5 TOEFL Listening Mistakes Every Student Makes

Summary

This video offers invaluable insights into the TOEFL listening section, focusing on five recurring mistakes students often make. It's packed with practical advice on how to avoid understanding every detail obsessively, staying focused visually despite distractions, taking effective notes, not overemphasizing the main idea prematurely, and shifting from a student to a teacher mindset for better understanding. The creator emphasizes the importance of not just aiming to answer questions correctly but understanding the purpose and intention behind what is being examined.

Highlights

• Understanding every detail is not the goal; focus on crucial info instead 🎯.
• Stay visually focused during the test to avoid missing important segments 👀.
• Learn to take shorthand notes without prepositions or vowels to save time ✍️.
• The main idea often reveals itself at the end; don't rush to jot it down 🎓.
• Think like a teacher to comprehend the structure and intention of the passage, not just the content 🧠.

Key Takeaways

• Don't aim to understand everything during TOEFL listening; focus on what's most important 📚.
• Avoid visual distractions during the test; keep your eyes on your notes and screen 👀.
• Take efficient notes by focusing on verbs and nouns, and use shorthand ✍️.
• Re-think the need to write down the main idea immediately; understand it holistically 🎯.
• Adopt a teacher's mindset to interpret what info is crucial and why it's presented 🌟.

Overview

The TOEFL listening section can be a tricky part of the exam, but the key is not to sweat the small stuff by trying to understand everything. Instead, prioritize understanding the main ideas and anticipate question types, which ultimately determine your score. The video explores this concept, highlighting the importance of focusing on what's necessary instead of getting lost in details.

A novel piece of advice given is to limit eye distractions during the exam. The creator shares a personal anecdote about getting distracted by other test-takers, emphasizing the need to focus on the listening material and your notes. Furthermore, they stress the importance of efficient note-taking. Only jot down significant nouns and verbs using shorthand, which helps in quickly encapsulating core information.

Past being about just answers, the TOEFL listening section is also about comprehension. Switching from a student to a teacher mindset shifts focus to the structure and reason behind the information presented. By questioning why certain details are included, you'll better grasp what's truly important. This approach can drastically improve your listening comprehension and exam performance.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Importance of Avoiding Mistakes The chapter introduces the significance of avoiding mistakes, particularly in the context of preparing for the TOEFL exam. It highlights five common mistakes observed among TOEFL students in the listening section and underscores the value of learning from these to enhance performance. The speaker emphasizes the importance of paying close attention to the contents discussed to avoid repeating these errors.
• 01:00 - 03:00: Mistake 1: Trying to Understand Everything The chapter titled "Mistake 1: Trying to Understand Everything" highlights a common error made by many when consuming information online. It addresses the overwhelming nature of online content, particularly in the context of preparing for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) exam. The speaker advises that it's unnecessary to try to comprehend every piece of information encountered. Instead, it's crucial to focus on understanding the nature of mistakes made during learning and why avoiding these mistakes is essential for effective learning. The speaker emphasizes the importance of selective attention and prioritizing key insights over trying to grasp everything, and encourages viewers to stay engaged till the end to fully appreciate the value of the advice offered.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Mistake 2: Relying on Visual Cues Chapter Title: Mistake 2: Relying on Visual Cues Summary: The chapter discusses common pitfalls in preparing for the TOEFL listening section, emphasizing that one should not focus solely on understanding everything but instead concentrate on grasping the key pieces of information. This highlights the importance of prioritizing crucial information over trying to process every detail.
• 05:00 - 07:00: Mistake 3: Taking Bad Notes This chapter discusses the common mistake of taking bad notes, specifically in the context of TOEFL listening. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the main points rather than trying to grasp everything during listening. Anticipating the questions and knowing the question types is crucial, as the score depends on answering these questions correctly.
• 07:00 - 09:00: Mistake 4: Writing Down the Main Idea In this chapter, the focus is on the importance of effectively listening and understanding the main idea, particularly in the context of answering TOEFL questions. The listener's ability to comprehend the main idea plays a crucial role in successfully responding to gist or main idea questions that follow listening passages. The chapter emphasizes the need to anticipate and prepare for these types of questions to improve performance.
• 09:00 - 11:00: Mistake 5: Thinking Like a Student The chapter discusses the common mistake students make by attempting to understand everything thoroughly, which is neither necessary nor practical. Instead, students should focus on predicting the types of questions they might encounter. Anticipating questions helps them identify and focus on the important information needed for exams. Additionally, the chapter hints at a second piece of advice related to students' mistakes, involving a metaphor about opening and closing eyes, possibly suggesting a need for awareness and focus.
• 11:00 - 13:00: Conclusion and TOEFL Emergency Course Introduction The chapter discusses the challenges associated with phone conversations, specifically how you cannot rely on visual cues and gestures, unlike in face-to-face communications. It emphasizes the importance of focusing solely on auditory information when communicating via phone. This is part of an introduction to the challenges faced in mastering the TOEFL emergency course, indicating a shift towards more auditory and context-based learning.

