Most information is still conveyed to university students through lectures. This necessitates that students have sophisticated listening and note-taking skills, and poses additional difficulties for non-native students. To identify areas for improvement, science lectures in English in the Sultanate of Oman were analyzed. The relationship between the lecturers' method of explaining and the students' way of recording information was investigated by examining notes taken on one topic. Analysis of both course handouts and student notes revealed that many students were unaware of lecturers' cues to signal key words, and had difficulty extracting them from ongoing discourse. When students did make an effort to record important points, they used no standard abbreviations nor any form of shorthand. In almost half the cases where independent notes were made, layout was poor and relationships between items of information were not clearly indicated, leaving an incomplete and misleading summary of the lecture. Based on the results, suggestions are offered for improving foreign students' listening and note-taking skills. (MSE)