How the IELTS Listening test works
IELTS Listening lasts 30 minutes and has 40 questions across 4 parts. The recording is played once only — there is no second chance to catch something you missed, which is exactly why timing and concentration matter as much as vocabulary does. The four parts follow a fixed pattern: Part 1 is a conversation between two speakers in an everyday context (booking something, asking for information); Part 2 is a monologue in an everyday context; Part 3 is a conversation in an education or training setting (for example, university students discussing a topic, perhaps guided by a tutor); Part 4 is a monologue, usually an academic-style talk. The format is the same for Academic and General Training.
Because the audio never repeats, the test really measures whether you can stay with it in real time: read ahead, predict what kind of answer is coming, catch it the moment it's said, and move on without dwelling on a question you weren't sure about. That is a trainable skill, but it's difficult to train alone, because you don't always know which exact moments you're losing marks on until someone points them out.
Where marks are lost on IELTS Listening
In IELTS Listening coaching, four patterns come up again and again:
- Paraphrasing. The question is rarely worded the way the recording says it. If you're listening for the exact words in the question, you can miss the answer even though you heard it — the audio simply says it a different way.
- Distractors. Sometimes a speaker gives one piece of information and then corrects or changes it later, so the first thing you hear is not always the final answer. Writing down the first thing you hear too soon can lose the mark.
- Spelling and word limits. Form, note and table completion questions specify a limit such as "no more than two words and/or a number." Going over that limit, or spelling a name wrong, loses the mark even when the right word was heard correctly.
- Losing your place. Because the recording only plays once and keeps moving, one missed question can drag down the next two or three as well, simply because you're still hunting for the previous answer.
None of this is about English level in the abstract — it's exam technique under real timing pressure, and that's exactly what a private session can work on directly.
Inside a 60-minute Listening session with Mike
A regular Listening coaching session runs 60 minutes, live over Google Meet, one-to-one — never in a group, and always with Mike, a Cambridge CELTA-qualified teacher based in Hanoi who has taught English and IELTS for over 12 years across Vietnam, Turkey and Iran. A typical session works like this:
- You work through real, test-style Listening audio, in the same format and pacing as the actual exam.
- Mike stops at the exact point an answer is said, so you hear precisely where the paraphrase, the distractor or the changed number decided the answer — not just the general area of the recording.
- You work on the specific trap that cost the mark: a spelling habit, a word-limit slip, a distractor pattern, or a strategy for re-finding your place after a missed question.
- Feedback happens in the moment, during the session, not written up and sent days later.
Afterwards, written progress notes go into your account so you can see what was covered and what to focus on before the next session. If you'd rather review the audio and discussion later, sessions can be recorded on request. Listening is one part of a wider one-to-one online IELTS tutor in Hanoi service — the same format is used for Speaking coaching and Writing feedback, so sessions can combine skills if that suits you better than Listening alone. You can read more about the teacher on the about Mike page.
Common IELTS Listening question types and what trips people up
Every Listening test mixes question types from the list below. None of them is inherently harder than the others — each one just has its own trap, and knowing the trap in advance is most of the battle.
| Question type | What it tests | What trips people up |
|---|---|---|
| Form / note / table completion | Filling gaps with words, numbers or dates from the audio | Word limits ("no more than two words"), and getting the spelling exactly right, even for names heard only once |
| Multiple choice | Choosing the correct answer from three options (A, B, C); sometimes you choose more than one answer from a longer list | Distractors — sometimes a speaker mentions one option and then corrects or changes it later |
| Matching | Linking items in a list to a set of options | The questions follow the order of the recording, but you choose each answer from a separate list of options, so you have to keep track of both while it plays |
| Plan / map / diagram labelling | Completing the labels on a plan, map or diagram by choosing your answers from a list | Losing your place if attention drifts from the layout while listening |
| Sentence completion | Filling in the gap in each sentence with words from the recording, within the word limit | Paraphrasing — the sentence uses different wording from the audio, so listening for exact phrases fails |
| Short-answer questions | Answering in a few words rather than a full sentence | Going over the stated word limit, or writing a full sentence instead of just the answer |
Price and how to book
A 60-minute Listening coaching session is 500,000 ₫ in Vietnam; a 30-minute trial session is 150,000 ₫, available once, on your first booking only. Booking more than 5 regular sessions together in a single order gives 10% off until 31 December 2026 (500,000 ₫ → 450,000 ₫ per session), available once per student, on their first qualifying order only; every order after that is full price, and there's no discount for fewer than 6 sessions. Students outside Vietnam see the price converted automatically into their own currency. Full current pricing, including these packages, is on the pricing section of the site.
Payment is by PayPal (cards work through PayPal's guest checkout), bank transfer in Vietnam (VietQR), or USDT (TRC20 or BEP20); the site never sees or stores your card details, and you get a receipt from both the payment provider and the site itself. As soon as payment goes through, the Google Meet link and calendar invite arrive by email, along with a link to set up your account for session history, receipts and progress notes. You can reschedule free up to 12 hours before a session; cancellations inside that window aren't refunded, and there's no subscription or package you're locked into. Book a Listening session from the live calendar, shown in your own timezone.
If you'd rather read this in Vietnamese, see Luyện IELTS Listening 1 kèm 1.