Sometimes we listen for the gist of what the other person is saying and sometimes we listen for a particular detail of information that interests us. Sometimes the speaker's meanings are explicit, but at other times the meanings are implicit, and we must use our wits and imagination to catch the implications.

Responses to a text may be objective (for example, summarising the text or making an objective valuation of it) or may be subjective (for example, responding with personal ideas, feelings or associations).

When a learner's response to a text entails speaking or writing, it may be difficult for us to judge if his or her inadequacies in speaking and writing also mean inadequacies in listening. Furthermore, learners might be able to focus better on listening if they are not required to make an oral or written response. For these reasons we include games in this section that call for a non-verbal response, that is to say, ‘listen and do’. The ‘doing’ shows, in a fair and accurate way, the extent to which the learner has listened, and understood.