Academic Listening

（单词翻译）

Learning EnglishTalk about EnglishAcademic ListeningPart 6 - Lectures: the conclusionThis programme was first broadcast in 2001.
　　This is not an accurate word-for-word transcript¹ of the programme.
　　ANNOUNCER:
　　It’s time for Academic Listening - a series for students at English-speaking universities. JoinSusan Fearn and members of the World Service class of 2001 as they continue to discuss the skills and techniques（技巧） needed for listening to and understanding a lecture.
　　CLIP²: Lecturer… and that brings me to the end of my series of lectures on the plays of Shakespeare. Now, toend this session, has anyone any questions about today’s lecture or the series as a whole? Yes,Mohammud …Susan: We’ve focused on the important role of the introduction and the main body of alecture, and now we turn our attention to the content and function of the finalsection of a lecture – the conclusion.
　　CLIP: Simon WilliamsIn the conclusion （结论，推论）of their lecture, lecturer is summing up, going through main points, indicatinghow important various bits of evidence are.
　　Susan: Simon Williams teaches English in the Language Centre at University CollegeLondon.
　　CLIP: Simon WilliamsAnd a good lecturer’s going to indicate where students should go next - in thinking andactivities, in what they're going to read up on in library - maybe if they're going to take thattopic as essay topic. The lecturer might also talk about what they weren’t able to do in that 50minutes - what they’ve had to leave out … and therefore what students can go away with anddiscover for themselves, if they’re interested.
　　Susan: The concluding section of a lecture acts as a summary of the main points. It’s afinal chance to make sure you’ve made a note of what the lecturer considers tobe the most important things to remember. It might also give you clues aboutwhat you can do or study next.
　　But how do you know when the lecturer has reached their conclusion? Well, asthese WS class members point out, with practice, it becomes quite easy to spotthe signposts and marker phrases that guide you through a lecture.
　　CLIP: Student AnaMost of the time when the lecture is finishing the 'in conclusion' or these sorts of markers, oreven 'summarising', are going to appear. You can understand when it's the end of theintroduction, when it's the end of the main point and when the conclusion is coming.
　　CLIP: Christine ReevesHe would signal when he's going to finish speaking by introducing a summary - he might use aphrase like 'well, in conclusion', and then what he would normally do. And to help you again -if you missed the main points in the body of the lecture - he would repeat what the main pointswere again. All of these features of organisation³ should help you to follow the lecture.
　　Susan: We’ve discovered during these programmes that there are several things youcan do to help you understand lectures. We’ve suggested that it’s important toprepare before the lecture by looking at the course outline and learningspecialist vocabulary, for example. We’ve said that thinking about the purposeof a lecture can help you know where to focus attention. And we’ve offeredclues about how lecturers organise⁴ their material and highlight the main points.
　　It should be clear by now that listening to lectures is a busy task – it’s not justthe lecturer who’s doing the work! And, as Simon Williams suggests, there’s aspeaking role for students as well.
　　CLIP: Simon WilliamsThere might be Q&A session at that stage, and lecturers are delighted（高兴的） if people ask questionsto demonstrate they've been listening and interested in the topic. Because if lecturer isinterested enough to deliver something on a particular subject, I guess that means they’ve got agenuine interest. And they’ll be delighted that the students return that interest and share in it.
　　It means the lecturer has been successful in stimulating⁵ and motivating the students.
　　Susan: Many speakers use the final moments of their lecture to answer questions fromthe audience. This is a chance to show that you’ve been interested in the topic,and also to make sure you’ve understood properly. Simon Williams again:
　　CLIP: Simon WilliamsSometimes it’s difficult to know what sort of questions are welcome. Knowing when to ask,and what sort of questions to ask is an important skill to develop. It’s always a good idea toask questions. Firstly, it helps you to clarify things in your mind – in order to get a questionready – therefore helping⁶ you to digest information and to order it. Secondly⁷, it shows thelecturer they’ve managed to get over information and stimulate⁸ the students.
　　Susan: In fact, Simon Williams believes that thinking of questions before the lecture isa useful and important way to prepare.
　　CLIP: Simon WilliamsPreparing questions in advance is a really useful activity, because it's going to focus student’sminds on what to listen out for in the lecture. And any questions that don’t get answered inthe body of a lecture can come up at that point. They can ask the lecturer to fill in gaps.
　　Susan: Knowing what to ask your lecturer is one thing – it can often be more difficultto know when to ask … Here’s some advice from one of our World Serviceclass members.
　　CLIP: Student[NB: very rough transcript] If I think it's something very important, I ask the lecturer, and inanother situation I can ask my classmates. Sometimes it's not easy to ask - you might feel shy...
