In his book “Keys to Communication: An Essential Guide to Communication in the
Real World”, Walker (2016) says that “adults spend about 45 percent of their time listening, which is
more than any other communicative activity”. Therefore, developing and improving listening abilities
is important for effective communication, and listening strategies are useful tools in that journey.
Which of the alternatives below is a suggestion that helps with the strategy “listening for gist”?
✂️ a) Focus on the content words, so the listener can understand the context and the main idea of the
message. ✂️ b) Detect “signposts” that help to understand how the speaker links their ideas. In a lecture, for
example, “moving on to” means the speaker has finished talking about one of the topics proposed. ✂️ c) Use previous knowledge and other information available, such as images or gestures, to infer the
meaning of words that the listener might not recognize. ✂️ d) Predict the use of combined words, such as verbs and prepositions that are usually paired up
together, like “interested” and “in”. ✂️ e) Practice listening while reading a script in order to get used to different pronunciations of known
vocabulary according to the surrounding words.