• Be aware of a range of accents

The first and foremost IELTS listening tips is to be aware of the wide range of accents. This test will feature a range of accents to reflect the international nature of English. The recordings you will get in the exam may have speakers from different linguistic regions portraying the English dialect popular in their region. So, you need to be well prepared for different accents stemming from various English-speaking countries. Hence, to grasp the accent, watching News channels plays an essential role. Not just news channels, listening to some local news channels, podcasts and radio stations will also help in grasping the accents. Hence, during the preparation, do focus on listening to contents in variant accents.

• Improve your vocabulary

If you are so concerned about how to improve Listening skills in IELTS, then the importance of vocabulary remains definitely on top. This tip might look so obvious but many students don’t know the most effective way to improve their vocabulary. The method of memorizing a list of new words will not let you achieve a lot. Without understanding the terms and the context in which they need to be used, the memorization method is not going to help in IELTS test. When you listen to spoken English, listen actively by noting the words you hear and that are unfamiliar to you. Focus on learning them and their usage. Learning with the usage of a dictionary is also a good option. Along with the meaning, also do focus on the pronunciation, common synonyms, antonyms and collocations. Record all this information in your vocabulary notebook. Though, this method takes time, it’s time well spent. Every time you do this, you will be adding one more word to your vocabulary book and to your brain that you’ll remember and will be able to use confidently in all parts of the IELTS exam.

• Don’t lose your concentration

It can be difficult to stay focused during your IELTS Listening test, but it’s also extremely important if you want to score a Band 7 or above. To improve your concentration, you need to practice active listening and this is also one among the IELTS listening tips. This involves setting yourself small tasks when you are practising and actually doing something when you are listening, just like you will be in your test. This might be difficult, but you must concentrate on listening and answering in the exam. One of the things candidates do is that they tend to go back and forth while listening just to listen to one sentence again. But this way of learning will help in focusing more and reduce your tendency to go back and listen every time for one word, one part or one sentence of the question. Another way is to leave that question with missed out part to be left for now and to concentrate on the rest of the part and coming back to it while reviewing the answers at the end.

• Focus on essentials

Among other IELTS listening tips, building a habit of differentiating between essential and non-essential is of utmost importance. This means you need to listen to enough recordings and attempt answers to understand what is vital while listening to a recording and what is not. While giving the exam, this will help you in finishing the test on time without wasting time on noting down non-essential and irrelevant information.

These are few tips that will definitely help in effective learning of skill-set required for your IELTS listening test. But, along with these practice tests are really quintessential for IELTS especially for IELTS listening as they will help in identifying the areas of English that are giving you trouble and also help in focusing more on your weak spots at first before branching out in a new direction!