G'day.
My name is Glen Spearing and I've been teaching English as a second language and English as a foreign language for nearly 10 years, both in Australia and overseas.
I prepared exam students throughout that time and have taught communication skills at university level to students who have entered through the IELTS and English as a second language pathway.
Some of my students have scored extremely highly in their IELTS exams and, as a result, have been able to work for internationally renowned organisations such as the United Nations.
This podcast is a combination of strategies, tips and tricks that I've learned over that time to make sure that you have the best chance possible to achieve your maximum score.
Are you ready?
Let's go.
Hello and welcome to IELTS in the Sun, the podcast to help you prepare for your English exam.
I'm your host, Glenn Spearing.
Today's episode is all about listening section two.
I hope you've been working on your numbers, sound letter and alphabet recognition, because we are going to be building on that again today.
A note about a question type from the previous episode that is relevant to all of the listening and reading part of the exam.
And that's the short answer question.
It's one of the main changes that has happened to the question types over the years with the IELTS exam.
It used to be the case that they would ask for up two or three words to answer a particular question.
But what they found was that students would answer correctly, but not necessarily with the correct amount of words.
So they would be marked incorrect, even if it made perfect sense as an answer.
So what they've done is increasingly ask for one word answers, or be very specific about the amount of words that they want you to answer with.
They've also increased the amount of fill the gap type questions and exercises as a result as well.
One of the things students often don't realize is that they are kind of being tested on their ability to follow instructions, which is, in part, a language skill as well.
The takeaway from this is to make sure you follow the instructions for each question, because they can and will change within and between each part and section of the exam, and even from one question to another.
Another note one of my students reminded me about spelling and alphabet recognition after the previous episode and she found that She had an interesting thing happen to her in her exam when she got confused with the letter Z.
And this can happen because obviously as an Australian a type of British English I would say the letter Z as the letter Zed.
But if you are used to hearing American English, then that will be spelled out as the letter Z, So don't get confused with this one as an S or a C.
It is in fact the last letter of the alphabet.
As always in this episode, I will give an overview of the recording types you are likely to hear in this section of the exam, the question and task types that are most likely in this section of the exam, as well what to listen for and to pay attention to, and how best to study and prepare for this section of the exam.
Your listening task for this episode is...
In what year did the Batavia wreck off the coast of Western Australia?
Section two of the listing test is slightly more difficult than section one.
Like Section 1, it will be a recording of a social situation.
Unlike Section 1, you will have a monologue or one person speaking.
Often you will be on a tour of a city, monument, or building with a tour guide.
You might hear an introduction or orientation to a workplace, a school, a hotel or maybe even a large event like a sporting event, conference or festival.
The kind of recording you hear will somewhat shape the types of questions and tasks, but you are almost certainly going to need to pay attention to any combination of dates times years, seasons and so on.
Again, directions will be important in this section of the exam, and prepositions of time and place as well.
As is the case with almost all of the exam, the recording, the information and the questions will be in a logical and chronological order.
You are likely to get a combination of multiple choice questions, a map or possibly a related matching task form completion and possibly a short answer task as well.
But, as I said earlier, especially in this section of the exam, it's likely instead to be a completion task, either a form completion task, map completion task or diagram completion task.
With the listening questions.
Before you hear the recording, try to use your time to quickly scan for what you think are likely to be the answers and what you are likely to hear.
But and this goes for the reading section and the reading exam as well don't get fixated on a particular word or particular answer that you think you are going to hear, because this is a common way students miss out on hearing or reading potential answers.
What you need to study or revise now might seem rather obvious.
You definitely want to make sure you know how to say dates and times, years and so on.
Prepositions are a challenge for all students but, in this regard, most of the ones that you need to know in this section of the exam are what we call dependent propositions.
We have in when we're talking for years, for example 19 24, or days we're talking about on.
So on the 25th of january, on monday.
We have in with times of day so, for example, morning in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, night is a bit different.
We have at night, we have at noon and we have at midnight, and also when we have specific times of the day, we also use at, for example, at 7 pm.
Prepositions of place or location are a little more difficult and you'll need these for any map, diagram or other similar task.
Luckily for you out there, there are a huge amount of free resources to help you practice with all of these prepositions.
A future episode of mine will be dedicated entirely to looking at prepositions in the IELTS exam.
Any preposition study, preparation or revisation at this particular time will definitely help you through all of the exams.
So it's not just a matter of practicing it and being familiar with it for this section of the listening exam, but it will definitely help to improve your band score overall in all four sections.
To prepare for this part of the exam and to come to the tip for today's episode, is to listen to history podcasts.
Obviously, we want to be listening to help prepare for this part of the exam, but history podcasts in particular will give you the exposure to the different prepositions and the different dates and times as well.
Personally for me I find a lot of history podcasts really fascinating.
It's, it's something of my interests.
It's something that I studied at university.
So obviously for me it's probably pretty easy to listen to this, but obviously if you're not interested in history, it can can bore you.
But there are some really really interesting things like, If you want to listen to one of my favourite stories of history, for example, the Batavia, which was a ship that wrecked on the 4th of June in 1629 off the coast of Western Australia.
It's one of the most brutal stories in history, but it's extraordinarily fascinating.
So if you want to search for something like that, to listen to something interesting, then that is one that i would highly recommend, as long as as long as you've got a bit of a tough stomach, because some of these things in history can be pretty brutal.
I have a favorite history podcast called conflicted and that is fairly popular, i i imagine.
Um, but there is so much out there.
Just knock yourself out really.
Just choose what you want to listen to.
I know in previous episodes that I've recommended the History of English podcast and that is definitely one of my favorite podcasts, but it's probably not going to give you the same exposure to dates and times like some of the history podcasts will as well.
So it's not so heavy on dates and times and so on.
So you probably want to be listening to something that gives you a bit more exposure to that.
Another potential option, if you're not so inclined to listen to history podcasts, might be true crime podcasts, because obviously we're looking at specific dates, specific times and also you're probably going to get a lot of exposure to good prepositions through that as well.
I also imagine something like I don't know if they even exist, but probably something like astrology podcasts would be good, because I assume you're going to get quite a lot of exposure to times, dates and movements.
So you're going to get these types of propositions and become familiar with these types of propositions as well, even though it's not in my area.
But if it is something that interests you, then go for it.
The trick really is to find something that is good at giving you the exposure to what you need to to prepare for this part of the exam, but also something that interests you and something that you enjoy.
So that's it for this episode today.
Make sure that you're getting exposure to lots of different prepositions, lots of different times dates, all this sort of stuff.
And this will be probably the number one thing that is going to help you during this section of the exam.
Your listening task for this episode is...
What year did the Batavia wreck off the coast of Western Australia?
Or maybe should I say, in what year did the Batavia wreck off the coast of Western Australia?
So as always, it's me, Glenn Spearing, from IELTS In The Sun, signing off.
Have a good one.
See you later, guys.
Hooroo.
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If you'd like to improve your general listening skills, get tips on language learning and get exposure to topics that regularly appear on the IELTS exam, check out the Australians Teach English podcast.
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