Practise your Lecture Listening Skills

AIM

To provide students with some practice listening to lectures in a foreign language.

PROCEDURE

Ask students to look for examples of university lectures available on YouTube. (You could identify some good videos beforehand as well. One 15 to 20 minute session could work well, but a longer class could also test their ability to focus for a length of time that might be more similar to what they will get once they are abroad).

Ask students to choose a class to watch, (without stopping or pausing!) and to take notes about the content at the same time they listen to it. If they can’t understand it all, they can then take notes about their feelings or thoughts instead: What do they think happened? Was it the accent of the lecturer? The ambient noise? The specialized vocabulary? How does this mini-exposure made them feel? Ask them to write it all down.

FOLLOW UP

In class, ask students to share their experience with the other students (or own their own time). What strategies can they put in place to reduce the impact of this challenge?