CELPIP & IELTS Listening For Beginners
CELPIP & IELTS Listening For Beginners: Are you a beginner planning to take on IELTS or CELPIP? Does the listening section intimidate you? Our YouTube channel offers numerous tips, but today I will provide you with a couple of activities and practices to help you better prepare for these tests. Did you know that IELTS and CELPIP have different formats in the listening section? CELPIP can be considered slightly easier. These activities will assist you, regardless of the test you are taking. As long as you consistently perform them and always strive for progress with each one.
1. Start From the Basics
Exposure
When it comes to listening, the first thing you must understand is exposure. If you are a beginner and you immediately force yourself to attempt a listening question on IELTS or CELPIP. It can become a problem and be very discouraging. So, the initial step you should take is to get used to some easy videos or audio. It shouldn’t take much time. Just try to listen to five-minute videos. YouTube and the internet offer numerous videos and audio that provide semi-formal or formal content, which can be beneficial in terms of substance. Take those resources and try summarizing what you have just listened to.
Take Note of Every Vocabulary
In addition to that, actively take note of any vocabulary you haven’t heard before or are unfamiliar with. Seek out their meanings and understand how they are used, then repeat this process repeatedly. As you repeat the process, you will gain confidence at certain levels. For example, you can start with two-minute videos, such as a simple documentary about an animal. Listen carefully, jot down unfamiliar words, and find their definitions.
Once you understand them, try to incorporate all of that vocabulary and ensure that everything fits together, including the main points and the summary. If needed, seek assistance from a friend or a teacher to confirm that you have done everything correctly and effectively conquer the two-minute category.
Challenge yourself with something more difficult.
Incorporate something more challenging, something lengthier—three minutes, four minutes, five minutes—and repeat each process as routinely as possible. Differentiate between intensive and routine exposure, with routine being more crucial than intensive. If you force yourself to learn for five hours a day but only practice once a week, you will likely forget or your skill will not become deeply ingrained within you.
The next time you engage in the same practice, divide those five hours into one hour per day, five times a week. The routine repetition of doing it five times a week will cultivate a habit within you, eliminating the need for such a long duration in these types of practices.
Make sure you routinely engage in the following activity
Make sure you routinely engage in the following activity: spend about 10 minutes listening to something, summarizing it, identifying any unfamiliar vocabulary or words, and studying them. Repeat this process for as long as you have the time to prepare for the IELTS or the CELPIP. Remember, you are a beginner, and if you attempt to force yourself into complex content, it will become more challenging than you can handle, causing your mind to go numb.
Many students have made this mistake, thinking they need the IELTS immediately. They force themselves to do IELTS questions, which proves to be very difficult and short-lived. Although you may get lucky, the chances of that happening are minimal. It is much better to approach it step by step. Ensure that if you are planning to take a test, you have a sufficient amount of time in advance to take these steps. This approach will not only help you achieve the necessary skills for the tests but also beyond, which is the mindset you should adopt.
2. Familiarize yourself with generic listening questions
You cannot find a lot of listening questions, not listening specifically directed towards IELTS or CELPIP but there are a lot of listening practices online that you can access. Just try to do a couple of questions, a lot of websites also offer different difficulties beginner intermediate and advanced questions. Try those first because they will also offer the same thing. Why do I suggest that you try doing questions in CELPIP you do get different types of questions there and are multiple-choice, fill the blanks others as well. So you need to start familiarizing yourself with that.
First, you familiarize yourself with that just comprehend what you listen to. Make sure that you got the correct information and that you are familiar with the keywords. Now you are transitioning into whether you can answer a question in regards to the information that you just heard. Further, transition into building different types of questions as you can usually identify. If the answer is being put in different options or if the answer is one word in a blank. That kind of exercise will help you to just take a step forward. You don’t need to immediately still jump into IELTS questions or CELPIP questions. Find the kind of questions that are simpler so you won’t be shocked about the difficulty when you jump to IELTS or CELPIP. Just find these types of questions to familiarize yourself with questions that are the second step.
Online Resources
Listening questions designed explicitly for IELTS or CELPIP may not be widely available. But numerous online resources are offering general listening practices that you can access. Start by attempting a few questions from these websites. They often provide varying difficulty levels such as beginner, intermediate, and advanced. These practice questions will serve the same purpose. I suggest this because, in CELPIP, you encounter different types of questions, including multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blanks. You need to start becoming familiar with these question formats.
