Listening Note-taking Skills Course

Course Content:

We’ve released a course that will improve your academic listening note-taking skills by 100%. The course is designed to show you how to take lecture notes effectively and use a range of note-taking strategies. The course includes lots of short listening practice exercises so you will have lots of opportunity to improve your note-taking skills. 

Key skills

• English Level B1-C2.
• 12-hour course.
• 4 lessons (2-3 hours each).
• Note-taking strategies.
• Abbreviations & symbols.
• Lecture outlines.
• Cornell notes system.
• Lots of listening practice.
• Sample notes and answers.
• Duration: 30 Days.

So what will learn on the course?

The course is divided into four lessons: Note-taking methods 1-4. Below is what you will do in each lesson.

Note-taking Methods 1

• Practice in using a range of note-taking strategies (e.g., linear, mind map, spider gram, flow chart, timeline).
• 5x micro-lecture listening with note-taking frameworks.
• 2x mini lectures with note-taking frameworks.
• 1x 8-minute lecture using an outline.
• Quiz (16 questions).

Note-taking Methods 2

• Practice in using abbreviations and symbols.
• 4x micro-lecture listenings with note-taking frameworks.
• 2x mini lectures with note-taking frameworks.
• 1x 8-minute lecture using an outline.
• Quiz (18 questions).

Note-taking Methods 3 (general topics)

• An introduction to the Cornell notes system.
• 5x mini lectures using the Cornell notes system.
• 1x 8-minute lecture using the Cornell notes system.
• Quiz (22 questions).

Note-taking Methods 4 (science topics)

• A revision of the Cornell notes system.
• 5x mini lectures using the Cornell notes system.
• 1x 6-minute lecture using Cornell notes System.
• Quiz (15 questions).

Materials

The course is divided into four lessons and each lesson has a downloadable digital booklet.

Listening Note-taking Strategies

The course focuses on seven types of note-taking strategies: Flowcharts, spider grams (mind maps), linear style, Cornell notes system, tables, trees and timelines.

Abbreviations

The course also develops your understanding of using abbreviations and symbols. Many of the sample note-taking answers use a range of abbreviations and symbols so you see them being used naturally.

The Listening Exercises

The listening lessons are multi-level. This means you can choose the difficulty of each task.

• VOCABULARY: You have the option to check the key vocabulary before the listening.
• NOTE-TAKING FRAMEWORK: We provide note-taking frameworks in a drop down menu.
• ANSWERS: All answers are provided so you can check your notes.
• TRANSCRIPT: We provide the written text of every recording.

EXAMPLE 1: Note-taking Strategies (taken from Note-taking Methods 1)

Listen to a two-minute lecture on the impacts of bike lanes in cities. Take notes using the linear method and a table. Check the vocabulary before you listen. Then take notes using the linear method and a table and try to use as many abbreviations and symbols as you can. Listen as many times as you like. If you’d like more guidance, then use the note-taking framework in the drop-down menu.

Cornell Notes System

The three key areas:

The five stages in the system:

EXAMPLE 2: Cornell Notes System (taken from Note-taking Methods 4)

Lecture 1: This lecture is about the International Space Station (ISS). Write some notes about these topic questions:

1. What do you know about the ISS?
2. What do you think the ISS looks like?
3. What would you like or dislike about staying on the ISS?
4. Do you think the ISS is the first step in space colonisation?

Now listen to the lecture and complete the main column.