5 TOEFL Listening Mistakes Every Student Makes Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Applause] all right what's going on guys so we're here to talk about mistakes and how to avoid doing them so I've taught a lot of TOEFL students over the years and I've seen these five common mistakes in the listening section so it's really valuable for you to know this stuff so you don't have to make the same mistakes as most other students it's very important that you pay close attention to this video watch it again if you
• 00:30 - 01:00 don't understand everything I say this a lot when I teach TOEFL online because there's a lot of noise online there's a lot of YouTube channels there's a lot of things for you to consume for free I just really want you to know that this is very valuable people pay me a lot of money to give them this advice okay so pay attention stay to the end and make sure that you understand all of these mistakes and why it's important to not
• 01:00 - 01:30 do them for the TOEFL listening okay all right so 5 mistakes 5 mistakes that you need to avoid let me stand this way this time so the first thing the first thing you want to avoid is you try to understand everything yeah you don't want to understand everything well you do but that's not the most important thing the most important thing is for you to understand the most important pieces of information and you do that by
• 01:30 - 02:00 knowing the structure if you want to know more about that I made a video about TOEFL listening improve your score by 3 points where I talk about that more but your goal is not really to understand everything even though that's great if you do it's more to be able to understand what's most important and to anticipate the questions you want to make sure that you know the question types that you're gonna get asked because that's what you get scored on you get score delete your answers to the questions you don't get scored on how
• 02:00 - 02:30 well you listened really I mean the questions are supposed to be a reflection of that but really what your score is is like can you answer these questions so get very good at answering TOEFL questions get really good at knowing the types of questions that you can expect after the listening just to give you a quick example every listening passage is followed by a main idea question also known as a gist question so you know that you have to listen for the main idea when you're listening okay so this
• 02:30 - 03:00 piece of advice you don't want to try to understand everything I mean that's great but really what you want to get good at is being able to anticipate the types of questions you'll get and when you can anticipate those questions you know what you need to listen for when you take the exam okay first advice the second advice it is first mistake the second mistake that a lot of students make is you open your eyes close your eyes close them now no I'm just gonna I idea is that listening
• 03:00 - 03:30 is a difficult skill because you can't rely on your eyes usually in everyday conversations when we're talking to people we focus on hand gestures like this stuff I'm doing now we focus on my facial expression you focus on the context the situation you focus on a lot of different things besides just the sounds coming out of my mouth but when you get on the phone it's a
• 03:30 - 04:00 very different story most people don't like talking on the phone in another language because it's very hard because you only have the voice for another example really quickly is blind people people who can't see anything they have a heightened sense of listening because they have to rely on their ears it's okay you have to be honest on the top well you have to open your eyes you can't close your eyes because you have to look at the screen you have to look
• 04:00 - 04:30 at the pictures you have to write down a couple notes but you don't want to look around the room when you take the test you'll be in a room with a bunch of other people taking the test at the same time you don't want to look at them when I took the test once while I took it a couple times but one time when I took it another student had a problem with their computer they raised their hand the person came and I was in a listening section I was looking at this person and then I realized oh I haven't been listening for
• 04:30 - 05:00 like a minute because my eyes distracted me your eyes distract you from the listening make your computer make your desk your world okay don't close your eyes but make sure that you focus just on your on your notes in front of you and the computer all right mistake number three you take bad notes okay so what do I mean by bad notes well it goes back to number one where you don't know what's most important where you try to write down everything you don't you don't write down everything okay just write down a couple things
• 05:00 - 05:30 that are important that you think might be detail questions later you want to take notes and you also want to take notes on very specific words and phrases a kind of general rule is that I may make a video about this in the future but basically for note-taking you should only write down verbs and nouns maybe some adjectives for the most part verbs and nouns particularly nouns you want to skip prepositions articles personal
