PTE ACADEMIC LISTENING & SPEAKING TIPS

LISTENING TIPS :

Some of the listening tips which I feel can do wonders for you are as follows :-

1) Get accustomed to the accent of the English speakers. You can do this by listening to any lectures in English Language with captions. This particular tip is for those candidates who are finding it difficult to pick the right accent. Believe me keep watching and listening to such lectures and I am sure you'll benefit.

2) Listen carefully to each and every word spoken in the lecture. This will help you in repeat sentence as well as in Re-Tell lecture.

3) Alternatively you can watch English movies to improve your listening skills.

4) When attempting Re-Tell/ Summarize Spoken Text - Focus on key points mentioned by the lecturer and make notes accordingly. Understand the overall theme of the lecture. 

5) For “ Write from Dictation “- It is a good practice to remember the sentence. Alternatively you may also write keywords so that it may help you to write a complete sentence.

6) For multiple choice single answer and multiple answers, read the question thoroughly and skim through the options given. Keep a high focus on every point mentioned by the speaker and find your right answer in the options given. You may also use elimination method wherein you eliminate the options which are totally different and for the rest of the options you may still make a calculative guess.

7) For Highlight correct summary, you are given 4 options normally. Skim through the options and then listen to the lecture carefully. I would not suggest to make points, just listen it carefully and then look for the option to find the correct summary out of the options available. Believe me it really works.

SPEAKING :-

TIPS FOR GRAPHS/ PIE CHARTS/ TABLES :

1) Identify the inputs given in the graph. Check the inputs/ variables given in the X axis and Y axis. For example - You are sometimes given population, sales etc in the Y axis and years range in the X axis.

2) Check what the overall graph is about. It may be related to population density of different countries, sales in different companies etc. So you may start by saying - This line or bar graph illustrates/ gives information about ..................................

3) Sometimes there are too many lines in a single graph. Firstly check the highest point then the lowest point, check the similar patterns, trends ( increasing or decreasing or fluctuating etc ). For instance you can start by saying that the highest population amongst all the countries was recorded by USA which was around 50 millions in the year 2002 and the country with lowest population was France with a population of approximately .......................... . The two countries namely India and China has witnessed an almost similar trends in their population over the past 10 years. However, the population of India showed a dramatic increase after 2010 ..................................

4) You can use some connectors also to improve your speaking. You can use - However, It is interesting to see .............. , Although, Similarly, Overall, On the contrary.

5) Some terminologies that can be used for expressing the trends - Dramatic increase, Significant increase, Exponential increase, decreasing/ increasing trend, fluctuating trend, declined considerably, huge increase, rapid fall, etc.

6) You can also use - population of X was almost 3 times then Y country. The sales of company X was almost 1/3rd then the sales of company Y.

SPEAKING: READ ALOUD – TIPS :

1) Speak at your natural pace.

2) Give stress/ emphasis on particular key word.

3) Take pauses if you get commas or colon etc.

4) Speak as if you are delivering a lecture and not simply reading just for the sake of completing the task. Take it as an opportunity.

5) Oral fluency and pronunciation should be kept in mind. If you don't know how to pronounce a particular word then take help from Google or your friends/ family.

6) Keep a good rhythm   - try not to speak too fast or too slow.

You can practice Read Alouds by reading articles online and you may also record your voice and check how you spoke. Improvement comes by practice and practice makes you perfect :)

SPEAKING: REPEAT SENTENCE – TIPS :

1) Listen carefully to each and every word as you do not get a second chance to listen to the recording again.

2) You may write keywords to remember the sentence.

3) It is good to memorize what you have heard but it may take practice. Understand the overall meaning of the sentence to remember the sentence.

4) Listen to lot of listening stuff on the regular basis so that you get habituated to accent and speed of an English speaker.

5) While listening you may also turn on the " captions " so that when you listen, you can simultaneously read the words. This is a quite beneficial for beginners.

6) You may listen to the lectures on You tube or any similar website.

SPEAKING: RE-TELL LECTURES :

1) Get accustomed to the accent of the English speakers. You can do this by listening to any lectures in English Language with captions. This particular tip is for those candidates who are finding it difficult to pick the right accent. Believe me keep watching and listening to such lectures and I am sure you'll benefit.

2) Make points quickly while listening to the lectures. 

3) Understand what the lecture is about. For instance : it may be related to pollution, mathematics, museum, education etc. 

4) You are also sometimes given the picture/ graph on the screen. This is quite helpful as you can at-least get a hint about what the lecture is about. If you are not able to write many points from the lecture then at-least you can speak about the information given in the picture or graph. 

5) Listen regularly to short or long lecture on You tube or similar websites. This is helpful to understand the accent.

6) If you do not have much content to speak about then slow down your pace for speaking and try to remember some of the key points and try to explain it. 

7) You can start by saying - The lecture is about ..............................................................

8) You may also use - The lecturer gives an example of ....................., The lecturer gives emphasis on .............., In addition to this he/ she also talks about ..................... It is worth noting from this lecture ………………….. First and foremost point mentioned by the lecturer is that …………………Secondly he says…….and so on……………….. Finally he concludes by saying that ……….