Part 4 - Lectures: the introduction Part 5 - Lectures: marker phrases Part 6 - Lectures: the conclusion

BBC Learning English
Talk about English
Academic Listening
Part 4 - Lectures: the introduction

This programme was first broadcast in 2001.
This is not an accurate word-for-word transcript of the programme.

ANNOUNCER:
It’s time for Academic Listening - a series for students at English-speaking universities and
people who want to improve their listening skills. The series is presented by Susan Fearn.



Susan: You’re studying architecture.
It’s Monday afternoon – time for your weekly lecture with the Professor.
You find a seat at the front of the lecture theatre, and silence falls.

You know the introduction of any lecture contains important clues about what’s
to come, so you pay careful attention as the Professor begins.

CLIP: Professor
Good afternoon. Today’s session is the first of a series of three lectures on “Urban Planning”.
In this first lecture we’ll look at the important question of infrastructure when planning any
town or city; and then in the next two sessions we’ll turn our attention respectively to: public
building requirements and issues surrounding industry.


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Now, infrastructure has been defined as 'the structure of a country'…

Susan: In the last programme, we saw that lectures tend to have a simple structure with
a beginning, a middle, and an end. Of these, we argued that the first section, the
introduction, is crucial because this is where the speaker sets the scene and
outlines the content of their talk

CLIP: Simon Williams
The introduction’s so important because it gives the students signals of how to interpret what’s
going to come up.

Susan: Simon Williams teaches English in the Language Centre at University College
London.

CLIP: Simon Williams
It’s going to put the lecture and those following it into context, e.g. in a series on urban
planning the first lecture might be on infrastructure: transportation, power etc; the second one
on public buildings; the third one on industry … so the student has an overview and gets the
relation from week to week between the content of a lecture and the series as a whole.

Susan: The first part of a lecture has a number of functions. Speakers use the
introduction to set the lecture in context: in terms of what’s gone before and
what’s coming later in the series. They may also indicate the relative
importance of today’s topic within the subject area as a whole.
Now, we’ve said before that students can prepare for a lecture by reading
through the course outline and reflecting on the title of the lecture. The
introduction is a good opportunity to start matching your predictions with


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reality.
Simon Williams advises students to listen particularly for clues on how the
lecture will be organised.

CLIP: Simon Williams
The first section is important for alerting students how many parts a lecture is going to contain.
There usually an introduction, a conclusion, and the crucial part is to know how
many sections there are in the middle… That's very important in helping
students to revise or to use their notes.

Susan: In the introduction you’ll also find details about the specific content of today’s
lecture, and how the speaker intends to approach the subject. There are often
other helpful elements to be found.

CLIP: Simon Williams
The sort of ingredients you might find in the introduction – apart from the lecturer giving an
idea of the organisation so the student knows when different sections are finishing and starting
– perhaps the definitions of key terms, the scope of the lecture, how much work students will
have to do by themselves after the lecture is over. And perhaps why the lecturer is interested –
it's often stimulating to know why people are enthusiastic about a subject, and what personal
relationship they’ve got with it; and perhaps why the students should be interested themselves
– e.g. it’s topical or examinable.

Susan: Well, bearing Simon Williams’ advice in mind, let’s return to our lecture on
urban planning. Listen again to the professor’s introduction and focus on the
vital information it contains – some of which you may have missed the first
time, perhaps because you weren’t expecting it.


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Remember: a good student will be looking for answers to questions like these:
What’s the context of today’s lecture?
How is the speaker going to organise his talk? How many sections will there
be, what sort of approach is he going to take?
How does the speaker define any key terms? How does he plan to limit the
scope of his talk so he can finish on time?
Finally, why is the professor doing this talk today? Does he have a particular
interest in the subject, for example? Does he think it’s something I need to
know for an exam or a tutorial discussion?

