 Hi everyone, Chris here from IELTS Advantage with another mini course. So what we're going to focus on this week is IELTS listening. Many of you emailed me and said that you need a band 8 in listening. A lot of you want to go to Canada and that requires 8777 with the 8 being in listening. So we're going to specifically focus on that this week. We're going to give you three lessons. So part one is today and we're going to look at the problem with getting an 8 or above. And it's really to do with what the test is actually testing, how the test is put together and what you guys are actually used to doing when you are listening. So we'll look at those reasons and this is really going to help you understand the test and we're going to give you some practice activities that you can do that are really going to help you improve your scores. On Wednesday we're going to do part two which is keeping track during the test. So many of you say that the reason why you are not getting a band 8 or above is because you are getting lost in the test. So there might be one or two questions that you're unsure about and that kind of spills over into the rest of the test and means that you don't do as well as you can. So we'll look specifically at how to make sure that you stay on track during the listening test. And then on Friday we're going to give you a step-by-step strategy on one of the most popular questions. But what I'd like you guys to do is just tell me which question you have the most problems with. So look at the different types of question that come up on the listening test and tell me which one you really, really struggle with and I'll give you a complete step-by-step strategy and we'll look at a practice question and everything on Friday. Also look either above or below this video and we have a free fundamentals course. It's a five-part course that you can join today. It's totally free as a little gift for you. So if you're watching on Facebook, just click above or below in the comments. For YouTube just click below in the description and you'll get that. Alright so first before thinking about why people are not getting an 8 or above for the listening test, we need to think about what does the test get you to do? How is the test built? How is the test put together? What are the things that they are actually testing? Well number one what they're doing is they're getting you to listen actively. So what do I mean by that? Well they're getting you to do something while you are listening. So instead of just you know listening passively and not really doing anything, they're getting you to complete tasks and answer questions and decide what the correct answer is or filling in the correct answer as you are doing things. And that's very, very important. Number two, you're answering questions while you are listening. You're multitasking. So you're listening, you're reading the question, you're thinking about the question. You might be thinking about the correct spelling. There's multiple things happening at the same time which is very, very significant. Number three, you're only listening once. So unlike when you're listening in your English class or maybe you're listening to something and you can repeat it many, many times, you can only listen once. Number four, focus for a long, long period of time. The number of students who have never listened in English for you know really listened, actively listened for more than 30 minutes and the IELTS test is their first time ever doing that is shocking. And number five, you're listening to authentic English, real English and we'll talk about the difference between inauthentic materials and authentic materials. And number six, you're listening with no help whatsoever. So it's not like watching a movie where there's maybe subtitles or even watching like a TED talk or a presentation where there's a PowerPoint and there's images to really help you do that. So these are the things that they are doing or those are the things that you need to do on test day and are you actually doing those things before test day? So let's have a look at this, it's very, very important. How do you listen? When you're listening to English, what are you doing? So are you listening actively? Are you actually doing something while you are listening? For the vast majority of people, the vast majority of time, you're not listening actively. You're just listening on the bus or watching a movie and not really thinking about it just listening, not doing anything while you are listening. Are you answering questions while you're listening? Again, if you're listening to English, most of the time, 90% of the time, you're not answering questions. You're not multitasking. So on test day, when you have to not only listen but read and think and think about the question and the correct answer, then you're going to be in trouble. Most of the time, you're not only listening once, especially when you're in a like a general English class. And this is nothing, there's nothing wrong with this, but most of the time when you're doing a listening, a listening task in a general English class, the teacher will play it and be two, three, four times. In the English, in the IELTS test, you can only listen once. Number four, you have to focus for a long period of time. So there's a big difference between listening for a long period of time and focusing for a long period of time. You might say, oh, I listened to a podcast last night and it was two hours long, but you might have only been a hundred percent focused on that podcast for 15 minutes out of the two hours. So for most of the time, you're not doing that. Number five, listening to authentic English, again, in a general English class, if you're using like a, you know, a recording from a textbook, the, this is not how most people signed. If you go and this is why when people move to like London or Sydney or Toronto, even though they got a very high mark in their listening test, they've no idea what people are saying. It's not because your listening is bad, but you just might have been listening to inauthentic materials. Even if you're watching, you know, a movie, that is generally not how people speak to each other in real life. So you're not doing this. Number six, listening without any help. Most of the time students are using subtitles or if they're watching like a TED talk or something like that. There's, you know, images and presentations to help them. So the reason why you might be struggling with the IELTS writing test is because the test is set up in one way and you are doing the opposite, all right? So if you're doing the opposite to what they're looking for, of course you're going to have