Tutoring
Training
What is Listening?
Which activity involves the most listening? Students spend 20 percent of all school related hours listening. If television watching and one-half of conversations are included, students spend approximately 50 percent of their waking hours listening. For those hours spent in the classroom, the amount of listening time can increase to almost 100 percent. Look at your own activities, especially those related to college. Are most of your activities focused around listening, especially in the classroom?
How well do you really listen? Take
this test
to find out.
If you ask a group of students to give a one word description of listening, some would say hearing; however, hearing is physical. Listening is following and understanding the sound; in other words, listening is hearing with a purpose. Good listening is built on three basic skills: attitude, attention, and adjustment. These skills are known collectively as triple-A
listening.
Listening is the absorption of the meanings of words and sentences by the brain. Listening leads to the understanding of facts and ideas. Listening also takes attention, or sticking to the task at hand in spite of distractions. It requires concentration, which is the focusing of your thoughts upon one particular problem. One who incorporates listening with concentration is actively listening. Active listening is a method of responding to another that encourages communication.
Listening is a very important skill, especially for tutors. Many tutors tend to talk too much during a tutorial session. This defeats the purpose of tutoring, which is to allow students to learn by discussion. Rather than turning the session into a mini-lecture, tutors must actively listen and encourage their students to become active learners. Giving a student your full attention is sometimes difficult because you start to run out of time, or you find yourself thinking about your next question; however, the time you spend actively listening to your student will result in a quality tutoring session.
Poor Listening Habits
and Good Listening Habits
|
| Poor habits |
Poor listeners... |
Good Listeners... |
| Criticizing a speaker |
Criticize the speaker's voice, clothes,
or looks. Therefore, they decide that
the speaker won't say anything important. |
Realize that a lecture is not a popularity
contest. Good listeners look for the
ideas being presented, not for things
to criticize. |
| Finding fault with the speaker |
Become so involved in disagreeing with
something the speaker states that they
stop listening to the remainder of the
lecture |
Listen with the mind, not the emotions.
Good listeners jot down something they
disagree with to ask the speaker later,
then go on listening. |
| Allowing yourself to be distracted |
Use little distractions -- someone
coughing, a pencil dropping, the door
opening and closing -- as an excuse to
stop listening. |
Filter out distractions and concentrate
on what the speaker is saying. |
| Faking attention |
Look at the speaker but don't listen.
They expect to get the material from
the textbook later. |
Understand that speakers talk about
what they think is most important. Good
listeners know that a good lecture may
not contain the same information as the
textbook. |
| Forcing every lecture into one format |
Outline the lecture in detail. The
listener is so concerned with organization
that he misses the content. |
Adjust their style of note-taking to
the speaker's topic and method of organization. |
| Listening only for facts |
Only want the facts. They consider
everything else to be only the speaker's
opinion. |
Want to see how the facts and examples
support the speaker's ideas and arguments.
Good listeners know that facts are important,
because they support ideas. |
| Calling a subject boring |
Decide a lecture is going to be dull
and "tune out" the speaker. |
Listen closely for information that
can be important and useful, even when
a lecture is dull. |
| Overreacting to "push button" emotional
words |
Get upset at words which trigger certain
emotions -- words such as communist,
income tax, Hitler or abortion. Emotion
begins and listening ends. |
Hear these same words. When they do,
they listen very carefully. A good listener
tries to understand the speaker's point
of view. |
| Wasting thought speed |
Move along lazily with the speaker
even though thinking is faster than speaking.
A poor listener daydreams and falls behind. |
Use any extra time or pauses in the
lecture to reflect on the speaker's message.
They think about what the speaker is
saying, summarize the main points, and
think about the next points. |
|
Look at these sites for improving your listening
skills:
Remember it is important for you to encourage your students to practice good listening skills. One way to accomplish this task is by sharing with them this simple mnemonic device on how to learn to listen. Active listening is a very demanding skill that requires practice and perseverance; however, active listening is also very rewarding
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