CLIP: Professor
Good afternoon. Today’s session is the first of a series of three lectures on “Urban Planning”.
In this first lecture we’ll look at the important question of infrastructure when planning any
town or city; and then in the next two sessions we’ll turn our attention respectively to: public
building requirements and issues surrounding industry.
Now, infrastructure has been defined as ‘the structure of a country, society or organisation
which helps it to function effectively’.
And I’ll be using the term specifically today to highlight three important areas:
roads and transport;
essential services such as power and water;
and communication networks such as telephones, cable television and so on.
By the way, I’ll be drawing throughout this lecture on my recent article: “Housing in Crisis: a
planner’s problem – the architect’s solution”. And you might like to take a look at that more
closely before your start working on your “Design a City” Project next month. You’ll find
some ideas for further reading and some pointers on the kind of approach to take. I’ve got
copies of that article to give at the end of the session.
OK … Now, traditionally towns and cities have grown up at crossroads…


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Susan: If, as a student, you’re aware that lecturers use their introduction to indicate the
plan or organisation of a talk, and to identify the key points they’ll cover, you
can use this information to help with the difficult but important task of taking
notes. Christine Reeves teaches at Bell Norwich, a language school in the East
of England.

CLIP: Christine Reeves
I think one of the main problems is the really difficult skill of listening for the the main points,
understanding the main points and processing the main points and actually taking notes at the
same time. This is definitely what the students have expressed most difficulty in to me - as a
teacher.

Susan: Even though lectures play a key role in university teaching, many students find
that they’re the most daunting aspect of university life. This is often because
they find it difficult to listen and take effective notes at the same time. So what
advice can we offer? Simon Williams once again.

CLIP: Simon Williams
Good note-taking technique is a matter of confidence. It's no good trying to write down
everything because you won’t then understand what’s important and what can be left out.
What is important is to understand how things fit together. So it’s trying to keep a balance
between understanding and having detail – in other words, knowing what the general ideas are
and having concrete examples to back up those ideas.
You don’t need to keep a complete record – otherwise take in a tape recorder. Partly it's a
matter of digesting what’s being said, of understanding the main points and also, a revision aid.
It's going to be useful to reconstitute the information into essays and other texts, to manipulate
this material: either for assessment purposes – essays or exams - or formulating a list of


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questions you want to put to the lecturer or tutor in future meetings. This might help you in
future study directions.

Susan: When you read a book you can stop and start as you please. You can re-read
sentences and reflect before moving on. This isn’t possible in a lecture. Unless
you have access to a recording of the lecture, you only have one chance to hear
it. It’s physically impossible to write down every word – so it’s important to be
brief and to select very carefully what you decide to include in your notes.
That’s why we’ve spent some time focusing on how to recognise the most
important information in the lecture by looking for clues particularly in the
outline in the introduction. OK – so that’s the theory – that’s what the teachers
say. But what about our WS class members? What advice do our students
have to offer?

CLIP: Students
During the lecture I used to take a lot of notes - a lot of the time, although it might seem a bit
funny, I'd write down exactly what the tutor said so I could go back and if you didn't
understand there was a way . At the beginning I used to write as much as I could.

When you go to a lecture and the lecturer is speaking and you have time to make all the notes
you want, then at first I used to make notes very strictly summarising the points, and then with
time I started to be more confident and I could make notes about the relations between what
he was talking about to my subject.

Obviously I try and write as few [notes] as possible… A problem is that if you try to take
notes you can lose concentration and maybe you can write but when you try and read again
later it won't make sense. So I tried to use specific words to make sense of the lecture.


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Susan: Well, there are almost as many different styles of note-taking as there are
students! Some try to focus only on the key points, as we’ve been suggesting.
Others feel more secure if they write down as much as they can - in the early
days at least. Well, how does Simon Williams respond to that?

CLIP: Simon Williams
It's probably important to do whatever is your personal style – you can’t change overnight. So
if you like to take down everything, write down all the details, and review it afterwards. It’s
important to review as soon as possible and then use highlighters, marker pens to underline, to
make connections, to try to identify really important points. So later, when you're revising,
you can take out those points, either for exams or writing essays.


ANNOUNCER:
And that brings us to the end of this edition of Academic Listening, in which we’ve focused on
the important first section of a lecture: the introduction … and in which we’ve heard some
advice on effective note-taking.





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BBC Learning English
Talk about English
Academic Listening
Part 5 - Lectures: marker phrases

This programme was first broadcast in 2001.
This is not an accurate word-for-word transcript of the programme.