problems. And why are they getting you to do all of these things? Why do they want you to listen actively and only listen once and listen to authentic English and listen without help? Is it because they're really awful people and they want to be mean to you? No, because when you move to London or Sydney or New York or wherever you're going, you can only listen once to people. They don't care if you're an English learner. You have to listen actively. You are not going to get any help. You're going to be listening to authentic English. So this is representing what it is like to live and work in an English-speaking country. So if you're complaining about this, you're really complaining that, you know, I can't understand real English when I move to the country where I want to be. So all of these problems are very fixable. They're all, you can solve all of these problems. We need to just start doing these things. So how can we start doing them? That's what the rest of this lesson is going to be about. So first of all, we can do something called active practice. So there's a big difference between active practice and passive practice. So many, many students say to me, you know, I got a band seven in my listening and I listen to podcasts every day or I listen to TED Talks every day or I watch movies all the time. Okay, that's fine, but you're not actually doing anything when you're listening to those podcasts or watching those movies or doing or watching those TED Talks. So instead of doing that, practice with a purpose. And in my opinion, it's better to do like 10 or 15 minutes of active practice than it is to do two or three hours of practice where you're listening, but you're really just, you know, looking at the window while you're on the bus or, you know, listening to a movie or a song or something like that and, you know, looking at your phone at the same time. Do something with a purpose. So this could be, for example, and these are all just examples. There's lots and lots of ways that you can do this. But for example, you could try and focus on vocabulary. When you're listening to something, note down any new words and try and guess what those words mean from the context. And then you're actively focusing on something and improving your language. Or you could focus on grammar. You could set yourself a challenge like why are they, how many tenses are they using and why are they using those tenses. So you're thinking about the context. You're thinking about the timelines. Or you could, you know, set yourself a task of why did they use superlatives instead of comparatives? Or why did they use the first conditional instead of the third conditional? And thinking about those grammatical areas that you might need to work on and that's going to help you. Or thinking about the opinion of someone, let's say it is a TED talk that you're listening to or a podcast. What are the differences of opinion? Or what does that person think about that topic? Or a really interesting one is pronunciation. So you could listen and think about connected speech and intonation and sentence stress and word stress. So you're actively doing something just like you will on test day. On test day, you're not going to be, you know, thinking about the intonation or sentence stress or things like that. But you are actually doing something and getting into the habit of doing something while you are listening. This definitely will be tested on test day and this might be tested. So vocabulary is obviously very, very important, but they're all good to do. Next, create your own questions. So you probably are familiar with the different types of question on the listening test. So that might be short answer questions or maps questions or multiple choice questions or something like that. If you have a partner or you're in a classroom, what you can do is get a listening sample that can be anything and create your own questions. And this is very, very powerful because in order to create your own questions, you have to really, really actively listen and understand the listening sample. If you don't, you won't be able to create those questions. And then you can swap with a partner or swap with other people if you're doing it in a group and then you can discuss the question. So you can say, oh, that was the correct answer because of this or you got the wrong answer there because it was actually doing this. So you're really, really thinking deeply about the listening and you can do this as a collaborative activity if you're doing it with a partner or in a classroom. You can also listen and summarize, which is a very good activity. And you can do this by yourself or with a partner, but it's easy to do by yourself. Listen to a podcast for 10 to 15 minutes. A podcast are excellent because they're genuine English, especially when someone is, you know, you have multiple people speaking at the same time and they're just having a normal conversation. There are podcasts which are, you know, just one guy or one girl talking about one topic and it might not be the most natural way of speaking. But for most podcasts, they're very conversational and, you know, it is a very, very good representation of what you will get when you're moving to a new country. So listen to a podcast, let's say for 10 or 15 minutes and then try and summarize the main points in one to two minutes. So this forces you to actively listen for a long period of time and then you can summarize by speaking. So you could just, you know, talk and record yourself if you're with, you know, if you're by yourself or in a classroom, you could even have a competition of who can listen and then summarize the best and you can judge each other. Or you could write a report, you know, a 200 word report and work on your writing at the same time. So that really does help. It's a good activity to get you to do that. Another one is to use signposting. So if you're listening, especially to a lecture like a TED talk or an academic lecture, the person speaking will use signposting language to indicate where they are going next. So you could listen to that and only note down the signposts. So you're noting down just the signposts and then you can use the signposts to talk and try and not memorize exactly what you're going to say because, you know, memorization is not a skill that's really being tested on the listening test but listen, use the signposting parts to then help you not regurgitate but summarizes a good way of doing it and that will really help you actively listen. Or you can write a review, like think about how a journalist or a blogger writes a review of a podcast or a review of a movie or a review of a TED talk or whatever you're...