An Introduction to Listening Strategies for ICFE

ICFE is designed for people who want to use English for their work in an international finance environment or related area of study. Therefore the emphasis is very much on the development of skills which are needed in real-world, non-examination contexts and on tasks which require the strategies necessary when communicating in real-life situations. This page will describe some of the strategies good listeners use when listening in real life, in their own language as well as in English. It will also demonstrate how ICFE Listening reflects those strategies and will offer candidates support in using those strategies to complete the tasks.

What strategies do we use when we are listening?

When we are listening, we generally have an idea about what we are going to hear. It may be that we are hearing the answer to a question we have asked, or that we are listening to a talk or lecture relevant to our area of expertise or study. In both situations, good listeners use their expectations and knowledge of the context to help them listen and make sense of what they hear.

In the ICFE Listening Test, the instructions for each task set the scene by telling us who is speaking and what they are talking about, e.g. 'You will hear an accountant giving advice to a group of people who are thinking of starting small businesses'. The instructions on the CD are followed by a pause which gives candidates time to study the questions on the page. This too helps them to think about, and prepare themselves mentally, for what they will hear.

In real-life situations we are faced with an enormous range of voices and accents. The more we are exposed to different voices and accents the more accustomed we become to using the strategies we need in order to understand them, e.g. matching them to voices and accents which we have heard before, focusing on key words and intonation, and guessing meaning from context.

In ICFE, the listening texts use a range of voices and accents. However, the accents are always standard variants of native-speaker English from around the world. The recordings are produced in a studio to ensure a consistently high sound quality.

Even in our first language, we generally take a moment to become accustomed to the voices and accents of people we are listening to for the first time. Good listeners focus on a range of features in order to 'tune in' to a new speaker, e.g. accent, tone of voice, the situation, all of which help us to make sense of what is being said.

In ICFE Listening, texts are self-contained, with a clear beginning and line of development. Care is taken to ensure that the context is fully established and candidates have time to ‘tune in’ before information related to the questions is heard.

In real life, we know why we are listening to someone or something. It may be that we need information, e.g. a client’s circumstances or the details of a case, and that we will later be required to act on that information; or it may be that we have a professional or personal interest in a subject and so attend a lecture or meeting; it may even be for social reasons, e.g. taking part in a conversation between colleagues.

In ICFE, the listening texts reflect the things we listen to in real life and are taken from authentic sources. The tasks provide a clear purpose for listening which reflects the ways we listen in the real world.

When people speak spontaneously, or are addressing an audience, there is usually a fair amount of repetition and redundancy which gives the listener time to focus on the most important information. There may also be the odd word or phrase which we don't catch, or even understand, but this rarely impedes our understanding of the key information or of the speaker’s overall intended meaning.

In ICFE, the listening texts present the candidate with real language as it is spoken in a finance-related context, including features of natural spoken English. The tasks are carefully constructed to test understanding of important or relevant information and will not test incidental information or words or phrases which are beyond ICFE level. Questions are generally quite evenly spaced, so that candidates have enough time both to hear and assimilate what is said and to record their answers.

The way we respond to something we hear depends on what we are listening to and why we are listening to it. In a lecture, seminar or a meeting with colleagues, for instance, we may take notes. When in consultation meetings with clients, as well as listening for specific information we would probably be interested in the attitudes and opinions of the speakers, whether stated or implied.

In the ICFE Listening paper, some of the tasks require a realistic response to a text, for example, actively making a note of information as you might in a talk or lecture. Others, for example, multiple-choice questions, are more abstract and aim to test areas of understanding in situations where the listener in the real world may make no active response, but is listening to understand subtleties such as attitude or opinion or the overall message.