Academic English Skills for International Students (AESIS)

MUSIC

LISTENING SKILLS
TOPIC: ENGLISH AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE
Lesson outline:

• developing your listening skills & strategies for better

understanding your lectures
• developing speaking skills and critical thinking

Please complete any pre-lesson tasks BEFORE the lesson

Pre-lesson - Task 1

Preparing for Lectures

Look at this article for some general background knowledge about the importance of the
English language.

Can English remain the 'world's favourite' language? - BBC News

Be prepared to share with your classmates your opinions on what you read.
Pre-lesson - Task 2

Listening Strategies
Make a list of listening strategies which might help you better understand your lectures:

BEFORE THE LECTURE–

 E.g. Find out the topic of the lecture before you attend!



DURING THE LECTURE–





AFTER THE LECTURE-






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In-lesson - Task 3

Your teacher will dictate some of the terms related to this topic (from the pre-lesson
reading task and the talk we will listen to later) – listen carefully, repeat them and write
them down. Match them now to the definitions below:

Definition Term from the text/talk

a) extending over a wide area, happening in many places or among
many people
b) an area of business or study
c) create a new way of saying something
d) a common language between speakers whose native languages
are different
e) the spoken form of language in a particular country / region
f) superior to others / the most important or powerful
g) the situation in which something exists or happens and that can
help explain it
h) gradually develop over time

In-lesson - Task 4
Today’s talk
Here is a note frame a student has made in preparation for today’s talk. What do you expect
the speakers to say about these key points?

The British Council – what they do

-
-
A ‘global’ language: why English?
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Types of English:
-
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Impact of tech. on language and language learning:
-
-

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Benefits of learning English:
-
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Students’ experiences of learning English in Britain:
Student 1 –
Student 2 –
Student 3 –
Student 4 –

In-lesson - Task 5

Listening Practice
a) Listen to the talk and make notes next to the key points / headings.

b) Re-organise your notes so that they make sense to you.

c) Compare and discuss the meaning of your notes filling in any information you may have
missed.

d) Now, let’s listen AND watch, adding any additional information to your notes. Use a
different colour to add information.

e) Read the transcript to check how much you understood when only listening.

Post-lesson - Task 6
Listen and read the transcript at the same time (listening practice). This is a strategy to
develop your listening as you will be matching the written forms (that you might know) with
the spoken forms. You could do this at home to develop your listening skills with other
resources, such as Ted Talks: https://www.ted.com/

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In-lesson - Task 7
Speaking Practice and Critical Thinking
a) Discuss your experiences of communicating in English since you arrived in Cardiff.

- Share a challenging experience you’ve had communicating in English. What

happened? How did you overcome this? What did you learn from this
experience?
- Share a positive experience you’ve had communicating in English. What
happened? What made it a positive experience? What did you learn from this
experience?

b) What impact has technology / AI had on your attitude or approach to learning English?

c) Are you planning to use English after you graduate? If so, in what contexts do you think
you will use English in your future?

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