　　Susan: Asking questions is not the only way to participate.
　　CLIP: Simon WilliamsBeing an active learner is tremendously important. You need to know why you are doingsomething, you need to have a purpose. And that means not simply reading a text, or anarticle, it means knowing what you want to do with it. For example, you’d never write a letterof complaint and not say somewhere what you wanted to happen as a result of your letter –you wouldn’t be very successful if you didn’t do that. In the same way, when you study, it'sgood idea to know what you want to get at the end of it.
　　Susan: According to Simon Williams, good students are active learners - they have apurpose, they know what they want to achieve. And it's the same whetherthey’re reading an academic text or attending a lecture. It’s also important tobe what Simon Williams calls a critical listener.
　　CLIP: Simon WilliamsThe critical student might always think of two questions as they're reading the text or listeningto the lecture. Why is the person saying this thing at this moment – where does it fit into thewhole structure? And – so what, what does it all mean? The two questions are helping in twoways. “Why this now?” is a kind of signpost telling you where you are on your journeythrough the lecture or through the book. Knowing where you are can be very reassuring⁹.
　　People feel nervous if they feel a bit lost. Secondly, “so what?” - this question shows howsignificant the point is, whether it's just an aside, or whether it is crucial to argument making,to the point of the talk.
　　Susan: During these programmes we’ve described an ideal situation – where speakersdeliver clear, well-organised lecturers. Now, as many of you will know, realityis not always like this!
　　CLIP: Student EmmaAt the beginning during lectures it was sometimes difficult because you get different visitinglecturers, and some of them might be good journalists - since I'm doing journalism¹⁰. We alwayslooked at them and after the class said - he's a good journalist but he's not a speaker, or hemight be a good journalist but he's not a good lecturer. Sometimes and we spent most of ourtimes sleeping in class!
　　Susan: Well, if that’s a situation you recognised, here are some practical suggestionsthat might help. First, try sitting near the front of the lecture hall. If the lecturercan see your face, they might notice that you’re looking puzzled or confusedand offer further explanation or examples.
　　CLIP: Student AnaWhen the lecture is speaking, they will look at the audience and we can look at them as well,and there is a communication there. It's not just the communication, the non-verbalcommunication, the eye contact and things like that, but the intonation¹¹, the pauses and somecolloquial things - it's difficult sometimes to understand the colloquial¹² language, but it's more atalk and not just a formal communication, which can help.
　　CLIP: Simon WilliamsNever sit at the back of a hall: it’s warm, it’s dark, it’s very tempting¹³ to pass notes and to cutoff from the main activity. So sit in the middle or near the front, so you can get into someinteraction – even if you're nodding or looking bored – at least you’re giving some feedback tothe speaker.
　Susan: A second piece of advice is to team up with other students. Many people findthat this is a good way to cope with a lecturer who delivers a lot of information:
　　one of you can take notes while the other copies a diagram off the board forexample. And you can check understanding by comparing your notes after thelecture.
　　CLIP: Simon WilliamsAnother way of coping with the difficulty of studying in a second or further language might beto team up with a native speaker. There are things two people can do that will help them getmuch more out of something. For the language learner it might be help with understandingmissing bits. For the native speaker it might be an area of expertise¹⁴ that the language learner isfamiliar with. In that kind of relationship, it’s a two-way exchange of information - differentkinds of information.
　　Susan: Finally, if you still find you’re having problems understanding a particularspeaker, Simon Williams suggests the best thing to do is to have a quite wordwith the lecturer after the session.
　　CLIP: Simon WilliamsIf you feel your lecturer hasn’t been a good lecturer and the whole thing’s been a bitdisappointing, or you haven’t understood as much as you would like, then go up to thelecturer, talk to them afterwards and explain. I think most lecturers will be pleased you’vetaken the trouble to tell them how they could perform better. It might be as simple asprojecting, or giving more examples. Some lecturers might be surprised – maybe because thathas not happened before. But when they had a chance to think about it, they'd welcome thechance to improve. Be brave and tell the lecturer when you've not understood, or want themTalk about English . BBC Learning EnglishPage 8 of 8bbclearningenglish.comto do something else. Often a small group might help. You might also ask for practical things– e.g. diagrams that have been shown or a copy of the notes themselves.
　　ANNOUNCER:
　　And that brings us to the end of this programme, in which Susan Fearn focused on the finalsection of a lecture, and on the role of the student. As we’ve heard, it’s important for studentsto participate as active and critical listeners, and to be prepared to ask questions.（本文由在线英语听力室整理编辑）