Overview of listening effectiveness

Face the speaker and maintain eye contact- Do your conversational partners the courtesy of turning to face them. Put aside papers, books, the phone and other distractions. Look at them, even if they don’t look at you.

Be attentive, but relaxed- Now that you’ve made eye contact, relax. You don’t have to stare fixedly at the other person. You can look away now and then and carry on like a normal person. The important thing is to be attentive.

Keep an open mind- Listen without jumping to conclusions. Remember that the speaker is using language to represent the thoughts and feelings inside her brain. You don’t know what those thoughts and feelings are and the only way you’ll find out is by listening.

Listen to the words and try to picture what the speaker is saying- Allow your mind to create a mental model of the information being communicated. When listening for long stretches, concentrate on, and remember, key words and phrases.

 Don’t interrupt and don’t impose your “solutions.”- When listening to someone talk about a problem, refrain from suggesting solutions.

Wait for the speaker to pause to ask clarifying questions. When you don’t understand something, of course you should ask the speaker to explain it to you. But rather than interrupt, wait until the speaker pauses. Then say something like, “Back up a second. I didn’t understand what you just said about…”

Ask questions only to ensure understanding- At lunch, a colleague is excitedly telling you about her trip to Vermont and all the wonderful things she did and saw.

Try to feel what the speaker is feeling. If you feel sad when the person with whom you are talking expresses sadness, joyful when she expresses joy, fearful when she describes her fears—and convey those feelings through your facial expressions and words—then your effectiveness as a listener is assured.

Give the speaker regular feedback. The idea is to give the speaker some proof that you are listening, and that you are following her train of thought—not off indulging in your own fantasies while she talks to the ether.

Pay attention to what isn’t said—to nonverbal cues. Face to face with a person, you can detect enthusiasm, boredom, or irritation very quickly in the expression around the eyes, the set of the mouth, the slope of the shoulders. These are clues you can’t ignore. When listening, remember that words convey only a fraction of the message.

Importance of listening

Listening is a skill that is important because it helps us learn and understand different things. Usually, a person who listens properly is able to react appropriately to a particular situation or towards a particular person.

The listening process involves five stages: receiving, understanding, evaluating, remembering, and responding.

Active listening is a particular communication technique that requires the listener to provide feedback on what he or she hears to the speaker.

Three main degrees of active listening are repeating, paraphrasing, and reflecting.

Active listening is a particular communication technique that requires the listener to provide feedback on what he or she hears to the speaker, by way of restating or paraphrasing what they have heard in their own words.

Reasons to listen

Enhances cooperation. Everyone likes to have a say in things. If you listen to people, they will feel valued and as a direct result, respect you. Due to the respect that builds up, cooperation between two people increases.

Easy to make decisions.

Errors can be avoided

Types of listening

Discriminative listening- This is the most basic form of listening and does not involve the understanding of the meaning of words or phrases but merely the different sounds that are produced.  In early childhood, for example, a distinction is made between the sounds of the voices of the parents – the voice of the father sounds different to that of the mother.

Comprehensive listening- involves understanding the message or messages that are being communicated.  Like discriminative listening, comprehensive listening is fundamental to all listening sub-types.

Critical Listening- is a much more active behavior than informational listening and usually involves some sort of problem solving or decision making. 

Therapeutic or Empathic Listening- Empathic listening involves attempting to understand the feelings and emotions of the speaker – to put yourself into the speaker’s shoes and share their thoughts.

Appreciative listening- is listening for enjoyment.  A good example is listening to music, especially as a way to relax.

Rapport Listening- When trying to build rapport with others we can engage in a type of listening that encourages the other person to trust and like us.  A salesman, for example, may make an effort to listen carefully to what you are saying as a way to promote trust and potentially make a sale.  This type of listening is common in situations of negotiation. (

Selective Listening- This is a more negative type of listening, it implies that the listener is somehow biased to what they are hearing.  Bias can be based on preconceived ideas or emotionally difficult communications.  Selective listening is a sign of failing communication – you cannot hope to understand if you have filtered out some of the message and may reinforce or strengthen your bias for future communications.

