Seven Listening Activities to Get Your Learners Attentive & Ready to

Learn

As educators, we always hope that our learners are listening carefully to

our lessons and assignment instructions. Unfortunately, we find that
sometimes they aren’t paying close attention to what we’re saying and this
can affect their learning. This becomes a problem when they miss key
information during instruction. It’s a good idea to take some time to
explicitly teach listening skills so that learners retain more of the information
we are giving them.
1. Model Good Listening Strategies

Play a short game of Simon Says with one child volunteering to be “Simon”
and you are the game player. Model good listening strategies such as
looking the speaker in the eye, repeating the directions to yourself (aloud
so they can hear you), not starting until you’ve heard all the instructions
(say aloud, “Ok, he’s finished giving me the instructions so now I may
begin”), and speak aloud what you’re going to do as if you were picturing it
in your mind before doing it. After “Simon” gives you a few short
instructions, ask the learner/s to tell you what they witnessed you did well.
Write their answers in a thinking map on the board.

If you have more than one Learner, then “Classroom meetings” are
another great opportunity to model and practice listening skills. The
learners sits together in a circle and take turns sharing their thoughts and
feelings on a topic being discussed. Learners are encouraged to look at the
speaker and listen to what they say.

2. Partner Conversations

Pair children up and give them a general discussion topic. Each child takes
turns being the speaker or the listener. When the speaker is finished
speaking, have the listener repeat one of the speaker’s main points, and
offer them a compliment. Having “Think, Pair, Shares” during lessons and
discussions is a great way to practice receiving and sharing what is heard.
3. Teach “Whole Body Listening”

A much-used concept in the early primary stages is “whole body listening.”

In whole body listening, a student practices keeping particular key parts of
their body focused on the speaker. Their eyes are watching, ears are
listening, brain is focused on the speaker’s information, mouth is closed,
shoulders are squared toward the speaker, heart is caring about the
message, hands are folded or in their lap, feet are still on the floor.

4. Daily Listening Activities

One way to see a marked improvement in your learners’ listening skills is to

give them short, daily skills practice. Any daily practice should be fun, and
practical. In this case, the skills should include encouraging kids to focus on
oral instructions, visualizing the tasks given, and completing them
accurately. Give them short instructions verbally for completing a task, or
two or three tasks in succession (depending on their age/cognitive
development), and have them practice listening and completing the tasks
without repeating the instructions.

5. The Storytelling Listening Game

In this game, you start a story with a beginning phrase, and then each child
adds one word to the story in turn. Learners must be active participants and
follow the story closely so that when their time comes to add a word, the
story will make sense. Another way to practice this is by playing a
traditional game of Telephone where a message is passed around the
room to see if it stays the same.

6. Storytelling Pods

Sort learners into groups of three. In these “pods,” they are to play the
storytelling game, only in successive story events rather than one word. For
example, the first learner starts with an event such as “The rabbit found a
carrot in the garden.” Then the second learner adds an event that happens
afterward in the story, such as “The carrot was too big to carry.” The third
learner adds, “So the rabbit put it in a wagon to pull it to his burrow.” After
the time is given for the pods to come up with their three-event stories,
instruct the learners to move to a new pod. In those groups, they must retell
their stories with perfect accuracy to their new pod members.
7. 20 Questions Listening Game

In this classic game, lots of listening skills are practiced without even
explicitly calling it a “lesson in listening skills”. Play this game any time you
feel you need subject review, and practicing listening skills at the same
time! For instance, tell the learner you are an item that starts with a certain
letter, a fictional character, or a Science object you’ve recently learned
about. Have them ask you 20 yes/no questions to try to figure out what you
are.

Keep Learning, Keep Experimenting and above all Keep It Fun!