The process of communication not only involves speaking but actively listening as well. How actively we listen, decides how actively we act and respond in a process. For students, active listening skills are highly important. By focusing on listening to the teachers in the classrooms, students can understand, comprehend and respond better.
With this, not only academic scores but also class participation, communication skills, and confidence level of the learners are also enhanced. But many students struggle with active listening habits. Let us discuss some tips and techniques which students can use to improve their active listening skills. Also, we will be discussing the tips that teachers can follow in this regard.
What should students do?
1. Use technical tools
With the technical growth, many resources are available which students can use to improve the habit of active and focused listening. You can use audio lessons available on several platforms like online teaching sites, applications, and youtube as well. Audio lessons can help students to get improved in this regard. After listening to the lessons, you should also solve the related exercises and questions. This will help you to figure out how much you listened carefully.
2. Meditate
One of the main reasons behind poor listening habits is a lack of focus and concentration. The students who don’t have the power of concentrating, don’t listen well as well. For example, when in a classroom, if a student is not able to focus, he or she will not be able to listen properly to what the teacher is saying. This reduces their class performance, engagement, and learning as well. The best way to prevent this from happening is to develop the habit of meditation. By doing meditation every day, students can improve their brain power and focus.
3. Ask again
If you were not able to listen or understand something, ask again from the speaker. This will help you to actively listen and understand the information which the speaker is delivering. It also sets a positive impact on the speaker. Because when you ask them to repeat, they feel that you are properly involved and interested in the process.
What should teachers do?
1. Question them
To check whether students are actively listening or not, questioning them in between the classes will surely help. Often, when teachers keep on lecturing, the classes become quite passive, because of this, students lose their attention and don’t listen to the teacher carefully. But this technique of questioning students in between teaching can be very effective.
While teaching a topic, you can raise some basic questions which students can answer one by one. This will not only improve their listening abilities but will also improve their participation in the classes. When students know that the teachers will ask them questions, they will surely listen attentively. Using a learning management system, teachers can maintain the records of the students who actively participate and who do not.
2. Tell the importance
One of the main qualities of a good teacher is to teach students the importance of good habits. And one of them is attentive listening in the classrooms. Tell your students why they should carefully listen in the classrooms. What we learn in the classes is directly linked to how effectively we self-study. A majority of education time is devoted in classrooms and hence listening to the teachers is mandatory. With focused listening, students will be able to understand the topics well. With a good understanding, comprehending the information will also become easy. Furthermore, the quality of self-studies and exam scores will also be increased.
3. Listen to the learners as well
if you won’t listen to your students, they won’t listen to you as well. Qualities of a good teacher involve listening to the students. For example, if a teacher enters the class, teaches the planned topic, and leaves without listening to the views, opinions, or doubts of the students, effective learning will not be conducted and hence students will also stop listening attentively to the teachers.
During the classes, teachers should ask the students if they have any doubts or queries and must solve the same. Also, teachers can take reviews and feedback from the students about the teaching patterns. This will help teachers to make necessary changes and additions as per students’ requirements.
4. Ask them to summarise
After finishing a particular topic, ask the student to give a summary of what they understood. This technique will surely help to boost the listening skills of the students. This can also become a part of tests or checking the classes performance of the students. Using a learning management system, maintain the records of the students who actively participate and listen in the classes and guide, motivate others to do the same as well.
Conclusion
Active listening skills are highly required. From effective communication, engagement, participation, and learning, properly listening to the speakers is very necessary. All the above-mentioned tips can be used by the students to improve their listening skills. Also, we discussed the tips which teachers can use in this regard.
