Announcement. Strategies

Announcements Listening Strategies

  1. Analyze all the possible situations related to the topic (where and under what circumstances you can hear the definite announcement).
  2. Brainstorm topical vocabulary on the topic of the announcement (make a list of 20-30 widespread words that you may hear in the message).
  3. Practise repeating the brainstormed words to yourself aloud. Make a few partnerships with them.
  4. Practise speed repeating 5-6 words you hear one by one without changing their order.
  5. Answering questions in pre-listening activities, always give details, using as many key words on the topic as possible. It’ll help you understand the announcement better.
  6. Be totally focused on the figures, abbreviations, proper and geographical names to be completed. Make associations, visualize to remember them better.
  7. Before doing pre-listening activities, scan all the tasks in all three sections (pre-, while- and post-listening), highlighting key words and phrases, picking widespread synonyms of them.
  8. Remember that peculiar characteristics of any announcement are its length (they are short), conciseness and laconism. So be self-disciplined to catch all the necessary information after the only listening.

Announcements Listening Strategies: doing exercises

  1. After you have accomplished all Pre-listening tasks, read carefully the instructions and the text of the exercises in while-listening and post-listening parts.
  2. Mark the figures and dates you can see in the while-listening and post-listening exercises.
  3. Highlight key words and write them out on a separate piece of paper. Translate them, find synonyms, make word combinations with them to understand the announcement better.
  4. In order to be ready for filling in the script of an announcement, be attentive to the details, to the way the words are combined into word partnerships: analyze what parts of speech can suit the gaps, what attributes are used, what particles, prepositions, conjunctions follow the verbs, nouns etc.
  5. Reading the instruction, focus on the number of words you need to write for each answer, try to predict what questions will probably need a) a figure b) time, c) days of the week.
  6. Read the heading and try to predict the answer before you listen to the announcement.