Practising listening skills for lectures

Listening practice

It is important to practise your listening skills regularly so that you can get the most out of the lectures on your course. There are various strategies that you can use to increase your understanding of what you hear in lectures. These include predicting what you are going to hear and focusing on vocabulary in advance; and practising key skills such as listening for specific information.

In these activities you will practise predicting the content of an extract from a presentation given by a business entrepreneur. You will also practise listening for specific information and vocabulary, and listening to understand the main points made in the presentation.

Activity 1: Predicting content when listening

You are going to listen to part of a presentation in which a business entrepreneur identifies some of the challenges of setting up a small business. Before you listen, predicting what you are about to hear can help your understanding.

Instruction

Read the title of the presentation and use your own knowledge to predict some of the things that the speaker might mention. Make some notes in the text area provided and then read the feedback.

Presentation title: Setting up a small business

Activity 2: Listening for specific information and vocabulary

In this activity you are going to listen to the presentation and practise listening for some specific information that is mentioned and some specialist vocabulary used by the speaker.

Instruction

Study this list of points that might or might not be mentioned in the presentation. Listen to the presentation and select those which are mentioned using the checkboxes. Next, listen again and try to identify five terms which match the five explanations of specialist terms used by the speaker. Match each explanation with the term it corresponds to by first clicking on an item from the list on the left, and then on its corresponding item in the list on the right. Then read the feedback.

You need to start by identifying a service or product that your business can offer
You should have previous experience in sales and marketing
If you want to sell a product you need to market it effectively
If you want to sell a service it's advisable to have already worked in that sector
You need to have a profile of the market you are aiming at
You need to identify your typical customer and market specifically for him/her
It's important to know whether your intended market is likely to increase or not
You need to develop a competitive advantage

Activity 3: Listening to understand the main points

In this activity you are going to listen to the presentation again and focus on extracting the main points that the speaker makes by answering some questions.

Instruction

Listen to the presentation again and answer these questions. Make notes in the text areas provided. Then read the feedback.

According to the speaker, which three general markets might a product or service be aimed at?

Which characteristics are important to consider when creating a profile of customers?

Which different ways does Katherine mention of establishing an advantage for your product or service over those of your business competitors?

Here is a transcript of the presentation:
Setting up a small business (pdf, 9KB). You may wish to print this document.