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  • Hello. My name is Emma, and in today's lesson, I am going to teach you my top tips for the

  • IELTS listening module. Okay?

  • So, before I teach you these tips, you might be wondering: "What's the IELTS listening

  • module?" Well, the IELTS is a test and one part of the test is listening. So, in the

  • listening section, you're going to have 40 questions where you're going to listen to

  • some conversations for about 30 minutes, and then you'll have 10 minutes to transfer your

  • answers over to another sheet. So, in total, it's 40 minutes; 30 minutes for listening,

  • 10 minutes for writing down your answers.

  • Okay, now this part of the IELTS is very possible to get a high mark, especially if you follow

  • my tips. All right? Now, before we get started, I just want to let you know: I know you can

  • do the IELTS. I know you can pass, I know you can get a great mark, a great bandwidth

  • - you just have to have confidence in yourself and you have to practice. Practice, practice,

  • practice; it really pays off. So let's get started.

  • So, my first tip: write no more than three words. What do I mean by this? I don't mean

  • for the whole thing, write no more than three words. On the IELTS, you will have to read

  • the instruction of what to do. Often times, the instruction, before you listen, you're

  • going to see: "Write no more than three words." This is an example of an instruction you must

  • follow. One mistake a lot of students make during the IELTS is they don't read instructions

  • properly. They're nervous, they're stressed out, they write whatever, they don't... They

  • don't follow the instructions. If you see something like: "Write no more than three

  • words." Do that. You can't write four, don't write five. Write three or less. Okay? So

  • my main point here: follow the instructions carefully.

  • Point number two: get used to British English. A large part of the IELTS, you will be listening...

  • For... For... Sorry, for the listening, you will be listening to British accents. Sometimes

  • you might hear Australian accents or Canadian, you might hear a range, but a lot of the accents

  • will be British. So it's very important to get used to listening to British accents.

  • And also, listen to other accents like Canadian, Australian; that's a good idea too. Where

  • can you find British accents to listen to? I recommend the BBC. They have a lot of great

  • videos there and most of it's with British accents, so it's a very good idea so you can

  • practice listening. The more you practice listening with British accents, the easier

  • it will be to understand British speakers. Especially if you're used to American English,

  • this is a very good thing to do.

  • Related to this point: British vocab. You should learn British vocabulary. For example:

  • in American English and Canadian English, we say: "truck". In British English, we say:

  • "lorry". So it's good to know some of these British expressions, some British words. One

  • idea where you can practice these is if you check out our website: www.engvid.com, we

  • have a new teacher who is British and who will be talking about British English, so

  • check out her... Her videos. It will also be good to help you with practicing listening

  • to British accents.

  • Number four: spelling counts. Okay? Very important. The listening part of the IELTS is not just

  • listening; you're actually using other skills like writing and reading. Now, with writing,

  • when you write down your answers, you sometimes have to spell something out, so you have to

  • be very, very careful with spelling. Okay? This is something you should really study

  • and practice before you take the listening part of the IELTS. Practice your spelling.

  • Learn spelling rules. We have a lot of different videos on how to spell on engVid, so I would

  • come and check those ones out.

  • Number five - this is the thing that always gets my students and I always warn them about

  • when we practice - plural versus singular. Okay? You have to listen carefully on whether

  • you're writing down the plural with an "s" or the singular. If the question wants me

  • to write down: "cat", someone's talking about their cat and I write down: "cats", it's incorrect.

  • I would get an "X". Okay, so it's important to be careful, to really listen: is it a singular

  • thing, is it a plural thing? Are they saying "store" or "stores"? Okay?

  • Number six - this is probably the most obvious tip, but - very important to do practice tests.

  • There are many, many books out there on the IELTS that have practice tests with a CD.

  • You can listen and you can practice. The more you do, the better, and the better your mark

  • probably will be. Okay? So do as many practice tests as you can for the listening. And again,

  • maybe when you start, it will be very difficult. Maybe you'll do a test and you'll do very

  • poorly on it - a practice test - it's good to keep going. Even if you do bad at first,

  • I'm sure the more you practice, the more you get used to these accents - you're going to

  • do fine. Okay? Just keep practicing, practicing, practicing.

  • Number seven: prediction. It's very important on the IELTS. During the listening, at the

  • end of each section, you have some time to check your answers and to read the questions

  • that are coming up. Very important that you look ahead. Okay? Any time you have a chance

  • to stop and to... to read ahead on the IELTS, the... the listening part, it's very important

  • to do this. The reason is you can make a guess, you can predict... It's not exactly a guess,

  • but you can predict what an answer is going to be, and your chance of getting that answer

  • right is going to go up. So, for example, maybe this is one of the questions:

  • "The woman will travel on __________." Okay, so I'm going to have to listen to the

  • CD. Now, what I can do is in pencil, I can just write in what I think it's going to be.

