Active listening for older children and young people

This is where the older child or young person understands a message instead of just hearing it. It requires something ‘active’ to be done to indicate and support understanding. Rather than guessing what they have been asked to do, the aim is for the child or young person to actively ask for repetition or seek clarification. It is important that children and young people know that it is okay not to understand, but they must tell someone. It is also important to recognise that the message is not always clear and so adults sometimes need to be asked to make their message clearer.

Children and young people with language difficulties often say ‘I don’t know’ as this is easier than asking for help. Active listening is the next step forward and involves the child or young person realising that they don’t know and refraining from making a hopeful guess.

Step 1: Teach active listening

The following activities are useful for teaching active listening: discussion about how messages break down (try and draw out the following points)

Acoustics - Speaking too fast/ quiet - Competing noise e.g lawnmower, T.V, someone else talking, speaker sneezing/yawning.

Inadequate content- Impossible instruction e.g. necessary equipment is missing.- Unclear instruction e.g. use of pronouns it/there, missing out necessary information- Contradictory information e.g. two different names for the same character in a story or when

giving an instruction.

Complex message- Too long - memory overload- Unfamiliar vocabulary : deliberately use an unknown word e.g pass me the receptacle - Complex grammar: e.g use of embedded phrase or conjunction e.g before, after

adults modelling message break down through role play adults modelling clarification strategies through role play.

Please see ‘Activities to encourage attention and listening in older children and young people’ for more ideas on how to teach active listening.

Step 2: Activities to develop active listeningNB All activities described can be altered to include topic related vocabulary or to fit in with curriculum activities.

1. Barrier GamesThese activities can be carried out between: 2 children or young people an adult and a child/young person 2 small teams of children/young people

Barrier games are useful for: Children and young people to see how communication breaks down if they do not give enough

information or if it is not given clearly enough. working in pairs / teams and negotiation skills developing skills for independent learning (i.e. not relying on watching others) teaching the skills required to repair conversational breakdown e.g. asking for clarification,

repetition, explanation of breakdown specific and accurate use of language (when giving instructions)

How to set up a barrier game: the student / adult to sit opposite each other there must be a barrier between them e.g. a large book or piece of cardboard to act as a screen the people/ teams must take it in turn to give the instructions at the end of the activity the children/young people should compare the end results to assess

the accuracy of the listening / instruction giving. it is useful for the adult involved to help the children/young people reflect on why communication

broke down e.g. ask them to try and identify what went wrong if they have not achieved the desired result and talk about what they could do next time.

Examples of Barrier games:

Listen and Colour

You will need: duplicate sets of pens and colouring sheets.

Colour in a simple picture and instruct the other person to colour it in the same way Take turns at colouring parts of a picture and instructing the other person to do the same, for

example ‘colour the cat’s nose orange’ or ‘colour the door on the right in blue’.

Listen and Draw

You will need: duplicate sets of pens and drawing sheet (either blank or with an outline)

Instruct the listener to draw something as similar to yours as possible, for example ‘Draw a big blue square in the middle of the page’

Take turns at adding a new part to a drawing and instructing the listener what to draw e.g. “Give the spider three eyes on his head”

Listen and Place

You will need an identical set of objects.

Examples: games e.g. battleships coloured bricks or logiblocks knife, fork, spoon, cup, ball, plate miniature furniture and people

The speaker gives instructions to the listener who puts their objects in exactly the same way, for example:‘Put the spoon under the plate’‘Put the big red square on the left of the small green triangle’

Alternatively you could have pictures of the objects in different positions and the players can take turns to choose a picture (keep it hidden) and describe the picture to the other person. The listener has to set up the objects by following the instructions, for example ‘put the girl on the chair and the boy under the table’.

Follow the Map

You will need identical maps and coloured pens

Take turns at guiding the listener through the map taking the same route as you and marking it on the map with a pen as they do so. See if you end up at the same location!

2. Re-telling a story (or repeating a paragraph) with a twist!

Read a short paragraph to the child/young person Tell them you are going to change parts of this and they should indicate when they have

noticed e.g. put their hand up etc. Repeat the paragraph with changes to key elements, for example instead of ‘the man

wandered past the dark, gloomy forest’, you could say ‘the bear wandered past the dark, gloomy forest’.