Firstly, students don't always recognize the signals which tell the listener that certain points are important. Some of these signals will be quite different from those employed in writing.

Secondly, some students try too hard to understand everything. When they come to a small but difficult point, they waste time trying to work it out, and so they may miss a more important point.

Thirdly, students must concentrate very hard on taking notes and therefore may miss developments in the argument. But note-taking is a separate subject which will be dealt with in a later talk.

There are however other problems the student is faced with, which I'd like to mention briefly.

It's alway a surprise to students to discover how much the pronunciation of English changes from one English-speaking country to another, and from region to region.

Many lecturers from Britain have a B.B.C type accent, the type of English associated mainly with the South of England and most commonly taught to non-native speakers.

However. other lectures will speak differently. To give an example, bus, love, mum etc, as spoken in the South, are pronounced in Manchester and many other parts as bus, love and mum,