Listening IELTS: Tips for Success

Developing your skills

 Don’t be a passive listener, be an active listener. Passive listening is when you are listening to
something, but not paying attention to what you are listening to. Your listening practice should
always be active. Active listening means you are concentrating on what is being said. Set a small
task when you are listening to something.

 90%-10% rule to improve your listening skills. Only 10% of your listening practice should be
IELTS past papers or from IELTS books. 90% of your listening practice should be authentic
listening practice. That means listening to real native speakers talking. Doing this for 20 or 30
minutes each day is far more effective than listening to IELTS tests all day every day.

 When native speakers speak they don’t pronounce a word, stop, and then say the next word in
the sentence. Fluent speech flows smoothly. This happens because the sounds change when
they meet other sounds, e.g. ‘a cup of tea’ becomes 'cupevtea’ or ‘I agree’ sounds
like ‘aiyagree’.This is called connected speech. Get used to it by listening to native speakers.

 Practice listening to 2 or 3 people at the same time. In parts 1 and 3 of the speaking module you
will have to listen to 2 or 3 people having a discussion. They will agree and disagree with each
other and they will have different ways of doing this.

 Familiarize yourself with different accents. IELTS reflects the international nature of English.
Native speakers come from all over the globe. You may hear a variety of accents besides the
standard British one, for example, Australian, Canadian, South African, Irish and American.

 Learn to discriminate different sounds, e.g. the vowel sounds /ɔː/ as in torn and /aʊ/ as in town.
This is very useful skill for tasks where you have to write down a speakers name, phone number,
post code or address.

 Practice listening for synonyms and paraphrasing. Speakers will often use different words and
phrases than are used on the task paper. A good knowledge of vocabulary is essential if you
want to get a good overall band score.

Before you listen: IELTS Tips

 Listen to the recording, do not just hear it!

 Read the instructions very carefully and underline the amount of words you can write.
  Read the task questions carefully and underline the key words.

 Remember to listen for synonyms and ‘parallel expressions’ because the speakers may use
different words and phrases from the ones on the exam paper.

 Predict word types and answers that require numbers for gap fill exercises.
 Read the questions very carefully, and decide the type of word that is needed, e.g. noun, noun
phrase, adjective or verb.
 Try to guess some of the answers for the beforehand. This will keep your mind focused and
ready for the test. Look for words/phrases and/ or signs that indicate the answer will be a
number, e.g. a postcode, phone number or $ sign.
 Listen for ‘signpost words’ such as although, however, and whereas etc. They can lead you to
the answer or help you anticipate the answer. This is especially relevant for the parts of the test
where there is just one speaker [sections 2 and 4].

 Beware of distractors! These are most commonly found in the ‘dialogue’ sections of the
Listening Module [part 1 & 3]. These are ‘traps’ where one speaker says something and is then
corrected by the other speaker. This means that you are hearing two pieces of information, only
one of which is correct.

 You don’t lose points for wrong answers-so if you didn’t hear or don’t know the answer, guess!

 Spelling and grammar must be correct.

 USE BLOCK LETTERS WHEN YOU ARE WRITING YOUR ANSWERS

Websites to develop your listening skills

https://www.newsinlevels.com/ World news for English language learners

http://learningenglish.voanews.com/ Voa Learning English brings you the news from all over the
globe in English. This will improve your Listening skills as well as developing your knowledge of
vocabulary. It will also expose you to lots of different ideas and opinions.

http://lyricstraining.com/ Lyrics training has gap fill exercises for famous songs in English.

http://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/prepare-your-test/free-ielts-practice-tests/listening-practice-test-1
Listen practice with the British Council

http://tv.australiaplus.com/learningenglish/

Podcasts and other resources

https://www.stitcher.com/

http://podbay.fm/

http://forvo.com/ Want to know how a native speaker says a particular word, just type it in.
http://soundsofspeech.uiowa.edu/english/english.html an app for learning how sounds are made.