Guide on Academic and Scientific Talks. Учебное пособие

1.3. Ways of improving listening comprehension

Trying to understand every single word can get very stressful, and by focusing too much on a word you can’t understand you will most likely miss quite a lot of what else is said.

Language-related preparation is helpful as well. Take a few minutes to think about what you are going to listen to.

Depending on the situation, you may need to read up on some cultural aspects or peculiarities of this or a specific dialect.

2. Practice deliberate listening

Listening actively is one of the most important ways to improve your listening skills. What does listening ‘actively’ mean? It means giving your full attention to whatever you are listening to and engaging with it.

Here are some things you can do when listening to someone or something actively:

Find out specific information

Answer questions

Transcribe what you hear

Write out useful words and phrases

Repeat what you hear after the speaker(s)

Sum up what you have listened to in the written or oral form

Chat about what you have listened with a language exchange partner Active listening is a much more effective use of your time, which will help

you improve your listening comprehension much faster.

3. Don’t overuse the dictionary

Looking up each unfamiliar word in a dictionary can take time – it will slow you down and interrupt your flow; whatever you are listening to will ‘break into pieces’, decreasing your interest and motivation. Moreover, it is not a natural thing to do: when communicating in real-life situations, you won’t be able to ‘pause’ speakers to translate what they are saying.

What can you do instead? Here are a few useful strategies:

Do your best to understand unfamiliar words and phrases from the

context.

Only lookup keywords.

Write down unfamiliar words to check their meaning later.

Listen a second time.

11

1.Theoretical Aspects of Academic and Scientific Talks

4.Listen to content according to your level

If you listen to something that is either too easy or too hard, not choosing content according to your level is not good for your listening skills. There’s nothing wrong with listening to such materials every now and then – either for entertainment or a more relaxed practice. However, if all your listening activities are too easy for your level, your listening skills won’t improve. When the listening material is so hard that you hardly understand anything, using it for practice won’t help you improve listening comprehension either.

You know your listing material is right for you when you can understand the main idea fairly easily, but there are still a number of new words and expressions – but not so many that you have to constantly look them up.

5. Vary your listening practice

If you always listen to one and the same person, for example, your favourite podcast presenter, you will get used to the way they speak pretty quickly: their vocabulary, speech patterns, talking speed, and accent.

You can still learn a lot from one listening resource but listening to podcasts, audio courses, YouTube channels, and other listening resources that feature multiple presenters or invite guest speakers, will expose you to different ways of speaking including accents and dialects.

6. Listen extensively

No guide on how to improve listening skills would be complete without this tip: to improve your listening comprehension in a foreign language, you need plenty of regular listening practice. It may sound fairly obvious, but it’s worth highlighting.

Individual listening practice sessions can be short – if you only have a 5- minute window, by all means, watch a short video or listen to just a fragment of a podcast, – but do it daily and do your best to find as many windows for listening practice as you can.

7. Listen to something you enjoy

Listening to what you find interesting and enjoyable helps you stay focused and motivated and ultimately makes for more successful language learning. After all, language learning is hard enough as it is, so why make it harder by listening to something you find boring or don’t really enjoy?

If you choose materials, you like you’ll be more motivated to understand what the speakers are saying and put more effort into your listening practice.

12

1.3.Ways of improving listening comprehension

8.Create a suitable environment

The conditions you practice listening in can play a big part in your success.

Of course, you don’t need the latest smartphone or the most expensive headphones for good listening practice, but if you are still using headphones that are falling apart, it is probably time to ditch them in favour of some more up-to- date tech.

Other conditions are important, too: are you in a loud room? Are you constantly distracted by kids, pets, or smartphone notifications? Do your best to find a time and place when/where you won’t be distracted or distractions are minimal.

9. Listen and read simultaneously

Listening while reading the same text at the same time is a great exercise that can be especially beneficial. Doing this will help you connect the way the words are written with the way they are pronounced, which can be particularly important for languages that aren’t phonetic or have a large gap between spelling and pronunciation.

Reading while listening can also be a way out when you are in a noisy environment but it is your only ‘window’ for listening practice.

10. Experiment with audio playback speed

Talking speed is one of the things that can make listening quite hard. Even if you know all the words and grammar the person is using, if they are talking really fast, most of their speech can become unrecognizable.

If you are talking to someone in person, politely ask them to slow down a bit – most people will do their best to accommodate you.

If you are listening to audio files, there is a great technical solution: changing the playback speed. Platforms like YouTube, Audible and many podcast apps have an in-built speed changer, or you can download speedchanging programs to listen to files on your smartphone or PC.

Slow the playback speed down until you can understand what is being said. Don’t stay on this level forever, though. Try to increase the speed a bit every now and then – if you do it regularly, you’ll soon be able to listen to the speaker at their natural speed.

13

1.Theoretical Aspects of Academic and Scientific Talks

11.Use visual materials to help you

When we talk to people, we have various non-verbal clues to help us understand them, such as body language, gestures, and facial expressions. Such visual clues are important to understanding what is and what isn’t being said.

Visual clues also support your listening comprehension and help you recall vocabulary. You often learn more from watching and listening together than from watching alone.

12. Communicate with native speakers

If you want to improve your listening comprehension so you can talk to native speakers, you shouldn’t wait to reach a particular language level to start communicating with them – you can (and should!) do it as soon as you start learning the language, no matter what level you are at.

Granted, it may be harder at the beginning and things will go slow at first but just ask your speaking partner to slow down, to repeat things, and to explain things you don’t understand. The more you do this, the better you will get at understanding what people say.

