Preparing for TOEFL: Tips and Practices for the Listening Component, Part 3
Submitted by: Kimi
In previous articles I have outlined what to expect when taking the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) exam, the premier ESL exam accepted and respected around the English speaking world. I have detailed what to do and how to prepare for the Writing Tasks, an hour of writing duties over two different sections; I have explained what to do during the Reading Task of the TOEFL exam, a over an hour and half of reading passages at a university level; the Speaking Tasks, often considered the most difficult component of the exam, as it is broken down into six unique tasks involving university lectures, university campus issues, and dialogues between two or more students in an academic environment. I have also outlined how to survive the Listening Task of the TOEFL exam, or at least the first section of the Task. Here I will go into more detail about how to deal with the second Listening Component of the TOEFL exam, in which you need to listen to two or three conversations by university students about a campus issue, or possibly about a lecture that has been given.
Conversation in an academic setting
This second half of the Listening Task of the TOEFL exam involves listening to a three minute long conversation between two students, either after a lecture or discussing an issue on campus. These issues are common to university students and involve issues on campus such as changes in school policies, announcements of upcoming events, a disagreement between studying techniques, problems students face every day (studying problems, balancing school and a part-time job, etc.) or they may just simply be discussing a social issue. Whatever the two people are talking about, the language used will be natural, native speakers who talk in an appropriate pace and sentence structure. This is not like in your normal English classroom setting where the professor/teacher slows down his or her speech in order to facilitate your education. These listening passages are spoken quickly, and with a smooth pace that is natural to an English speaker. For this reason, you must concentrate fully on what you are hearing. Sure, this may be a little easier than the first Listening Task, the university classroom lecture from a professor; but don’t think that these passages are a time to slack off.
About the dialogues
The conversations you hear will have a back-and-forth form that is characteristic of a natural, normal conversation between two to three people. As a result, you will be exposed to 15 to 25 different exchanges between the two. They will both express a point of view as well as offering a solution to the current problem. Or the dialogue may be between a professor and his assistant in his office discussing the process of a lecture. Many times the conversation takes place in the professor’s office, dealing with either his assistant or the students from his class. Think of it as a debate between two people: one person will be defending an issue – whether it is an issue with school policy or forming a study group – while the other member of the dialogue will refute that point. The dialogue will continue in this manner and it is up to you to determine the main idea of the dialogue while also identifying the pros and cons of the issue. You will be required to identify who says what and who has what point of view. Once again, these dialogues revolve around an academic issue or something directly related to the course. Other examples of possible topics include student housing issues, registration for a specific class, or even at a library where someone is inquiring about a specific text that they need for a course. As you probably deduced, the purpose of this is to prepare you for real life, academic issues that you will surely face at an English university.
There are three different conversations that you must listen to followed by about five questions for each of the dialogues. That equals 15 different questions over a time span of only an hour and a half. This may not sound like the most difficult of tasks; however, the sheer amount of concentration needed to accurately answer these questions may be more than you expect.
Format for the listening questions
Once the listening passages are complete, the question will appear on your monitor (if you are taking the iBT – internet-Based Test – which is by far the most common way students take the test. The computer will both show you the question as well as read it out for you. Then, the options for the answers appear on the screen. The purpose of this is to encourage you to identify the main ideas and topics of the listening passage. There are four different question types: 1) a traditional multiple-choice style question with only four options and only one of those four is the true answer. There are no partially correct choices here; only one answer is a logical solution; 2) a multiple-choice answer with four options with the possibility of more than one correct answer. This type of question can be confusing since there are more than one correct answer; it is up to you to determine which answer is the best; 3) you are presented with a list of events or steps in a specific process mentioned in the listening passage; you are required to put them in the correct order as illustrated by the professor; and finally 4) you are presented with a chart with a list of objects and categories; you are required to match up the objects or text to the correct category. Any one of these four types of questions may appear on your exam; each exam is different, so you need to be prepared for each and every possibility. After you have answered these questions, you are then presented with a new type of question: you must listen to a passage a second time and then identify the main ideas or purpose of the lecture. This could be a repeat of any one of the lectures you listened to. This is by far the easiest question of all of the listening tasks and is designed for one purpose: to prove that you can comprehend the main idea of the speaker’s lecture.
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Word Count: 1082 Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 Time: 1:37 AM
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