Academic Listening and Note-Taking

Overview

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This course will help non-native English speakers improve their listening and note-taking skills for the purpose of listening to academic lectures. You will learn techniques for improving your understanding and skills for taking more effective notes, and you will get lots of practice in using these. If you're planning to attend college classes in English, then this class is for you. Upon completing this course, you will be able to: 1. Understand and follow a lecture 2. Take better lecture notes 3. Discuss courses with classmates and professors 4. Give an effective academic presentation Please note that the free version of this class gives you access to all of the instructional videos and handouts. The peer feedback and quizzes are only available in the paid version.

Syllabus

Welcome

This is the first course in the Learn English: Advanced Speaking and Listening specialization. It is aimed at learners whose native language is not English. This course will help you improve your academic listening and speaking skills. For example, you will learn how to understand and follow a lecture, how to take better lecture notes, how to discuss courses with classmates and professors, and how to give an effective academic presentation.

What is Academic Listening and Why is It Important?

This week, you will begin thinking about academic listening. You will learn what makes it difficult and how you can get better at listening and note taking. You'll also learn some tips to make it easier.

Identifying Topic and Purpose

Now, you will learn about strategies to make you a better listener. You'll learn about what things to pay the most attention to and what things might not be so important in a lecture. You'll also learn that listening well to a lecture starts before the class and continues after the class.

Identifying Main Ideas and Details

Last week, you learned about listening to the beginning of a class lecture. This week, you will learn about listening to the middle of the lecture. You'll learn about idenifying main ideas and details and how to organize them well in your notes.

Identifying Stance and Speaker Attitude

You've been learning about how to listen and take notes about various parts of a lecture. In this final week, you'll learn about some other strategies to help you listen and take notes more effectively in lectures.