Academic listening Skills

The Listening section measures your ability to understand spoken English. In academic settings, students must be able to listen to lectures and conversations. Academic listening is typically done for one of the three following purposes:

listening for basic comprehension

• comprehend the main idea, major points, and important details related to the main idea. (Comprehension of all details is not necessary.)

listening for pragmatic understanding

• recognize a speaker’s attitude and degree of certainty
• recognize the function or purpose of a speaker’s statement

Connecting and synthesizing (1) information

• recognize the organization of information presented
• understand the relationships between ideas presented (for example, compare/contrast, cause/effect, or steps in a process)
• make inferences (2) and draw conclusions based on what is implied in the material
• make connections among pieces of information in a conversation or lecture
• recognize topic changes (for example, digressions (3) and aside statements (4)) in lectures and conversations, and recognize introductions and conclusions in lectures

description

Listening material in the test includes academic lectures and long conversations in which the speech sounds very natural. You can take notes on any listening material throughout the entire test.

academic lectures

The lectures in the TOEFL test reflect the kind of listening and speaking that occurs in the classroom. In some of the lectures, the professor does all or almost all of the talking, with an occasional comment by a student. In other lectures, the professor may engage the students in discussion by asking questions that are answered by the students. The pictures that accompany the lecture help you know whether one or several people will be speaking.

conversations in an academic setting

The conversations on the TOEFL test may take place during an office meeting with a professor or teaching assistant, or during a service encounter with university staff. The contents of the office conversations are generally academic in nature or related to course requirements. Service encounters could involve conversations about a housing payment, registering for a class, or requesting information at the library.

Pictures on the computer screen help you imagine the setting and the roles of the speakers.

listening question formats

After the listening material is played, you both see and hear each question before you see the answer choices. This encourages you to listen for main ideas.

There are four question formats in the Listening section:

• traditional multiple-choice questions with four answer choices and a single correct answer
• multiple-choice questions with more than one answer (for example, two correct answers out of four choices or three answers out of five choices)
• questions that require you to order events or steps in a process
• questions that require you to match objects or text to categories in a chart

features

• Note taking is allowed. After testing, notes are collected and destroyed before you leave the test center for test security purposes.
• A multiple-choice question measures understanding of a speaker’s attitude, degree of certainty, or purpose. These questions require you to listen for voice tones and other cues and determine how speakers feel about the topic they are discussing.
• In some questions, a portion of the lecture or conversation is replayed. In the replay format, you listen to part of the conversation or lecture again and then answer a question.

Vocabulary:

1. Synthesize: To combine information from two or more sources
2. Make an inference: To comprehend an argument or an idea that is strongly suggested but not explicitly stated in a passage
3. Digressions: Side comments in which the speaker briefly moves away from the main topic and then returns
4. Aside statements: Comments that are relevant to the main theme but interrupt the flow of information or ideas. (Example: «Pay attention now; this will be on the test.»)

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Works Cited:

• Educational Testing Service. (2012). The Official Guide to the TOEFL Test – Fourth Edition. McGraw-Hill.