These exercises will help you take a step forward
Begin by familiarizing yourself with comprehending what you hear. Ensure that you understand the key information correctly. Then, transition to answering questions based on the information you just heard. Eventually, progress to tackling different question types, such as identifying answers among multiple options or filling in a single word in a blank. These exercises will help you take a step forward. There’s no need to immediately dive into IELTS or CELPIP questions. Find simpler questions of this nature first, so you won’t be overwhelmed by the difficulty when you eventually move on to IELTS or CELPIP. The goal is to find these types of questions and familiarize yourself with them as the second step in your preparation.
Watch this if you’re a beginner in the listening section!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WLfApGsvu8
CELPIP & IELTS Listening For Beginners
3. Focus on Conversation
The third step is similar to the first one, but this time you will focus on your audio and prioritize conversation. Of course, you must try your best to find audios where natives are speaking with American or Canadian accents. Those are usually the safest options. You can try British accents as well, but starting with American accents is probably better.
Again, as a beginner, you should avoid any unnecessary shock. Now, shift your focus to conversations because, in the first activity, you mainly focus on one person narrating or explaining, like in a seminar or talk show. Now, you want to find audios or videos where conversations are happening.
When you listen to one person speaking and two different people interacting, there is a difference. When you hear one person focusing on one topic, usually you only pay attention to what that person is saying. However, in a conversation, you usually have two different perspectives, different issues, and reactions. There are also immediate reflections of emotions in those interactions. So now, you have a lot more components to pay attention to.
The activities remain the same when you listen to conversations. You have to ensure that you can summarize the main topic, what they were talking about, and the person’s feelings. Additionally, you need to note any unfamiliar words, find out their definitions, and make sure you know how to use them. That is the third activity.
4. Jump into IELTS and CELPIP Questions
Once you have completed all of the above steps, let’s assume at least a month has passed. Now you can start listening to the proper IELTS and CELPIP questions. I assure you that you will notice the difference. You will observe how significantly your awareness improves when you listen to audio on IELTS or CELPIP. Your mind sharpens, stress decreases, and panic diminishes when you encounter different types of questions. You develop the ability to absorb information from the audio and retain it more effectively.
Thanks to the exercises and activities you previously completed. Now that you are actively engaging with the actual questions. You have less difficulty adapting to the level of difficulty and it’s simply a matter of building the habit and becoming accustomed to IELTS and CELPIP questions.
To ensure a smooth transition, before doing step four, you need to follow steps one to three. Make sure you don’t suddenly shock your mind with the difficulty you encounter in the IELTS listening section or the CELPIP listening section. Specifically, when discussing the accent, sentence types, words, vocabulary, and interaction. Be aware that they pose a greater challenge than the dynamism in CELPIP and IELTS. Break them down into individual steps, as if you were a beginner, and focus on improving them gradually.
Watch this if you’re a beginner in the listening section!
Of course, if you feel like you only have a limited amount of time, maybe you have fees and have like a month to prepare, then you just plan your schedule accordingly. You still cannot rush immediately because I have seen students who did that. Forcing themselves because they only had one month and needed IELTS immediately because the application was going to close within a month or so.
They thought they were not going to make it and guess what? They did not make it and did not take IELTS. They forced themselves to continue practising the IELTS questions and got scores below what they intended. So it was a waste of effort, it was a waste of money. It is much better for you to kind of plan out your schedule, plan out your strategy first on the activities that I have laid out, and then just make sure that you do have a sufficient amount of time to cover all of them because if you don’t, it will be less likely that you will get even a 6.5.
Listening can be very tricky, especially when selecting your vocabulary. Remember, in each of the laid-out activities, you must continuously identify words that you are not familiar with, identify their definition, learn how to use them, and repeat this process routinely. Once you do that, you automatically increase your vocabulary and raise your awareness of previously unfamiliar words. Then, you dive into the dials listing section, and you can either easily guess the words that come up or know them, simple as that.
CELPIP & IELTS Listening For Beginners
Keep this in mind when preparing for IELTS or CELPIP
Keep this in mind when preparing for IELTS or CELPIP, especially for the listening section, and if you are still a beginner. Do not rush and immediately jump into IELTS and CELPIP questions. Take your time. If you are in a rush, consider thinking about it first before deciding on whether to proceed or not. Remember, the test is quite expensive. However, if you need assistance with your listening skills, Hzad Education offers excellent courses at your own pace, with a money-back guarantee if you don’t achieve your desired goal.
Hopefully, this blog helps you understand and ensures that you have a clear understanding of what needs to be done to fully prepare for the listening section.
For more resources on CELPIP AND IELTS check out our YouTube Channel
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