• 05:30 - 06:00 pronouns and so on you want to skip those things so for example if I wrote the sentence I went to the store you definitely don't want to write all that down in your notes I write WNC Str so all I use is the verb and the important noun store you want to write down verbs and nouns in your notes when you take notes so you can take them down quickly also you'll notice that I didn't spell
• 06:00 - 06:30 them correctly when you write down notes only write down continents do not write down at vowels vowels is a e i o you don't write them down because I can know what this means went store without needing the vows now you might say like you have no idea what it means you as the viewer have no idea what it means or you'll forget what it's talking about later you won't okay because you're listening to something and then you're gonna answer questions right after it's very fresh in your
• 06:30 - 07:00 memory okay so you'll know what this means 95% of the time and if you don't know what it means it's okay I know what it means that's what's most important the TOEFL graders did not check your notes okay all right so you take bad notes mistake number three mistake number four you write down the main idea this is a very famous piece of advice that a lot of TOEFL teachers give is to identify the main idea write down the main idea you don't have to do that it's very important to identify the main
• 07:00 - 07:30 idea but you don't have to write it down why because sometimes you don't really know what the main idea is until it finishes until the end of the listening you're gonna have to listen to the whole thing and so you realize okay this was pretty much about blank whatever it was about when you are trying to listen for the main idea I have to find the main idea it's so important they're gonna ask me I have to find the main idea you're focusing on trying to listen to a sentence or listening to a word and
• 07:30 - 08:00 being like oh that's the main idea but that's not really how we get main ideas I get the main idea of something after I read everything after I listen to everything I mean I have some ideas about what it might be while I'm listening but really I get a very clear picture when it's finished okay so think about that think about when you're listening I'm gonna have to answer a main idea question I need to figure out what the main idea is here what this is mostly about think about it
• 08:00 - 08:30 while you're listening don't write it down you don't have to you'll know what it is when it finishes right make sense maybe hopefully okay that's a really huge secret advice I've never heard anybody else say that anywhere else okay this is valuable I know what I'm doing you're gonna so make sure you take notes on this stuff the last thing is you think like a student yeah again in this in another video we're improve your
• 08:30 - 09:00 score by three points for the listening section I talked about the importance of thinking like a teacher when you're thinking like a student you think like I have to answer these questions correctly I have to find this information I have to do this know instead think like a teacher what does this person in the listening want me to know what are they trying to teach me why are they telling me this information why are they telling me this information but not telling me another piece of information what makes
• 09:00 - 09:30 this so special when you start thinking like the teacher you start asking the right questions very important that you start asking the right questions the right questions are why do they put this here what do they want me to know why is this detail here why did they say that number when you ask these kind of why questions you're thinking like a teacher because the teacher is doing it for a certain reason right when you're thinking like a student you're thinking
• 09:30 - 10:00 like what's the answer what's the answer what's the answer that's not going to help you in fact it's going to frustrate you instead what you want to do is you want to think about the structure think about the way the information is being presented to you think about the way that the teacher says something think about the way it's being I think I said it's already presented to you just think about the way that things are done and follow the structure and then you'll be thinking like a teacher okay not like a
• 10:00 - 10:30 student alright I hope you found that helpful if you need some more help WWE TOEFL speaking teacher comm that's our website and we have a TOEFL emergency course wait before you go how would you like to know everything you need to know about the TOEFL in three days three days I developed this TOEFL emergency course that gives all of these kind of tips tricks and strategies and I give you a schedule to follow step by step and you can finish it in three days
• 10:30 - 11:00 pretty awesome you can go there and check out more thank you guys for listening to the ends if you're here that means you're motivated stay motivated stay positive and [Music]