  • Well, I see the word: "travel", "travel on", so maybe she's travelling on a bus, or maybe

  • a plane. Okay. Think of some... some things she might be travelling on. And then you can

  • just write quickly what your prediction is. And then, when they actually play the... the

  • tape, listen, see if your prediction was correct. If it's not, you can just write in the correct

  • answer. But you'll have a good chance of getting the answer right. The listening goes very

  • quickly so it's very good to do this prediction so you can prepare yourself. Know what they're

  • looking for. Okay. Prediction, very important.

  • Now, let's learn some other tips to succeed on this part of the test.

  • Okay, my next tip is about predicting again. But if you can't predict the word - maybe

  • there's not enough information - at least you can predict if they're looking for a noun,

  • adjective, adverb, or verb. Okay, so what's an example of this? I come over here. For

  • the fill in the blank questions, maybe it will say something like:

  • "She has three __________." Okay, she has three, what? I have no idea;

  • she could have three of anything. But what I do know is this is going to be... What is

  • it going to be? Is it going to be a verb? No. Adjective? No. It's going to be a noun.

  • Keyword: "She has", there's already a verb here, I know it's going to be a noun. So that

  • can help.

  • Next tip. This is one of the challenging things about the IELTS, you're listening and writing

  • at the same time. Okay? So, again, the listening is not only a listening; it's also listening,

  • writing, reading, not speaking. So it's important that you practice these skills together. What

  • you can do is you can maybe go on the BBC, listen to what they're saying, take notes.

  • Get used to writing quickly while you're listening. I think this is one of the most important

  • skills you can learn.

  • Number 10 - this is the trick on the IELTS - be aware of changes. Often times, they have

  • a phone conversation in the listening and somebody says something like: "Oh, the number,

  • it's 2078." And so you write: "2078". But then they say: "Oh, no, wait. I'm sorry. It's

  • actually 4078." So you have to be very careful because often times, they will give information

  • and then they will change it. They will say: "Oh, I'm sorry. That's the wrong information.

  • It's actually this number instead." Okay. So be aware of that. The first time you write

  • something down, they might change it, so keep your ear out for that; listen for that.

  • Number 11. One thing to practice is listening to groups of numbers. Maybe you're good at

  • listening to the number one, if I say: "five", "seven", you understand that. But if I say

  • a lot of numbers at the same time like: "My phone number is 971-225" - it's not this,

  • by the way, so don't call this number - "1-877-43298". Okay. I hope nobody has this number. But if

  • I say something like that, were you able to write down all those numbers?" All right?

  • You've got to get used to listening to large groups of numbers in sequence.

  • Again, about the numbers because you often have to listen to something about numbers

  • in the IELTS. It's also important to listen for the difference between "13" and "30",

  • "14" and "40", "15" and "50", and so on. Okay? So the trick here is: "13", "teen" is usually

  • louder, "thir" is quieter and shorter, versus: "30" where "thir" is longer, "ty" is shorter.

  • So get used to listening to these numbers so you can actually hear the difference, because

  • you might hear that on the IELTS.

  • Number 13, this is also very important. Your handwriting must be clear. All right? If they

  • can't read what you write, you're not going to get the marks for your answer. Even if

  • it's correct, if they can't read it - that's a problem. So if you have bad handwriting,

  • this is something you should work on. Practice writing. Start off slow and then work on speed;

  • get better and better and better, and faster at writing. All right? So write well.

  • Number 14, this is my last tip of the day. With... Again, this is with spelling because

  • it's so important on the IELTS for the listening section. One thing they often do is they'll

  • have somebody spell something out. So maybe they'll... Someone will be on the phone and

  • they'll say their last name. "My last name is Tattoli." Okay? And then they'll spell

  • it. "That's T-a-t-t-o-l-i." Now, one thing to be careful of is often times they do these

  • double lettering thing where when they're on the phone, they'll say:

  • "It's T-a- double 't'-o-l-i." This means there are two "t's". So if you hear the word: "double", "double

  • 't'", "double 'm'", "double 'n'". My name has a double "m". Be aware of that. It means

  • you have to write down two of those. All right?

  • So I know you are going to do well on this test. It's... It's... You can do it. It's

  • all a matter of practice, practice, practice. All right? And just constantly practicing

  • to improve. So you can do it, I know you can, and you need to know you can do it. It's very

  • important to be confident in yourself.

  • So, for a lot of extra language learning material, you can come visit our website at www.engvid.com.

  • Also, there's another great website: www.GoodLuckIELTS.com. On our website, I will have a quiz to test

  • you on some of these tips to see if you remember them. So, until next time, take care.

Hello. My name is Emma, and in today's lesson, I am going to teach you my top tips for the

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