are very useful because they're used again and again
in lectures to talk about statistics and graphs,
and to explain facts to students. Finally,
often in a lecture,
lecturers will give you something to take away or to think about,
to finish up their lectures so that they can highlight what you should be
looking into or researching or remembering from what they
say.
They will either repeat a point using different ideas or different
sentences. And when you notice this,
be sure to write that down because every lecturer will want the
audience to have a takeaway from their talk.
Now it's your turn.
Are you ready to practice your listening and note taking?
Find a short tip to listen to that you come across in your daily life.
Before you listen, predict what you think it might be about.
Look at the topic and think about what it's going to tell you.
Have you listened to anything else on a similar topic?
What sort of vocabulary and grammar did you come across when you did that?
What is your purpose of listening to this clip?
What are you going to learn from this?
And what should you be writing down?
While listening, remember
the steps we went through identified the main points,
look out for signposting language,
infer meaning from expressions,
look at the relationships between points
and take note of repeated points.
If you choose to listen to a video clip, notice the visuals used.
How did you go?
OK. So here's what you can do to practise.
If there are points that you didn't write enough notes about,
ask a classmate or your tutor and fill in the gaps.
If there are words which you hear repeatedly or which you see in a visual that
seem unfamiliar, write them down and be sure to look them up later. Increasing
your vocabulary on this topic will help you understand it.
Many lectures and talks are recorded which gives you the advantage of being
able to listen again to complete your notes.
And as you become more confident in your note taking skills,
you won't need to listen the second time.
Practise listening by watching news, documentaries, TV shows,
and movies. And listen to the radio.
It's also a good idea to engage in conversations with friends,
neighbours, classmates, and work colleagues.
Thanks for listening and learning with me today. I hope you had fun. Bye.