Education
Why Do We Not Teach Students How to Listen
I remember being tasked at the age of sixteen to teach a bunch of 8–10-year-olds. I was terrified and did not feel 100% confident in the content I was teaching. And as you would probably expect, it went horribly.
Since then, I have made sure that I have always planned before my lessons. But having that experience helped me a lot. I have never taught or presented in front of 8–10-year-olds again, and I never hope to do so again.
But as their attention spans are not as high, it takes a type of presentation to keep them engaged. And it often requires much diligence to ensure that the children are both entertained and learning.
However, the difficulty of teaching the children was their ability to get distracted. It could be a noise or their friend smiling at them. They would immediately lose focus and stop listening.
I figured that something we do not teach in school is listening. We assume that all students should know how to do it straight away. Despite giving their parents a run around at home, we believe that children come into school with this skill.
The reality is, many adults do not even know how to listen. We often find ourselves having to repeat things to one another. And get frustrated when we are not being heard. Unlike children, we have learned the skill of pretending to listen. Unfortunately, children make it a bit more obvious.
In class, we can tell instantly when a child is not focused. They may be twiddling with their thumbs or whispering with their friends. These things can be annoying, and I often reflect on what I could have done better to keep the students engaged.
However, I think the problem lies in not teaching children how to listen. Also, not teaching teachers how to listen too. There is great power in being able to actively listen to someone. It improves learning and encourages empathy in the classroom.
So, here are a few ways you can begin teaching and promoting active listening in the classroom.
Give Students the Opportunity to Summarise & Share
Teachers often put it on themselves to summarise the lesson. That may mean having a slide for bullet points or giving handouts for students to take away. But to promote active listening, we need to allow those listening to us to summarise what they heard.
I remember completing a coding program on Python whilst at work, and it lasted about 3 hours long. There was no way I could pick up everything said, and I had forgotten things I learned in the first hour.
However, with 30-minutes left to go, the teacher asked us to create a cheat sheet. We would need to put all the things that future students would need to know and be careful not to forget. It was at this point I realised I was not active listening.
I struggled to think of any points to take away and found myself going through the slides again. Nevertheless, because of the task, I created a good cheat sheet.
This same principle can be used in the classroom. By letting students know that you would like them to summarise the lesson, you promote active listening. Try combining both summarising and sharing in this one task. These are two essential components of active listening.
Let students create a nice one-pager summarising the lesson. You can let students know that their one-pagers will be given to another student also. By doing this, students can begin pulling away what they understood from the lesson. And you can check to see the areas that have been missed.
It is also a good indicator for the teacher to see what learning objectives did not resonate with their students. That way, they can think of ways to engage their students better in that part of the lesson.
Give Students the Opportunity to Repeat What They Heard
A core part of active listening is the ability to repeat what was said to you. It allows you to do two things. The first is to show the other person that you were listening, and the second is to clarify what you heard.
By doing this, you can ensure you fully grasp what the other person is saying to you. And that leaves you with no excuses for misunderstandings. However, in a classroom, it can be hard to implement this. And that is because not every child will be able to do this.
But, there is still a unique way you can do this. Thanks to COVID-19, teachers have been finding new digital tools to assist in engaging their students. One of these has been online polls, and I think these are a great way to solve the problem.
You can take time out in each lesson to deliberately stop and ask students to comment on what they have got from the lesson so far. By doing this, you allow students to practice their active listening by feeding back to you what they understand.
In doing so, you can also clear up any points that students may be misunderstanding before moving on. We can still use the survival techniques found during COVID in our classroom.
Many of these have been useful and can help enhance the student’s learning experience.
Active Listening for a Better Future
Many of us adults were never taught how to actively listen. And I am sure it has led to many disagreements and unnecessary outcomes. I know I did not learn how to listen until my first serious romantic relationship.
I learned that it is important to not just jump to conclusions. But also, not to try to cut the other person off. It is vital to let the other person speak for as long as they need to, then try to understand them.
Active listening is a core skill that could end many arguments we often find ourselves in. So, why would we not teach this skill to our students? Not only does it enhance their learning, but it also helps them form better relationships for the future.
So, I challenge all teachers today to begin promoting and teaching active listening. That way, we can improve the future relationships of our students. And help them absorb knowledge in a much more effective way.