Listening Diary FAQ

Why do you need to keep a listening diary? To form a habit of listening. To help you play a more interactive role in the process of critical listening. To build a personal listening record with a collection of interested topics. To demonstrate your listening strategies when encountering difficult materials. To record your questions for the teacher and the TA to response to. To grow more awareness in predicting, inferring, and visualizing the setting, speakers and the scenario.

What is a listening diary? For each entry you need to 1.List the listening item, the date and diary entry number. 2.Briefly summarize the listening task in your own language, such as the type of listening task, the topic and the relationship of the speakers. Use the questions in “Think about the context” as a guide. 3.Rank the listening task in term of the level of difficulty. (1-5  ) 4.Record the word, phrases or passage that you have trouble understanding, and try to explain why. Is it because you are not familiar with the topic, the speaker’s accent or some particular vocabulary? 5.Share with me your reflection.

How to keep a listening diary? You could write your listening diary before you start the listening, in the process of the listening and of course after you do the listening. For pre-listening, before you actually start to play the listening task, stop for a couple minutes and try to list anything you think related to the topic. Yes, do some brainstorming would prepare you for the possible developments. During the process of listening, jot down the main idea: –what is the most important message? –You could also take notes to check how much you get from the task. –Please note any difficulty you meet in understanding the message. Is it the main ideas or some particular details?

When to hand in the listening diary? During this summer course, the listening diary will be collected three times as scheduled on 7/18. 8/8 and 8/23. 10% of your grade will be deducted if you hand in a late diary.