This is the IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1509, Three Tips for IELTS Listening.
Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English.
Downloaded more than 35 million times with examiner-trained IELTS whiz Aubrey Carter and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer.
If you are stuck with a low score, our insider method will help you get the score you need to unlock your dreams.
Get your estimated band score now with our two minute quiz at allearsenglish.com slash my score.
Did you know that most native speakers won't get a nine on IELTS listening or even an eight without strategies?
This tells you how important listening strategies are.
Listen in to find out the three tips you need to get started.
Hey, Aubrey, how's it going today? I'm great, Lindsay.
Are you stuck using textbook English in real conversations?
With the Connected Communicator course from All Ears English, you'll go beyond grammar and experience real, unscripted American English, from chatting with a cowboy to hearing how activists speak in everyday life.
You'll build confidence, understand native speakers, and finally sound natural.
Plus, with the new AI conversation guides, you can practice speaking anytime, anywhere, no partner needed.
Start your journey to real-world fluency today at allearsenglish.com slash connection.
This week only, save $50 off the normal price for lifetime access, but the offer ends Sunday at midnight. allearsenglish.com slash c-o-n-n-e-c-t-i-o-n.
How are you? Good. I'm excited to be here with you on IELTS Energy chatting about how our listeners can get their score for their dream lives, right?
That's what it's all about. Yes. Absolutely.
And we're talking about your listening score today.
This is really interesting. Lindsay, when do you have the most trouble understanding what you're listening to in Spanish?
I mean, sometimes recorded audios can be challenging, I guess, really when I'm in a crowded place.
And it's very spontaneous Spanish, just like our listeners say about spontaneous English.
It's hard. Absolutely. Right. Right. There are a few times.
Right. Multiple speakers is tricky. Background noise can be difficult.
Right. There are all kinds of situations that can make it a lot more difficult to understand what you're listening to.
We got a great question from one of our listeners about.
IELTS listening that we're going to answer today and we're also going to share some interesting stats IELTS stats so do you want to read the question for us Lindsay yes here we go I've been listening to your podcast for one month I like it you guys are so amazing it's very fascinating thank you Sergio we have Sergio today thank you I have one question for you how can I work on my listening do you have any ideas Sergio Valentine love it yes such a great question i'm excited to answer this question because i'm sure a lot of you are in the same boat you're taking listening practice tests you're not getting the scores you want yes and it really comes down to the strategies you're using yes exactly so we're going to get into this problem of ielts listening today and how to solve it but first i want to call out some of our amazing listeners who left reviews in apple podcasts or wherever they listen 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 from China on May 30th.
Thank you for the five-star review. Apple X UEP also from China, May 18th.
Thank you so much. Thank you to Yi Fu on April 10th.
Aubrey, what does it mean when you see a review?
What does it mean to you? Yeah, I really am so grateful.
I love reading them. I love when you send questions as well.
And it also really helps other listeners find us, other people who are studying for the IELTS exam. then when they see your five-star reviews, they know this is a good podcast to follow and listen to.
So we appreciate you spreading the good word and thanking us for our hard work.
Yeah. So going over, if you haven't had a chance to rate and review us, leave us a review.
We will read your name out loud on the show, be honest in your review, but just take the time to let us know how it's going.
You know, what do you like about the show?
What questions do you have about IELTS? Right, Aubrey? exactly awesome all right let's dive into sergio's question we first want to share some stats here the test performance um you know average scores have been posted by ielts for 2023 to 2024 so i looked up the average listening score and it was a lot lower than you might expect what was it lindsay oh my gosh average listening score was 6.36 quite low lower than we thought yeah exactly especially where once students are in our course and they have strategies they often score eight nine you can definitely get a higher score than that so this is surprisingly low why are students scoring this low lindsay yeah it's a great question i'm going to throw that right back to you aubry tell me what's going on here maybe it's about strategies not having the listening strategies yeah Yeah, that's it, right?
If you don't have strategies, you will have difficulty scoring seven or higher.
