1. Predict content

Imagine you've just turned on the TV. You see a man wearing a suit standing in front of a large map with symbols of the sun, clouds, and thunder. What do you imagine he was going to say to you? Most likely, this will be the weather forecast. You may hear words like 'sunny', 'windy' and 'overcast'. You will probably hear the use of the future tense: 'It will be a cold start to the day'; 'it will rain in the afternoon'.

 

Depending on the context – a news story, a university lecture, a supermarket exchange – you can often predict the type of words and language the speaker will use. Our knowledge of the world helps us predict the type of information we might hear. Furthermore, when we predict the topic of a talk or a conversation, all the related vocabulary stored in our brain is activated to better understand what we are hearing.

 

Practice: Watch or listen to a recorded TV show or clip from YouTube, pausing every few sentences. Try to predict what will happen or what the speaker might say next.

2. Listen for main ideas

Imagine you are a superhero flying in the sky. From that height, one can see what the entire area is like, how densely populated it is, what type of housing is in each area. When listening, you can also get the 'whole picture' but with one important difference: the information comes in a sequence. And within that chain of information, there are content words (nouns, adjectives, and verbs) that can help you form that picture. We often call this listening for gist.

 

For example, the words 'food', 'friends', 'fun', 'park' and 'sunny day' have their own meanings, but when you listen to the words in order, they help form the context of a picnic.

3. Detect signal words

Just like traffic lights on the road, there are signs in language that help us keep track of what we are hearing. These words, which link ideas, help us understand what the speaker is talking about and where they are talking. They are especially important in presentations and lectures.

 

For example, if a university lecturer says: 'I'm going to talk about three factors that influence global warming...' then you might hear the phrases 'first of all', 'turn to' and 'summary' to indicate the next part of the talk. Other words and phrases may function in a similar way. For example, to clarify ('in other words', 'to put it in another way'); to give examples ('to illustrate this', 'for example').

4. Listen to every detail

Imagine you're a detective scrutinizing buildings you've seen before like a superhero. This time, instead of getting into the big picture, you're looking for something specific and don't care about anything that doesn't fit what's on your list. Similarly, when listening for details, you are interested in a particular type of information - perhaps a number, name, or object. You can ignore anything that is not relevant. This way, you can narrow your search and hear the details you need.

5. Infer meaning

Imagine you are a tourist in a country whose language you do not speak. In a restaurant, you hand over a credit card to pay for the bill, but the cashier seems to be saying something apologetic in response. Even though you don't understand what they're saying, you can conclude that the restaurant doesn't accept credit cards and you need to pay in cash. This is the technique of inferring meaning: using clues and knowledge about a situation to figure out the meaning of what we hear.