Need to edit URL once I decide on new name for this activity
Progressive Listening: Academic (Graduated? Step-by-Step?)
This exercise targets the following goals:
- Increasing your ability to understand academic/professional English that is spoken fast
- Understanding more and guessing less during academic/professional listening
- Understanding the nuances and not just the main ideas of an academic/professional speaker’s talk
- Choose an academic-style talk on a topic that interests you from one of the following sites:
- TED Talks: https://www.ted.com/talks?sort=newest&duration=0-6&language=en
- Winning 3MTĀ® presentations from around the world: https://vimeo.com/threeminutethesis/videos
- What other resources for high quality academic/professional listening practice from a wide range of speakers should we be recommending?
- http://www.englishcentral.com/
- http://www.bbc.com/earth/columns/attenboroughs-story-of-life
- http://open.163.com/ocw/(navigation in Chinese, but can copy URL into Google Translate: http://translate.google.com/ to get translated version)
- http://oyc.yale.edu/courses
- http://transcriptvids.com/videos.htm
- Write today’s date at the top of your notes
- Listen to the talk 3 times:
-
- Listening #1: Listen without pausing the recording, taking the best notes you can (if possible, turn off any captions/subtitles)
- Listening #2: Simultaneously listen and read the transcript and/or captions, pausing where necessary to look up unfamiliar vocabulary
- Listening #3: Listen again without pausing the recording and improve your notes
- Use your notes to record a brief audio report on your listening (e.g. in .mp3, .ogg, or .wav format), so that you’re prepared in case Monica asks you to give her a 1-2 minute report on today’s listening the next time you meet. Your audio report should include your answer to the following questions:
-
- “What did you listen to?” (topic, source)
- “What was it about?” (summary)
- “What did you like and/or dislike about it? Would you recommend it to a friend or classmate?” (evaluation) OR “What key thing(s) did you learn from the listening and how does it/do they connect to your life?” (application)