B1 Active Listening: Orally Summarizing Main Points
Welcome! In this lesson, we will practice our final active listening skill: summarizing1. This means restating the main points of a text briefly and in your own words2. It proves you have truly understood the information.
1. How to Summarize: A 3-Step Process
Good summarizing is a process. Follow these three simple steps:
- Listen to Understand: The first time you listen, just focus on the gist. What is the speaker's main topic and message?
- Listen and Take Notes: The second time you listen, use your note-taking skills. Write down only the key words, numbers, and main ideas. Do not write full sentences.
- Summarize from Your Notes: Look ONLY at your notes. Use them to build one or two new sentences that explain the main points. This is your summary.
2. Practice Summarizing: A Short Talk
Let's practice this process together. We will listen to a short talk about tourism in Cambodia.
Step 1 & 2: Listen and Take Notes
(Listen to the audio. You can listen a second time to write down the key words.)
"Tourism is very important for the Cambodian economy3. Millions of people visit the country every year. The most popular destination4 is, of course, Siem Reap, because of the famous Angkor Wat temples. However, the government is also encouraging tourists to visit other areas, such as the beautiful beaches in the south and the mountains in the northeast, to help the economy grow in those regions too."
Step 3: Create Your Summary
First, look at an example of simple notes. Then, see how we can build a summary from them.
Click to See Example Notes
- Tourism imp. for Cambodia economy
- Most popular: Siem Reap (Angkor Wat)
- Gov't encourages visiting other places: beaches, mountains
- Why? Help economy in other regions
Click to See Example Summary
Using only the notes above, a good summary would be:
"Tourism is important for Cambodia's economy. Although Siem Reap is the most popular place, the government wants to encourage tourists to also visit other regions, like the beaches and mountains, to help their economies grow."
Final Quiz: Listen and Summarize
Now it's your turn. Listen to this short talk about the benefits of exercise. Take simple notes. Then, choose the best summary from the options below.
Talk: (Listen to the audio and take notes)
Which is the best summary of the talk?
- (a) Exercise is only for losing weight and making your heart strong.
- (b) The main benefits of exercise are a stronger heart to reduce disease risk, and an improved mood from brain chemicals called endorphins.
- (c) Endorphins are chemicals in your brain that are released when you exercise, and this is good for your heart.
Click to Show Answers
Answer: (b). This is the best summary because it correctly identifies the two main points of the talk: heart health and mood improvement.
Homework Task
1. Summarize the News: Find a short (1-minute) news story in English on YouTube. Listen to it twice. On the second listen, take notes. Then, pause the video and use your notes to tell a friend (or record yourself) what the main points of the news story were in 1-2 sentences.
2. Summarize a Conversation: After you have a conversation with a friend today, take one minute to think privately. What were the main points of your conversation? Try to summarize it in your head. This is great practice for remembering information.
Vocabulary Glossary
- To Summarize (verb) - Khmer: សង្ខេប - To give a short, clear description of the main ideas of something. ↩
- In your own words (phrase) - Khmer: តាមពាក្យរបស់អ្នកផ្ទាល់ - Using your own language and sentence structure, not copying someone else's. ↩
- Economy (noun) - Khmer: សេដ្ឋកិច្ច - The system of how money, business, and trade are organized in a country. ↩
- Destination (noun) - Khmer: គោលដៅ - The place to which someone or something is going or being sent. ↩