While challenging at first, talking to native speakers is one of the best ways to improve listening comprehension and your overall language level, so don’t be shy [7].

Conclusion

Improving your listening skills isn’t impossible. By implementing one or more of the tips in this guide, you will be able to increase the efficiency of your listening practice and eventually improve your listening comprehension. No tip will work unless you do, so get out there and get started!

Answer the following questions

1.What is deliberate listening?

2.What can be done instead of using a dictionary while listening?

3.What are benefits of listening to something enjoyable?

4.What is a suitable environment for listening?

5.What are non-verbal clues in communication?

14

2.Practical Aspects of Academic and Scientific Talks

2.Watch the video and answer the following questions

1.How can commercial drones be used?

2.What is a tail-sitter?

3.What is the minimum number of moving parts needed for controlled flight?

4.What is a monospinner like?

5.What is an omnicopter like?

6.What gives an omnicopter an extraordinary capability?

7.What requirements are there for drones if they become a part of everyday life?

8.What can be an exploration of synthetic swarms?

9.How can flying machines be used on Broadway?

10.What potential does this technology have?

3. Discuss the following questions

1.How have flying machines evolved since that presentation?

2.One of the comments for the video was: “The swarm so mesmerizing, and horrifying at the same time”. Why can some people be horrified with the view?

3.Do you consider the nascent technology can solve any problems of modern society?

4.What pros and cons of the commercial use of flying machines can you name?

5.Give your own vision of flying machines perspectives.

2.1.2.The Robot Revolution: The New Age of Manufacturing

1.Match the words from column A and column B to make a word combination

16

2.1. Robotics, Mechatronics and Robotics Systems

2. Watch the video answer the following questions

1.Can robots handle tasks that humans don’t do?

2.What is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of industrial robots?

3.What can you do in robot manufacturing facilities in Kitakyushu?

4.Who is Masahiro Ogawa?

5.How is the cobot different from traditional robot arm?

6.Which country do customers come to Ogawa looking for new automation solutions from?

7.What area is considered to be the electronics capital of the world?

8.Why is Chinese company making the move towards robotics?

9.What has happened to the average urban employee in China since 2008?

10.Why is the CEO of Chinese company not worried about the workers who’ve been laid off?

3. Discuss the following questions

1.What could possibly go wrong in a new machine age?

2.Which societal challenges can be met in a new machine age?

3.Why is there no resistance from workers to putting new robots? Do you think this reason is significant?

4.What role will robots play in our society later this century?

5.Japan and China see robots as helpful and cute; the West often sees them as evil and dangerous. Why?

17

2.Practical Aspects of Academic and Scientific Talks

2.1.3.What is Mechatronics: The Very Basics In 7 Minutes

1.Match the words from column A to their opposites from column B

2. Watch the video and answer the following questions

1.What are the definitions of “mechatronics”?

2.What is the origin of the term?

3.What areas can the study of mechatronic systems be divided into?

4.What is mechatronic engineering concerned with?

5.What categories did Japan Society for the promotion of machine industry divide mechatronic products?

6.What theories were used to do it?

7.How long has mechatronics evolved?

8.What are the examples of rudimentary sensing abilities of mechatronic units?

9.What does “intelligence” mean in mechatronics?

10.What future does it have?

18

2.1.Robotics, Mechatronics and Robotics Systems

3.Discuss the following questions

1.Can you give examples of mechatronic products which are used in military purposes?

2.What branches of industry use mechatronic products?

3.What are perspectives of using mechatronics together with Biology?

4.What contribution have nanotechnologies made in mechatronics?

5.Do you use mechatronic products in your work?

2.1.4.Revision Exercises

1.Circle the correct word or phrase to complete each sentence

1.An actuator / a sensor is a device that converts the electrical signals into the physical events or characteristics.

2.Although our company is nascent / competitive, we have already earned over a half a million dollars in four months.

3.The high external / tensile strength of the film ensures precise positioning.

4.The balance has passed the point where the spring is in poise / flap.

5.The plane accelerated down the runway for landing / take-off.

6.A hawk launched / hovered in the sky, waiting to swoop down on its prey.

7.A pattern /an aspiration is beginning to emerge from our analysis of the accident data.

8.It is a combination that creates a pesky / synergistic benefit beyond that of either project standing alone.

9.Floods and earthquakes are natural / artificial disasters.

10.He took copious / ambivalent notes during the lecture.

2. Look at these sentences from the video and choose the phrase that is the closest in meaning to the phrase in bold

19

2.Practical Aspects of Academic and Scientific Talks

4.One of the limitations with tail-sitters is that they're susceptible to disturbances such as wind gusts.

9.At IREX we witnessed a robot handling a task that I as a human don't do so well.

a. saw b. made

10. Modern air-conditioning units are able to fuse the signals through fuzzy logic

1.We will use new localization technology developed by Verity Studios, a

_____ from our lab.

2.If the monospinner is an exercise in frugality, the omnicopter, with its eight propellers, is an exercise in_____.

3.This one wants to spin _____.

4.Because each unit knows where it is in space and is _____, there is really no limit to their number.

5.The reality is that it is difficult to predict the _____ of nascent technology.

6.Mechatronics is an _____ process not a revolutionary one.

7.Many mechatronic units possess _____ sensing abilities.

8.Mechatronics engineers can work with electronics and mechanical systems together and solve problems that cross discipline _____.

9.Those are _____ choices we have to make as a society and as individuals.

20