IELTS Listening: listen for interest

As well as doing IELTS listening test practice, anything else that you listen to in English will help to improve your 'ear'. I recommend using websites like YouTube for daily listening practice: choose a topic that you find interesting, and search for videos about it.

For example, I'm interested in language learning (of course!). Here's a YouTube video that I found and watched yesterday:

If you found this video interesting, watch it a second time and note any new or useful phrases that you hear. If you didn't find it interesting, search for something different. As the speaker says at the start of the film, the key is to expose yourself to as much "comprehensible input" as possible!

Comments

[hi,]

Dear Simon
1. For " fill in the blanks using no more than two or three words from the passage" , can we use synonyms or should it be the exact word from the passage ?

2. For listening part, can we write all our answers using only CAPITAL LETTERS ? ( as it may help to avoid many mistakes)

Thank you.

[Liliana]

I personally enjoy watching documentaries of any kind. This way I improve my 'ear', as you always say, and I also learn interesting new things about different subjects. I'm glad I found out about your website. This was about 6 months ago, and I've been following your lessons daily since then. Thank you!

[Nee]

THANK u simon

[ayakut]

I recommend Ted Talks videos. You can find anything that you interest. There are also subtitles for many languages. Here is the website : www.ted.com

[hellcha]

Thanks Simon,

By the way, could you explain the meaning of the preposition 'by'? Does it mean 'before' or 'after'?

For example, if I write: by this stage, the water is boiled by the hot air from the reactor; does it mean the action happens before or after the previous stage?

[Dmitry]

HI Simon,

This is about IELTS Cambridge 9 Listening part, question 9.

Could you please explain, why the right answer is 4:30 and not 4:30 pm ? It's really strange for me because:
1) the similar wordings of Dates/Times in this column have "pm" format
2) the rule for this question says: 'No more than 2 words and/or a number' - so 4:30 pm is OK in this case

Thank you for everythink you've done

[Liliana]

I find it very useful to listen to BBC Radio 4 every day.

[Lucy]

Very useful video, thank you Simon!

[Tomy]

Dear Simon, I really interested in language teaching method for young children (especially baby) Could you suggest more video?