There are two types of listening samples in the listening portion of the TOEFL: short lectures and conversations. There are four to six short lectures and two to three conversations, each ranging from three to five minutes long. When you take the real test, you will first see a photo that should help orient you to the material, followed by an audio clip of either a conversation or a lecture. While the audio is playing, you should take notes. Try to identify main points if possible. After listening to the audio clip, you will be given five to six multiple choice questions. You will not be... Show more

There are two types of listening samples in the listening portion of the TOEFL: short lectures and conversations. There are four to six short lectures and two to three conversations, each ranging from three to five minutes long.

When you take the real test, you will first see a photo that should help orient you to the material, followed by an audio clip of either a conversation or a lecture. While the audio is playing, you should take notes.

Try to identify main points if possible. After listening to the audio clip, you will be given five to six multiple choice questions. You will not be given a transcript or be allowed to listen to the recording again.

 

Listening Passage 2: A lecture by a male professor - Lecture Transcript

Narrator: Listen to the following part of a lecture on Sensory Processing Disorder from an education class. Male professor: Ok everyone. Let’s settle down and get started. Today, we are continuing our discussion of different developmental and neurological disorders that your future students may have. We are going to turn our attention to Sensory Processing Disorder, or SPD, which is increasingly entering into the dialogue of educators, as awareness and diagnosis increase. In addition to affecting the five senses (touch, smell, taste, vision, and hearing), SPD can manifest in issues with proprioception, vestibular function, and interoception, which is one’s awareness of internal stimuli like hunger. I want to stress that SPD has a variety of presentations and it’s likely that any two students in your classrooms with SPD may seem almost more different from one another than the same! Individuals with SPD can be sensory-defensive or sensory-seeking, although these two are not always um…mutually exclusive. For example, someone may be sensory defensive when it comes to auditory stimuli, in which case, he or she has a very low tolerance for noises and becomes easily overwhelmed with sounds. That same person may be a sensory seeker with movement, and constantly desire movement and pressure. It is much more common that a person is either a seeker or defensive though. In general, sensory seekers have a very high threshold for the sensory stimuli; they need a lot of it for their brain to process the signal and feel satisfied. Those who are sensory defensive, have very low thresholds, so they cannot tolerate much input before becoming overwhelmed or even physically ill. In addition to issues with thresholds for sensory stimuli, there are often issues integrating the sensory information. Actually, the disorder used to be called sensory integration disorder, so some of you may have heard of that terminology instead. Anyway, integration issues can manifest in a variety of ways because there are several senses and the reliance on them overlaps in most situations. For example, it’s very rare that you only see something, but there is no auditory input, or that you’d taste something without also having some degree of smell input. With integration issues, sometimes it is these combinations that create issues with interpreting the signal. More often, there is an issue processing a given type of input. For example, someone with SPD may hear an annoying sound but completely lack the ability to point to the direction in which it is coming. The impact of SPD on an individual can be far-reaching because of the number of senses and the way in which they interact in an integrated way normally, to help us make sense of our environment and our body within the environment. Those with sensory-defensiveness tend to get easily overwhelmed and physically uncomfortable and normal, everyday environments like classrooms, shopping centers, and even the home, because everything is essentially “too much” – too loud, too bright, too chaotic, etc. Young children who are unable to fully express their feelings are often seen as picky, immature, or out-of-control. In the toddler population, kids with SPD are often tantruming, they may experience late potty training, they can be hard to calm and have difficulty sleeping, and sensory seekers are often found crashing into things, jumping, eating ice, yelling, etc. In the classroom, students with SPD often have issues with handwriting, copying from the board, tolerating noisy lunchrooms, making smooth transitions, and having a good awareness of their body’s position in space. Occupational therapy, which you may have heard referred to as OT, is the most frequently cited specialized service to help students with SPD cope with symptoms and be more comfortable. The
 therapist can work with the student and also advise the parents and teachers of modifications and techniques to facilitate the student’s comfort. The specific OT services that a student may receive vary according to their needs and presentation of the disorder as well as any concomitant challenges. Actually, that’s another important point to emphasize. Sensory Processing Disorder is often accompanied by other learning disorders or behavioral and developmental issues, such as autism, ADHD, and anxiety disorders. If students have concurrent disorders, or what we refer to as comorbidities, these should be considered in conjunction when determining classroom accommodations and overall treatment. Your textbook does a good job covering suggested classroom accommodations for all sorts of SPD-related challenges, so let’s review particular OT strategies and classroom modifications next class after your reading assignment.

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