The sense of hearing is one of the most important among the wondrous powers that God has bestowed us humans with, by which we can observe and feel the world around us. Using this particular sense, an individual is able to communicate, as well as express his or her views with others.
IELTS (International English Language Testing System), the most common among the mandatory English proficiency tests requires the candidate to prove his or her prowess in the skill of listening. But, there’s a twist. The test takers are bound by time and have to follow a structured approach in the way they deal with the Listening Module. Let us access these elements that make this Module so intriguing as well as a whole new learning experience.
The Listening Module is formulated with the view to estimate if the individual is capable of understanding different accents in which English is spoken around the globe, how he or she analyzes the information put forth by the speaker and retrieving important information to respond to the various question types in the specific module.
The test lasts for 30 to 35 minutes. The candidates are provided with headphones for this particular module. Since the Listening test is considered to be a soft module, it is the first test of the day (before the Reading and the Writing Modules). The candidate must make sure that the headphones provided are functioning well and assess the volume (so that they can hear properly) before the test (there is no chance to change head set or the place allocated once the test starts).
The test would commences by providing the candidates with an overview of the test. The Listening Module consists of 4 sections with 10 questions each (40 questions in total). The candidates would be listening to an audio clip containing either a dialogue or a lecture / monologue.
The basic task is to connect the idea provided in the question with the information given by the speaker in the audio clip. Seems easy but requires diligent practice and knowledge. The topics provided via the dialogues or the lecture are generic in nature, but need some preparation on the part of the aspirant to do well.
The subjects can vary from politics, education, sports to real estate. Thus, it becomes imperative to have a certain amount of know-how with respect to the different domains in advance. Reading newspapers, watching news channels, documentaries and listening to different people from different parts of the world speak in English (the accent, the particular words that they use etc). Listening to podcasts further aids the person to improve his or her listening skills along with sharpening his or her analytical skills to correlate audio information better.
As mentioned earlier, there are different types of questions that are put forth in the respective sections. We shall discuss them in the upcoming blog, and give an insight into how we at Reknown Edu Services help our students to be prepared with respect to all the aspects of this particular module to get a perfect 9 band. So Happy Listening!!!