Improving listening to a complex telephone call

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cloa513
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2018 1:43 am

Improving listening to a complex telephone call

Post by cloa513 » Thu Feb 08, 2018 1:06 am

I am an Australian living in Japan with my wife and son. I have new student (Japanese) who gets a phone call from a Chinese subsidiary about once a week regarding contract problem. He catches none of what was said.

It is no wonder because I got him show me an email that their lawyer sends to the corporate lawyer as a substitute for his phone call (not good for his position in the company to do it this way) and each sentence goes on for three lines starting with a subordinate clause with words like tribunal, hearing, client, submission, proposal, case manager (+ one acronym), post-hearing statement, coordinating, schedule, advisable and arrangement. He says the phone calll sounds like that. I am getting him to interrupt that flow with tell me again, tell me slowly.

He is open to basic listening practice but do you have any suggestions on teaching strategy? His English is pre-intermediate. I have 2 hours teaching per week.

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