Listening to lectures

Lectures are predominantly listening events. Expand the following headings to see how active listening strategies can be applied to help you get the most out of your lectures.

  • Check out the topic and do the required reading.
  • Check out the lecture slides as they will contain clues to important content to be covered in the lecture.
  • Think about what you already know about the topic.
  • Check out the weekly lecture topics and think about how the new topic is related to the previous lectures.
  • Prepare all you need to take notes during the lecture (e.g. gather the equipment to make notes including pen, notebook, laptop, iPad etc).
  • During a lecture pay attention to how the ideas are organised (e.g. introduction/overview, thesis/hypothesis statement, supporting material, summary).
  • Listen for the key points, supporting points, evidence and facts.
  • Don’t expect to understand every single word that you listen to. If you don't understand a particular word, it doesn’t mean that you won’t understand the rest of what you are listening to. If you don’t understand something, don’t be fixated on it. Move on with the speaker and concentrate on listening to the rest of the content.
  • Use contextual clues to comprehend the message. For example, if you don’t understand a word, try to guess its meaning from the context.
  • Pay attention to the non-verbal cues of the speaker (e.g. body language and tone of voice).
  • Take notes.
  • Avoid distractions as far as possible (e.g. consider putting your phone away in your bag during the lecture, and closing off tabs or windows on your computer).

Note

  • Pay attention to signposting used by the speaker (e.g. 'Firstly, I’ll consider …', 'This paper has four sections beginning with …', 'To recap, the central idea is…'). These will help you identify different parts of the content and understand the connections between different points and transitions from one section to the next.
  • Listen for repeated ideas, keywords and phrases as these will often be good clues to direct your listening focus.
  • Ask questions.
  • Revise your notes and add to them.
  • Following up on additional resources.
  • Reflect on what worked and what didn’t while you were listening. Think about whether and why you missed something important, and think about what you can do differently next time to achieve a better outcome.

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