This is not an accurate word-for-word transcript of the programme. Группа Learning English: http://vkontakte.ru/club17650165 Продолжение транскрипта: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/webcast/al_06.pdf
ANNOUNCER: It’s time for Academic Listening - a series for students at English-speaking universities. Join Susan Fearn and members of the World Service class of 2001 as they continue to discuss the skills and techniques needed for listening to and understanding a lecture. CLIP: Lecturer … and that brings me to the end of my series of lectures on the plays of Shakespeare. Now, to end this session, has anyone any questions about today’s lecture or the series as a whole? Yes, Mohammud… Susan: We’ve focused on the important role of the introduction and the main body of a lecture, and now we turn our attention to the content and function of the final section of a lecture – the conclusion. CLIP: Simon Williams In the conclusion of their lecture, lecturer is summing up, going through main points, indicating how important various bits of evidence are. Susan: Simon Williams teaches English in the Language Centre at University College London. CLIP: Simon Williams And a good lecturer’s going to indicate where students should go next - in thinking and activities, in what they're going to read up on in library - maybe if they're going to take that topic as essay topic. The lecturer might also talk about what they weren’t able to do in that 50 minutes - what they’ve had to leave out … and therefore what students can go away with and discover for themselves, if they’re interested. Susan: The concluding section of a lecture acts as a summary of the main points. It’s a final chance to make sure you’ve made a note of what the lecturer considers to be the most important things to remember. It might also give you clues about what you can do or study next. But how do you know when the lecturer has reached their conclusion? Well, as these WS class members point out, with practice, it becomes quite easy to spot the signposts and marker phrases that guide you through a lecture. CLIP: Student Ana Most of the time when the lecture is finishing the 'in conclusion' or these sorts of markers, or even 'summarising', are going to appear. You can understand when it's the end of the introduction, when it's the end of the main point and when the conclusion is coming. CLIP: Christine Reeves He would signal when he's going to finish speaking by introducing a summary - he might use a phrase like 'well, in conclusion', and then what he would normally do. And to help you again - if you missed the main points in the body of the lecture - he would repeat what the main points were again. All of these features of organisation should help you to follow the lecture. Susan: We’ve discovered during these programmes that there are several things you can do to help you understand lectures. We’ve suggested that it’s important to prepare before the lecture by looking at the course outline and learning specialist vocabulary, for example. We’ve said that thinking about the purpose of a lecture can help you know where to focus attention. And we’ve offered clues about how lecturers organise their material and highlight the main points. It should be clear by now that listening to lectures is a busy task – it’s not just the lecturer who’s doing the work! And, as Simon Williams suggests, there’s a speaking role for students as well. CLIP: Simon Williams There might be Q&A session at that stage, and lecturers are delighted if people ask questions to demonstrate they've been listening and interested in the topic. Because if lecturer is interested enough to deliver something on a particular subject, I guess that means they’ve got a genuine interest. And they’ll be delighted that the students return that interest and share in it...