On the Relationship between the IELTS Listening and Listening in Academic English Programs

Abstract

The challenge for many teachers teaching in academic English programs is, on the one hand, to actualize the objectives of their course and on the other hand, prepare their students for the important international tests such as IELTS and TOEFLE. The current study seeks to reconcile this challenge by drawing on the relationship between the IELTS listening and listening in academic English programs. The requirements of the two domains were compared through a semi – structured interview with five participating academic English instructors from two state universities of Iran. It was found that whilst IELTS listening bears a little bit of resemblance to the one aspect of academic listening - the literal understanding, there are also some very significant differences. The findings suggests that the type of listening the IELTS requires is different from academic listening in terms of pragmatic understanding, the integration of skills, multiplicity of texts for listening, information literacy and the concept of construct irrelevant variance. The findings also indicate the overall usefulness of the IELTS preparation practices within academic English courses.

The Predictive Validity of the IELTS Test and Contribution of IELTS Preparation Courses to International Students’ Subsequent Academic Study: Insights from Vietnamese International Students in the UK

“…Most of them have examined the relevance of a specific IELTS sub-skill to academic study at university. With respect to listening, Sabet and Babaei (2017) found that academic listening and IELTS listening tasks were different in terms of pragmatic understanding, the integration of skills, multiplicity of texts for listening, information literacy, and the concept of construct irrelevant variance. In terms of reading, Kovalenko (2018) reported that although preparing for the IELTS reading test could help to improve students’ concentration, anxiety control, and decision-making speed when reading academic texts, it did not significantly contribute to success in academic reading tasks.…”