![]() ![]() What is probably more effective is using activities where it is impossible to get every word and yet the activity is doable. It seems as though many students are reluctant to abandon attempts to understand every single word. But equally the answer might be 'no', because just telling students it isn’t necessary doesn’t really help them. Yes, because it might help some students relax and also realize that they aren’t expected to understand every word. Does it help to tell students not to understand every word? Turn-taking in conversations requires both skills to be used, and we can’t really classify it as one or the other, so why do we try to do this in the classroom? Making listening in the classroom closer to listening outside the classroom will help our students far more than simply pressing play and standing back. In real life, listening and speaking are frequently inseparable. In many ways, dividing the skills up into four separate entities is both unrealistic and unhelpful. For example, in the article Tasks for listening I said that one of the best sources of listening material was the students themselves but that often students don’t really have to listen to each other because many pairwork activities are, in reality, two separate monologues! The key thing here is to create a need to listen, and this can often be done by simply tweaking an activity – see ‘Different or same?’ and ‘Jumbled dialogues’ in the practical ideas section at the end of this article.įinally, active listening doesn’t take place in isolation. Secondly, we need to make the most of listening opportunities in the classroom. ![]() Developing interest, giving students some understanding of the topic or actively getting them thinking about what they want out of the activity is far more likely to engage students than simply playing a recording and asking them to complete a pre-designed task. I’ve mentioned in the Writing matters series the way that ‘going in cold’ to a writing activity can cause problems, and this also applies to listening (or any other type of activity, in fact). ![]() One element of this is building up an interest prior to doing the listening activity itself. Students need to want to listen, not simply to be able to answer some comprehension questions, but also because there is a desire or realistic need. The first of these is that listening needs to be meaningful. This is not to say that it isn’t one form of active listening, but I think it is just that – one form.įor me, active listening has a number of key features. ![]() However, to my mind, this is quite a narrow definition and fails to take into account how we are active listeners in real-life situations. This idea of active listening often focuses on getting the listener to paraphrase or restate what they have heard to the speaker. One definition of active listening is that it requires feedback from the listener to the speaker. So, what are some of the key features of active listening? Either people are interested in hearing what is being said or in being part of the conversation, or they feel there is a need to listen and that, in some way, they will benefit from it. The simple answer to that is interest or need. Listening, then, becomes both active and dynamic rather than a one-way passive act. Quite clearly, then, the listener has an impact on the conversation, shaping it often as much as the original speaker. In the active-listening situations mentioned above, listening is a two-way process with the roles alternating between the two (or more) people involved in the interaction. How do listeners affect what is going on? However, in many situations, listening is an active task. Of course, there are plenty of examples where this isn’t the case, for example watching TV, listening to a lecture and listening to an announcement at an airport or train station. Real-life listening usually requires interaction between the listener and the speaker. What are some of the key features of active listening?Īnd, finally, I’ll suggest some activities to help our students become active listeners.How do listeners affect what is going on?.In this article, I’ll try to build on some of the issues touched on before, thinking about what listening in real life actually means. I’ve mentioned the superficial and artificial nature of classroom listening where students are relegated to the role of ‘eavesdropper’ with no real engagement in the process. In the previous articles on listening I’ve looked at aspects such as process listening, top-down and bottom-up listening, and tasks for listening. Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship. ![]()
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