How to be a good listener

MAKE EYE CONTACT: Be sure to look the speaker in the face most of the time, especially look at her/his eyes. If you forget to make eye contact, the speaker may think you are bored, withdrawn, or simply not listening. Also be culturally sensitive: some individuals may be uncomfortable with too much direct eye contact.

TAKE A LISTENING POSITION: Sit or stand in a comfortable position with your body aimed in the general area where the speaker is. Try to be in a relaxed position. Face the speaker and make appropriate eye contact. Be aware of other nonverbals: placement of arms, leaning forward when necessary, head nodding, degree of personal space, smiling.

PARAPHRASE THE SPEAKER’S MESSAGE: Paraphrasing means stating in your own words what

someone has just said. Some common ways to lead into paraphrases include: What I hear you saying is… In other words… So basically how you felt was… What happened was… Sounds like you’re feeling… The speaker then has a chance to know you have understood what she/he has said. This also gives the speaker the opportunity to try to make the message more clear if she/he doesn’t think you really understood. Also be sure to reflect feeling words.

ASK CLARIFYING QUESTIONS FOR UNDERSTANDING: If something the speaker says is unclear to you, ask her/him a question to get more information. Such

questions make you an active, interested listener; the speaker can tell that you’ve been listening enough to have a question and care enough to ask. Ask open ended questions when you need more information, e.g., “Could you give me an example of when you’ve had difficulty talking to your professor?” Avoid the overuse of closed questions; these are questions that just require a yes or no response and tend to halt

communication.

MAKE COMMENTS, ANSWER QUESTIONS: When the speaker stops or pauses, you can be a good listener by making comments about the same subject. If you change the topic suddenly, she/he may think you weren’t listening. If the speaker asks a question, your answer can show you were listening. Also, use silence to your benefit versus attempting to fill the conversation with constant talk.

PROVIDE APPROPRIATE FEEDBACK: Your students are likely to be interested and invested in your opinions and feedback. Monitor your reactions to what they have to say and give reactions in nonjudgmental ways. Feedback should always be given in an honest and supportive way.

EMPATHY: Recognize that everyone is trying to survive, get through school successfully, build a support network and deal with the demands of outside life. Sometimes is can be difficult to be empathic if we have had different life experiences or would try a different solution than those tried by our student.

OPENNESS: Listen with openness. Be a supportive, but neutral listener. This provides safety for self-disclosure and talk of emotional states. Be careful of judgments and stereotypes you have that block openness. Attempt to put yourself in the other person’s shoes in terms of trying to understand how they feel, while also not becoming consumed with their difficulties. Incorporate your own self-care so that you do not burn out.

AWARENESS: Be aware of your own biases. We all have biases-this is part of human nature. The key is to not let them get in the way of what others have to say. Try to fully understand the person and their context versus relying on just your personal experience to guide them.

HURIER approach to listening

•   Hearing- focusing on and attending to the message

•   Understanding- obtaining the literal message meaning

•   Interpreting- recalling the message for future action

•   Remembering- expressing sensitivity to contextual and nonverbal

message aspects

•   Evaluating- logic applied to the assessment of the message value

•   Responding- choosing an appropriate response to what is heard

Overview of understanding Speaking

What Is Speaking?A basic look at what speaking is and is not, and what it involves for English learners.

-exchanging ideas, techniques, materials, and lessons that work, finding out about materials before you buy, seeking and giving advice on therapy and caseload management issues, and exploring a myriad of helpful resource links.

The Importance of Speaking PracticeSpeaking to yourself can be "dangerous" because men in white coats may come and take you away!! That is why you should make every effort possible to find somebody to speak with.

Oral skills and interaction: observing grammar

Oral practice observing vocabulary observing grammar

Information gap activities

Stories, chants, songs and stories

Story SettingsHow to improve your writing!

