LISTEN TO SPOKEN ENGLISH AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.

The more you practice listening, the better listener you

will become.
There are many ways in which you can practice your
listening skills.
You can hear English spoken in movies, on TV, on the
radio, or on the Internet.

LISTEN TO NATURAL SPEECH

Most of what you hear in movies, documentaries, and TV
or radio news reports is scripted speech.
This means that what you are listening to has been
planned and written down so that it can be read aloud.
By listening to unscripted interviews, discussions, or
debates, you can improve your ability to understand
natural speech.

LISTEN TO AUTHENTIC ACADEMIC LECTURES

The Web sites of some universities provide free lectures that
you can listen to as many times as you want.
These lectures and discussions are useful for several reasons:
You can improve your ability to listen to longer discourse.
You have a choice of lectures and discussions on different
topics.
You have the opportunity to hear different accents and
speech patterns.

LISTEN FOR STANCE

When you listen to lectures and conversations, you practice
listening for clues that will help you understand the speaker's
purpose, attitude, and degree of certainty.
Look at the examples below:
(man) I can't get this printer to feed the paper through.
(woman) Dont look at me. Im hopeless at these things.
The man is seeking help to solve his problem, even though he
doesn't directly ask for help.
The woman's response indicates that she does not know how
to help him, even though she does not say it directly.

LISTEN FOR STANCE

(man) As far as I know, no one has come up with a viable

solution to this problem.
In this statement, we can understand that the speaker himself
does not know of anyone with a solution, but he is letting his
listeners know that there might be someone who has one.

STRATEGIES FOR LISTENING TO THE

CONVERSATIONS OR LECTURES
Take notes.
Taking notes will help you concentrate on and remember what
is being said.
You can use your notes to help you answer the questions.
Try to write what you hear in a form that organizes the main
ideas and details of the conversation or lecture.

IDENTIFY THE MAIN IDEA AND IMPORTANT DETAILS

THAT SUPPORT IT
The main idea is usually found at the beginning of the
listening passage.
The language in the conversations is informal and
concerns topics common to the everyday lives of
students at university.
The language in the lectures and classroom discussions
is more formal and usually concerns an academic topic.
All the information needed to answer each question is
stated or implied within the passage.

PAY ATTENTION TO STANCE

Listen for clues to help you understand the speaker's
stance.
Stance refers to the speaker's purpose, attitude, or degree
of certainty.
Questions about stance often begin by repeating a short
section of the passage.
This repeated section gives the context for the question
that follows.

PAY ATTENTION TO STANCE

Read this conversation and the example of this question
type that follows it:
(w) Have you really decided to change your major!
(m) Well, yeah, the engineering department will accept most of
the work that I did toward my physics degree, so I switched
to engineering just last week.

(w) But wont the change set you back, I mean ... uh ... as far as
graduating is concerned!
(m) A bit. maybe, but it looks like I will be able to catch up with
most of the engineering courses by next year, so it really
won't set me back too much, not that much. Besides, I think
that I'll be happier in engineering.

PAY ATTENTION TO STANCE

Listen again to part of the conversation. Then answer the
question.
(m) Well, yeah, the engineering department will accept
most of the work that I did toward my physics degree,
so I switched to engineering just last week.
(w) But wont the change set you back, I mean ... uh ... as
far as graduating is concerned!
Why does the woman say this:
But wont the change set you back!

PAY ATTENTION TO STANCE

In this question, the first repeated part sets the context the man's change of major.
The second part contains the information that the
question relates to.
In this case, the underlying meaning of the woman's
question is that she is concerned that the man's change
of major will mean that he will "set back," or delay, his
graduation date.

There are three basic question

types in the TOEFL Listening
section.
Familiarizing yourself with these
question types and becoming
skilled at how to answer them will
help you navigate more quickly on
the day of the test

MULTIPLE CHOICE WITH ONE CORRECT ANSWER

This question type, also found in the Reading section, consists
of a question and four answer choices.

MULTIPLE-CHOICE WITH CORRECT ANSWERS

This question type consists of a question and two or more
answers out of four or more answer choices. These items
appear as follows:

CHART
This question type requires test takers to complete a chart.
These items appear as follows:

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gear, Jolene and Robert. Cambridge preparation for the TOEFL Test.-4. ed.
2006