ANNOUNCER:
It’s time for Academic Listening - a series for students at English-speaking universities. For
more on the structure of a lecture, join Susan Fearn and members of the World Service class of
2001.


Susan: During the series we’re entering the world of further education to focus on
some of the linguistic problems experienced there and in today's programme we
visit University College London. Today we look at “marker phrases” - essential
vocabulary that will help you predict and understand the gradual development
of the lecturer's argument.
And we’ve sent our reporter to University College London, where she joins
students in a lecture about the Roots of English. She’ll be setting them - and
you - a comprehension task to help develop listening skills.
As we’ve said before, it’s a good idea to try and predict the content of a lecture
from its title. Our reporter Julia Adamson asked some of the students at
University College to do just that before their lecture began. She spoke to Sara,


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who's from Sweden, Denis, a student from Belarus and first, Rabia Bourkiza.

CLIP: Julia interviewing students
I'm Rabia Bourkiza I'm from Algeria. At the moment I'm waiting for the lecture and the lecture
will be about the Roots of English. I think this will be about where English language comes
from, and what we are speaking come from.
Can you tell me about the lecture you're about to go into, Sara?
Of course. It's about 'Roots of English' I think it's about linguistics and where language is
coming from and also about certain words the meaning of the words and how the English
language has developed during the centuries.
Do you know what the subject of the lecture is?
It's going to be, I think, about how the language… where the language came from, about
linguistics maybe, and just maybe some grammar use - how it came and how it was born.


Susan: The title of the lecture helped those students to make predictions about the
content. All three expect to hear lecturer Don Hill describe the origins of the
English language - where it’s come from and how it has developed.

CLIP: Lecturer
Well today's talk is about English. I'll start by describing the roots of English, the people …


Susan: Before we return to the lecture theatre, here's a chance for you to do some
listening practice. You'll hear the text of the introduction to Don Hill's lecture
and I'd like you to try to identify the key content of the talk. What are the two
main subjects that Don Hill is going to discuss ? If you’ve got a pen, why not
write these down as headings so you can start making some notes.


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CLIP: Lecturer
Well today's talk is about English. I'll start by describing the roots of English, the people who
spoke the various languages or dialects from which English has come. Then go onto the
registers - that is the styles of English. I'll simplify that very much and talk about two registers
or styles in particular. I'll then raise the question whether one register is better than the other
and give reasons for thinking that there's no simple answer to that question and then I'll sum up
and that will be it.
OK - so the roots of English to start with. Now, why has English become a world language?


Susan: Well, you can compare your answers with Sara, one of the students Julia spoke
to after the lecture.

CLIP: Julia interviewing students
Sara, can you tell me what the lecture was about ?
Of course. The lecture was about roots of English and also about the registers of English, and
that means the roots were mostly about the historical perspective - about how England was
invaded about different people - so mostly about the historical. And also the register is about
the higher & lower level of English; how people use the English language.


Susan: Sara explains that the main subjects of the lecture were the roots of English, its
historical origins, and the registers of English - a higher and a lower register.
Don Hill told us more. As you listen you could add more details to your notes.

CLIP: Lecturer
Well today's talk is about English. I'll start by describing the roots of English, the people who
spoke the various languages or dialects from which English has come. Then go onto the


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registers - that is the styles of English. I'll simplify that very much and talk about two registers
or styles in particular. I'll then raise the question whether one register is better than the other
and give reasons for thinking that there's no simple answer to that question and then I'll sum up
and that will be it.
OK - so the roots of English to start with. Now, why has English become a world language?


Susan: Lecturers use linking words and phrases, sometimes described as marker
phrases, or semantic markers.

CLIP: Christine Reeves
By semantic markers I mean using words which express the relationship between sentences. It
could be a word like 'because' which indicates to you that what is going to follow is a reason.


Susan: Chris Reeves teaches at Bell Norwich, a language school in Eastern England.