You can start your story by thinking about the setting.

Where does your story take place?

What time of day is it?

What is the weather like?

Is it inside Or outside?

Manipulatethe reader with the setting.

Use place as well as the weather, time of day and season, to create a setting. After all, a walk along a lane on a summery afternoon creates one atmosphere but the same lane on a dark wintry night would feel very different.

Use detail to bring the setting alive - base this on sense impressions.

What can be seen, heard, smelt, touched and tasted? If the reader is to enter your world, s/he needs to be able to see it hear it touch it taste it smell it

Base settings on places that you know - plus some invented detail.

Think of places where you have been.

Close your eyes and look at all the details around you. What can you see?

Now use your imagination to change the place. Add some interesting details.

Do you want details to make your setting seem:

dangerous? frightening? fun? safe? peaceful? strange/imaginary?

Use the setting to create atmosphere

For instance, you might use a frightening place such as an empty house - or you can take a very ordinary place and make it seem scary by making it seem unusual, dark and cold.

Remember:

Do not get bogged down in too much

description or you will lose the pace of

the narrative.

Use real or invented names to bring places alive

Names help to make your setting more real and more believable.

‘A boy walked down a street’ shows us nothing, but ‘Lugs O’Neill limped down Butcher’s Row’ starts to catch our imagination.

Once you have built the setting you can bring in the characters. Who is

there and why?

Have fun creating your story setting!

Information Gap Activities

Teachers are often searching for activities to make their classroom more interactive; language teachers in particular are also looking for activities that promote target language use. Info Gap activities are excellent activities as they force the students to ask each other questions; these activities help make the language classroom experience more meaningful and authentic. This section will explain in more detail what Info Gap activities are and why they are useful; it will also give some examples of Info Gap activities for any language classroom.

What is an Info Gap activity?

An Info Gap activity takes place between students, not between a student and a teacher, though a teacher can certainly demonstrate the activity. The two students will be asking each other questions to which they don’t know the answer; these questions are called referential questions. The goal of the activity is for the students to discover certain information, whether about the other person or related to a specific activity.

What are referential and display questions?

A referential question is a question to which the person asking does not know the answer. For example, you might ask a new student: “Where are you from?”     or     “What is your name?”The teacher does not know the answer to these questions; the purpose of asking these questions is to discover information, similar to the Info Gap activities.

A display question is a question to which the person asking does know the answer. For example, you might ask a student:“What colour is my sweater”    or     “Do I have long or short hair?The teacher clearly knows the answer to these questions; the purpose of asking is to promote student speaking, or to prompt students to remember certain information (whether it be vocabulary, grammar, etc.)

Why are Info Gap activities useful?

Info Gap activities are useful because they are very meaningful; all students are involved in the process equally and they are all moving towards a specific purpose. Each student has the task of finding out certain information, and therefore must find a way in which to ask for this information. Motivation is usually quite high in these activities. These activities help move the students from working in a more structured environment into a more communicative environment; they are hopefully using lots of the target language, and in the process discovering where they have gaps. Knowing where these gaps are gives them a direction in which to improve.

Rhyming Words

What are Rhyming Words?What are Rhyming Words?

Two words rhyme when they have the same sound the at the end.

Bat rhymes with

Cat

What are Rhyming Words?What are Rhyming Words?

Man

rhymes with

Can

Because they both end with an

What are Rhyming Words?What are Rhyming Words?

Does

Book

rhyme with

Cup?

No, book and cup do not rhyme because book ends with ook and cup ends with up.

How to PlayHow to Play

When you click the green arrow to go to the next slide, you will see a word at the top of the slide and three words underneath it. Only one of the three words will rhyme with the word on top.

I will read the words to you and you will click on the picture for the word that rhymes.

Which word rhymes with Moon ?

Book

Spoon

Dog

Which word rhymes with Dog?

Bowl

Car

Frog