Listening to Lectures, Step 1
Two other key areas of listening strategies are called top down and bottom up strategies. We are going to begin with top down strategies. These strategies are strategies used to help you get the main ideas and main details of a listening, while bottom up are looking at strategies from the word and sentence level.
We’ll begin with looking at the top down strategies and steps in listening to lectures.
Let’s look now at the first step.
Do you have a plan before you start taking notes to a lecture and could you easily tell someone that plan?
Step 1: Plan, Preview and Predict
For our first step, you’ve got to have a plan and you have to preview and predict.
Students need a plan for taking notes. Many students have no plan for how they are going to take notes and this lack of planning is hindering their ability to take notes.
Plan. What kind of plan do you need? Well, it depends on how you’ll be tested. In most academic listening, the professor will lecture for at least a couple of weeks and then will ask test questions which can for their notes. Now, some professors tests on the book or a combination of the book and notes. It depends on the professor. Many professors do test on their lecture notes over at least a couple of weeks. So students need to have a plan, a system for organizing notes. Students must use an outline. I use Roman Numerals (I, II and III) for topic sentences/main ideas, A, B, C for controlling ideas/subideas and Ex: for example and other abbreviations will talk about later. For lectures that are organized, I want to try to organize as I take notes. If you can’t, you want to do it after you listen. The idea is a way to distinguish the main ideas from significant details. Lots of students just write their notes but they can’t later quickly figure out the main ideas and details that they need to.
Now I want you to use an outline and I suggest using that outline with 1 of 2 options:
1.Outline with Evernote. This website is free and provides a way for students to type their notes and store them. Students can search later using just a word and find information on that word in all their notes. It is a great site and can be used on even a Kindle Fire or smart phone. For students who type fairly well, evernote is a great system. I do want you to outline your notes when you use evernote. To sign up for this free application, go to www.evernote.com
2.Outline with the Cornell Method. Cornell is a great method and will help you keep great notes. Let’s look at how it’s done. In the main section, please take notes in outline form. In the bottom section, write a summary of those notes. In the left hand column, write down key terms and/or questions you have for the professor or comments. Cornell helps students study and recall their notes. Here is a link to show you how to quickly draw the Cornell Method on your own paper in your notebook, http://coe.jmu.edu/learningtoolbox/cornellnotes.html
Here is a way for the computer to generate it for you, http://www.cornell-notes.com/.
On that link, go to the bottom and you can type the course name, your name and under “ruled” put 3 for “Lines per inch.”
That’s a plan. Have a plan, a system for taking notes. If you are taking note for TOEFL and a test that you have to take notes for and quickly answer questions, then don’t use an outline or obviously one of the options above but do have a plan. You should at least skip spaces between what you think is main and detail. You should also use the other steps we’ll be talking about. Again, you have to have a plan but the plan does depend on how you are going to be tested on your notes.
Preview and predict. The next part of step 1 is preview and as you do that, predict. How do you preview for a lecture? Look at the title. The title usually is the same as the thesis statement, the main idea of the lecture.
For a professor that you have every day, you will learn how that professor lectures and whether previewing the book and/or materials will help you and to what extent.Sometimes, a professor won’t lecture what’s in a book or you won’t have enough time to preview it.You can preview other materials like powerpoints that are online.Some professors will put materials online.Some will not just put the powerpoint but even the transcript of a lecture online.
Look at this example from an introduction to psychology class at Yale, http://oyc.yale.edu/psychology/psyc-110. Can you find the transcript of the lecture?
I’ll give you a minute.
I went to sessions and found the video along with the transcript. See this page and look under the video for the transcript. http://oyc.yale.edu/psychology/psyc-110/lecture-1
Now, we don’t know who your professor will be and what you’ll be listening to so we need to practice with a variety of different kinds of lectures. Let’s assume we don’t have any other materials or a textbook for that matter. What do we preview?
The title. The title is often the same as the thesis statement, the main idea.
The time of the lecture. If it is only 5 minutes, the lecture could be just a paragraph and not an essay.
The summary of explanation of the lecture. We could also see if there is a summary or explanation of the topic. We want to read that to make sure what the listening is about. In some summaries, the lecturer even gives their main points. Now let’s look at the title, the time of the lecture and the summary for one of my favorite Ted talks, http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are.html.
Please write that information here:
Title:____________________________________________________________________
Time of lecture: ____________________________________________________________
Summary:__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
From this lecture, we can figure out – we can predict the main idea, whether it will be an essay but even our main points (I, II, III) in the lecture.
What is the main idea? Is it a paragraph or lecture? If it is longer than 10 minutes, it is definitely an essay. What are the main points of the lecture?
I.
II.
Did you figure it out? Here is what you previewed from the website:
“Body language affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves. Social psychologist Amy Cuddy shows how “power posing” -- standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don’t feel confident -- can affect testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain, and might even have an impact on our chances for success.
Amy Cuddy’s research on body language reveals that we can change other people’s perceptions — and even our own body chemistry — simply by changing body positions.”
Here is possibly what it might be:
I.How others see us
II.How we see ourselves –
change other people’s perceptions even our own body chemistry
by changing body positions – “power posing” – standing in a posture of confidence
affects testosterone and cortisol in the brain
Where did I get that information from in the preview?
Notice the vocabulary that might be new to you: power posing, testosterone and cortisol. The preview did give the definition for power posing. What is that definition?
You can look in your dictionary for the other two terms: testosterone and cortisol.