CLIP: Christine Reeves
If he says 'so' then you know that you're going to expect the result. It could be a contrast, so if
you're listening for contrasting words it would be a word like 'although', 'nevertheless' or
'however'. If he uses semantic markers like 'moreover', 'in addition', then you know he's going
to make another point and it could be another main point - so it's very important to listen for
those kind of words when you're listening to a lecture.


Susan: Chris Reeves believes that awareness of semantic markers can help you to
follow a lecture. Speakers use marker phrases to introduce contrasting ideas,
additional points, cause and effect or result. You might be used to seeing these


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phrases in books, but recognising them in a spoken lecture can be tricky -
especially if the lecturer speaks very quickly. Awareness of marker phrases like
these can be helpful for understanding lectures, as one of the Language Centre
students explained to our reporter.

CLIP: Julia interviewing student Denis
Some of the phrases we hear are 'on the one hand, on the other hand ' , 'in conclusion', this kind
of stuff.
And why is that useful, knowing those phrases ?
Because this is how you make your speech brighter and more understandable for the students.
It makes more sense for them - it's not just the text, academic text, it makes it more general for
them; more understandable.



ANNOUNCER:
And that brings us to the end of this programme, in which we’ve focused on marker phrases
and suggested that an awareness of a wide range of these linking phrases can help you.





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BBC Learning English
Talk about English
Academic Listening
Part 6 - Lectures: the conclusion

This programme was first broadcast in 2001.
This is not an accurate word-for-word transcript of the programme.

ANNOUNCER:
It’s time for Academic Listening - a series for students at English-speaking universities. Join
Susan Fearn and members of the World Service class of 2001 as they continue to discuss the
skills and techniques needed for listening to and understanding a lecture.


CLIP: Lecturer
… and that brings me to the end of my series of lectures on the plays of Shakespeare. Now, to
end 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 a
lecture, and now we turn our attention to the content and function of the final
section of a lecture – the conclusion.





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CLIP: Simon Williams
In the conclusion of their lecture, lecturer is summing up, going through main points, indicating
how important various bits of evidence are.

Susan: Simon Williams teaches English in the Language Centre at University College
London.

CLIP: Simon Williams
And a good lecturer’s going to indicate where students should go next - in thinking and
activities, in what they're going to read up on in library - maybe if they're going to take that
topic as essay topic. The lecturer might also talk about what they weren’t able to do in that 50
minutes - what they’ve had to leave out … and therefore what students can go away with and
discover for themselves, if they’re interested.

Susan: The concluding section of a lecture acts as a summary of the main points. It’s a
final chance to make sure you’ve made a note of what the lecturer considers to
be the most important things to remember. It might also give you clues about
what you can do or study next.
But how do you know when the lecturer has reached their conclusion? Well, as
these WS class members point out, with practice, it becomes quite easy to spot
the signposts and marker phrases that guide you through a lecture.

CLIP: Student Ana
Most of the time when the lecture is finishing the 'in conclusion' or these sorts of markers, or
even 'summarising', are going to appear. You can understand when it's the end of the
introduction, when it's the end of the main point and when the conclusion is coming.



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CLIP: Christine Reeves
He would signal when he's going to finish speaking by introducing a summary - he might use a
phrase 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 points
were again. All of these features of organisation should help you to follow the lecture.

Susan: We’ve discovered during these programmes that there are several things you
can do to help you understand lectures. We’ve suggested that it’s important to
prepare before the lecture by looking at the course outline and learning
specialist vocabulary, for example. We’ve said that thinking about the purpose
of a lecture can help you know where to focus attention. And we’ve offered
clues about how lecturers organise their material and highlight the main points.
It should be clear by now that listening to lectures is a busy task – it’s not just
the lecturer who’s doing the work! And, as Simon Williams suggests, there’s a
speaking role for students as well.

CLIP: Simon Williams
There might be Q&A session at that stage, and lecturers are delighted if people ask questions
to demonstrate they've been listening and interested in the topic. Because if lecturer is
interested enough to deliver something on a particular subject, I guess that means they’ve got a
genuine interest. And they’ll be delighted that the students return that interest and share in it.
It means the lecturer has been successful in stimulating and motivating the students.

