OET Corner – Authentic Listening

Doctors and Nurses celebrating OET Reading Part A

Authentic Listening

Authentic Listening means getting used to different accents, speeds of speaking with all the ‘um’s and ‘ah’s of normal every day speech. This can be both exciting and frustrating, however, if you keep trying, a whole world of understanding is open to you. Hopefully this exercise will help open that door.

The Task

In today’s OET Corner, we’re going to base a task on some real authentic listening. This month’s Health Matters Newsletter has a 45 minute audio download with a Q & A (Question and Answer) about mental health and smoking. We’ve taken a small part of that (just two questions) and produced an OET style task.

The audio is similar to Part C in that you have a question and a lengthy answer, although they are much shorter than the usual dialogues you hear in this part of the test.

Remember, the aim of Listening Part C is to test your understanding of:

  • gist
  • attitude and opinion

More than the Listening Task

There are a few interesting phrases in the audio too, so while it’s not strictly a part of Part C, there will be some questions on the meaning of some common phrases. You may find it helpful to read the transcript for this part of the task, as well as listening to the download.

The Materials

Here are the resources you’ll need:

Audio

Dialogue 1 Question Set

Dialogue 2 Question Set

Transcript

Dialogue 1 Question Set Answers

Dialogue 2 Question Set Answers

Further Listening

Here is the link to subscribe to Public Health’s Health Matters email update:

Get Health Matters updates

Please note that the full audio is only available from the email update. So if you want to listen to the full 45 minute presentation with the Q & A session you will need to sign up.

If you have any technical questions about Health Matters, e.g. you can’t subscribe or download the full audio, or if you have any general questions then you can get help by emailing:

healthmatters@phe.gov.uk

How did you do?

I’d be very interested to hear what you think about this exercise, and how you found the authentic listening. Was it more difficult or easier than you expected? Had you heard the different accents before? Let me know.

Like OET Corner?

For more OET Corner lessons, go to:

OET Listening Part A

OET Reading Part A

 

Keep in touch with us