Even native speakers who take the listening exam, if they use no strategies, they also have difficulty scoring seven or higher.
We've seen that from scores that are posted in the past.
So really, it's all about having strategies, using them so that you can get more answers correct and get the score you need on test day.
Yep. Got to have those strategies. So we're going to show two or three key things to keep in mind today, Aubrey, when we're prepping for IELTS listening.
What would be number one? Yeah, let's share the three main tips.
The first one is that what you listen to matters, right?
It's not enough to only listen to pop culture podcasts or maybe reality television shows.
You also really do have to listen to news reports and podcasts because that high level, more difficult vocabulary that you're often going to hear on the IELTS listening exam matters.
Doesn't always come up in day-to-day conversations.
Doesn't always come up on these pop culture podcasts.
So you do have to challenge yourself some with what you're listening to to prepare for IELTS.
Yes, a good variety, right? That is the key when it comes to IELTS input and prep, getting a variety of types of content, I think.
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So you can gather less common vocabulary and understand it when you hear it on IELTS, right?
So definitely podcasts on a variety of topics.
One that I've been listening to lately is The Inquiry by BBC.
Have you heard of that one? Ooh, I'll have to add that.
I like it. Yes, check it out. Yeah. And everybody out there, they have three expert witnesses on a variety of issues, current events, really interesting topics.
And there's a lot of interesting vocabulary there.
This is a good one to listen to to prepare for IELTS, but also news reports, audio books that are a little bit higher level, and then documentaries.
And this is TV shows, podcasts, audio books.
You need to be listening to a lot of English from a variety of sources.
I love that. Yeah, so important. And different opinions, different kind of touching different topics.
That's why the news concept like the Inquiry or maybe the Daily or the Wall Street Journal podcast, they touch a lot of topics.
Every day there's a new topic, right? It's learn about fracking.
You learn about the wars in the Middle East.
You learn about health issues. It's such a variety.
So it's a good idea to subscribe to a news podcast like that.
Absolutely. And this is going to help you everywhere on IELTS so that you have the vocabulary for writing your essays and giving your speaking answers, but also when you're listening to the audio for the listening exam, that you've heard a lot of this in the podcasts, in the TV shows that you're listening to.
Yes. And what else do we need to know here, Aubrey?
Yeah, so it's interesting because you do need audio that engages and interests you, right?
Or you're just going to fall asleep. So you do need to find podcasts you find interesting.
But if you love reality TV or pop culture, you do have to branch out a little bit.
But there will be other podcast TV shows that interest you.
And then you're using that to not only add vocabulary, but also to practice your listening comprehension, your listening fluency to boost these scores.
Yeah. Is there a particular kind of method we should use while we're listening, Aubrey?
Well, when it comes to vocabulary, you definitely don't want to write down every single new vocabulary word you learn.
One or two, three to four max, you'll add to your vocabulary notebook, right?
So this is how you're adding words to your vocabulary, but you don't want to get overwhelmed.
You don't want to just create these long lists so that you never actually add any of them to your active vocabulary.
Good to know. Good to know. Because, yeah, it can be overwhelming when you hear all these.
We want to resist the temptation to try to learn all of them at the same time.
Right. Exactly. All right. Our second tip.
This is vital. is that you must learn strategies for IELTS listening, right?
Those who don't use any strategies, who just go to the IELTS exam, listen to the audio, and hope they'll be able to hear the answers, are getting very low scores.
So one example is the strategy of making predictions.
So we're going to show you how to do that. in the next episode you want to follow because we're going to do practice listening and we're going to walk you through the strategy of making predictions right you're basically predicting the type of word and answer will be Is it a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb?
What type of word might it be, right? You're warming up your brain to know what to listen for so that when you hear it in the audio, your brain can pick it out more easily.
Yes, and this is the term that our team coined, open your brain box.
I love that idea, right? We warm up our brains, we know what we're looking for, and this works for general conversation as well.