Susan: Many speakers use the final moments of their lecture to answer questions from
the 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:



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CLIP: Simon Williams
Sometimes 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 to
ask questions. Firstly, it helps you to clarify things in your mind – in order to get a question
ready – therefore helping you to digest information and to order it. Secondly, it shows the
lecturer they’ve managed to get over information and stimulate the students.

Susan: In fact, Simon Williams believes that thinking of questions before the lecture is
a useful and important way to prepare.

CLIP: Simon Williams
Preparing questions in advance is a really useful activity, because it's going to focus student’s
minds on what to listen out for in the lecture. And any questions that don’t get answered in
the 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 difficult
to know when to ask … Here’s some advice from one of our World Service
class members.

CLIP: Student
[NB: very rough transcript] If I think it's something very important, I ask the lecturer, and in
another 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.




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CLIP: Simon Williams
Being an active learner is tremendously important. You need to know why you are doing
something, you need to have a purpose. And that means not simply reading a text, or an
article, it means knowing what you want to do with it. For example, you’d never write a letter
of 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's
good 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 a
purpose, they know what they want to achieve. And it's the same whether
they’re reading an academic text or attending a lecture. It’s also important to
be what Simon Williams calls a critical listener.

CLIP: Simon Williams
The critical student might always think of two questions as they're reading the text or listening
to the lecture. Why is the person saying this thing at this moment – where does it fit into the
whole structure? And – so what, what does it all mean? The two questions are helping in two
ways. “Why this now?” is a kind of signpost telling you where you are on your journey
through the lecture or through the book. Knowing where you are can be very reassuring.
People feel nervous if they feel a bit lost. Secondly, “so what?” - this question shows how
significant 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 speakers
deliver clear, well-organised lecturers. Now, as many of you will know, reality
is not always like this!



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CLIP: Student Emma
At the beginning during lectures it was sometimes difficult because you get different visiting
lecturers, and some of them might be good journalists - since I'm doing journalism. We always
looked at them and after the class said - he's a good journalist but he's not a speaker, or he
might be a good journalist but he's not a good lecturer. Sometimes and we spent most of our
times sleeping in class!

Susan: Well, if that’s a situation you recognised, here are some practical suggestions
that might help. First, try sitting near the front of the lecture hall. If the lecturer
can see your face, they might notice that you’re looking puzzled or confused
and offer further explanation or examples.

CLIP: Student Ana
When 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-verbal
communication, the eye contact and things like that, but the intonation, the pauses and some
colloquial things - it's difficult sometimes to understand the colloquial language, but it's more a
talk and not just a formal communication, which can help.


CLIP: Simon Williams
Never sit at the back of a hall: it’s warm, it’s dark, it’s very tempting to pass notes and to cut
off from the main activity. So sit in the middle or near the front, so you can get into some
interaction – even if you're nodding or looking bored – at least you’re giving some feedback to
the speaker.



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Susan: A second piece of advice is to team up with other students. Many people find
that 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 for
example. And you can check understanding by comparing your notes after the
lecture.

CLIP: Simon Williams
Another way of coping with the difficulty of studying in a second or further language might be
to team up with a native speaker. There are things two people can do that will help them get
much more out of something. For the language learner it might be help with understanding
missing bits. For the native speaker it might be an area of expertise that the language learner is
familiar with. In that kind of relationship, it’s a two-way exchange of information - different
kinds of information.

Susan: Finally, if you still find you’re having problems understanding a particular
speaker, Simon Williams suggests the best thing to do is to have a quite word
with the lecturer after the session.

CLIP: Simon Williams
If you feel your lecturer hasn’t been a good lecturer and the whole thing’s been a bit
disappointing, or you haven’t understood as much as you would like, then go up to the
lecturer, talk to them afterwards and explain. I think most lecturers will be pleased you’ve
taken the trouble to tell them how they could perform better. It might be as simple as
projecting, or giving more examples. Some lecturers might be surprised – maybe because that
has not happened before. But when they had a chance to think about it, they'd welcome the
chance to improve. Be brave and tell the lecturer when you've not understood, or want them


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to 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 final
section of a lecture, and on the role of the student. As we’ve heard, it’s important for students
to participate as active and critical listeners, and to be prepared to ask questions.