How to: Listen
Help students improve their listening skills. Ask students what they think good listening “looks” like and deploy strategies that promote attentive listening, such as:
- Preview or summarize what they’re about to hear, for instance, “We’re going to watch a short video about Anni Albers talking about her weaving process.” Tell them that, after watching the video, they’ll break into pairs to talk before returning to share back to the whole class. Some discussion prompts might be:
- Ask one question about the lecture and discuss possible answers
- Discuss two points that were puzzling
- Teach the main points to each other
- Write a short reflection and then discuss it with a partner
- Encourage note-taking, preferably by hand. Handwriting notes has been demonstrated to improve comprehension and retention.
- Pair visuals with spoken words wherever possible to aid learning and retention.
- Promote doodling (but perhaps no doodling during student presentations, slides or critiques, so that their classmates know they’re paying attention).
- Encourage students not to think about what they want to say in response to what someone is saying but just to listen to what is being said.
- Ask students to listen for what’s NOT being said.
- Observe how the speaker’s body language can provide clues to meaning.
Note that as a general rule, students can effectively listen for about half their age in minutes, so for a child of 10 that’s about 5 minutes, for an 18 yr old, that’s about 9 minutes. But in general, we all stop really hearing after ten minutes.
And here’s a great strategy from Edutopia:
Teaching Students to Focus and Listen
Explicit instruction on using the HEAR strategy offers concrete steps to focus on and improve listening — and emphasizes why and how developing this skill is so important. As Michigan teacher Aaron Rohde says, “Just saying that one is going to be a better listener is not enough to make it happen. One must work hard to improve such an essential skill.”
The HEAR strategy consists of these four steps:
- Halt: Stop whatever else you are doing, end your internal dialogue on other thoughts, and free your mind to pay attention to the person speaking.
- Engage: Focus on the speaker. We suggest a physical component, such as turning your head slightly so that your right ear is toward the speaker as a reminder to be engaged solely in listening.
- Anticipate: By looking forward to what the speaker has to say, you are acknowledging that you will likely learn something new and interesting, which will enhance your attention.
- Replay: Think about what the speaker is saying. Analyze and paraphrase it in your mind or in discussion with the speaker and other classmates. Replaying the information will aid in understanding and remembering what you have learned.
Resources that contributed to these tips:
- Five Listening Strategies, Edutopia
- 10 Ways to Teach Your Learners Effective Listening Skills, FutureFocusedLearning
- 10 Teaching Strategies to Help Students Listen, Teach Hub ten tips (K-12)
- Teaching Strategies to Increase Listening Skills, Highly Effective Teacher