Absolutely. Right. So that you can better track a conversation, understand so that you can join in on the conversation.
Exactly. But this is just one of many strategies that we teach in Three Keys IELTS.
So all of these strategies, you need them in order to get seven or higher on the IELTS exam.
Yes. Okay, Aubrey, we are back for strategy number three.
Jack Daniels has proudly served in fine establishments, questionable joints, and everywhere in between.
So no matter where you go in every bar, you'll always know someone by name.
Jack. Jack and Coke. Shot of Jack. Jack Daniels, please.
Right away. That's what makes Jack, Jack.
Which is practice. Tip number three. What do we mean by this?
How do we do that? Once you have strategies, it's all about having sufficient practice.
It's not enough to know that you should predict answers.
That doesn't come that naturally. You have to practice, right?
So once you have strategies, once you've learned them, you will need time to devote to practicing, taking IELTS listening exams, using strategies, getting faster and faster at it.
You'll need to be able to identify keywords, make predictions, and then track the audio so that you get more of those answers correct.
Yeah, I mean, that's why we do provide a couple of practice exams in our Three Keys IELTS online course, right, Aubrey?
Exactly, right? This is vital that you not only learn strategies, but then practice them.
This does happen that students will learn our strategies and then just go take the test.
They're like, got the strategies, I'm ready.
Unfortunately, that's not ever how it works, right?
These are skills that need to be refined, especially because you have a limited time.
You can't stop and rewind that audio, unfortunately.
So you need to be ready, used to using these strategies so that you can apply them on test day when that audio starts.
Yeah, there's a whole process. It's learning the strategy and then it's practicing it and then doing the practice test.
It's kind of three steps, right? Learn it and then do exercises, but then do practice tests.
And then you're asking questions to your teacher.
There's a whole thing that we have to do in terms of a study plan.
Exactly. Right. It's really very holistic.
There's so much that you need to be doing at once.
Students sometimes ask us, should I practice one exam at a time?
And you definitely can. You can start with listening.
And once you really feel confident, once you're getting the score you need on practice exams, then you could move on to reading or speaking.
That's not a bad way to do it. But then don't make the mistake of. then you do speaking reading writing and then go take the test because then a lot of time will have passed where you haven't been using these listening strategies you need to keep those skills sharp by still continuing to practice and taking listening exams yes aubrey where can our listeners go if they want to learn more get more episodes specifically about listening Yeah, so we've done quite a bit of listening practice right here on IELTS Energy.
So you can go to our blog, allersenglish.com, and search listening practice in the search bar, and several episodes will come up that have live listening practice.
And then definitely follow, because as we mentioned in the next episode, we're going to do some part one listening practice.
We'll walk you through that strategy of predicting, of identifying keywords so that you can see how that works and know how to.
And then you can take the practice. You can use this podcast also as live listening practice.
Oh, I love that opportunity. So hit follow so you don't miss part two of this little series we have going on today.
And I think the takeaway for today is you can't passively listen to English and just expect to score seven or higher.
You know, even if you're immersed in English every day, you need practice.
You need tactics and strategies. Practice them, take practice tests and then be ready.
Right, Aubrey? Exactly. That's exactly right.
So we're excited for you guys to get all the strategies you need.
You can find them in our IELTS course, allearsenglish.com slash keys, and definitely hit follow.
We'll have some practice for you this Friday.
All right. Sounds good. Looking forward to that, Aubrey.
You have a good day. I'll talk to you soon.
See you there. Bye. Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy.
Hit subscribe now and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish.com slash myscore.
Lowe's knows when you're looking for reliability, the right brand makes all the difference.
And now, Lowe's is the exclusive home improvement retailer for the Whirlpool water treatment line, including their Wi-Fi softener, under-sink filtration system, and more.
With Whirlpool's proven performance and our everyday low prices, better tasting, better quality water is within reach.
Shop pro-trusted brands like Whirlpool and more in-store or online.
Lowe's. We help. You save.
