How to make students active listeners: tips for teachers

For effective classroom learning, academic success, and achieving future goals, active listening skills plays an important role. From making two-way communication accurate, completing our tasks, conveying our messages to others, and becoming more interactive, active listening is a must habit to possess. Without actively listening both communication with and work effectiveness of the students are affected. This skill can not be learned overnight and hence the practice of it from classrooms and learning days is very necessary. Let us discuss the benefits of active learning in the classroom and what teachers can do to help students active listeners.?

Benefits of active listening?

1. Interpersonal skills are improved?

Active listening helps students to develop better interpersonal skills and relationships with others. In a classroom, when students listen actively to the teacher, they respond, communicate and interact well. This makes teachers feel valued. Teaching is said to be successful when students participate well. And with the help of active listening, this is achieved. When students are actively involved in the classes, teachers also feel more enthusiastic to teach. And this improves the understanding, relationships, and interpersonal skills of the students with their teachers and other batch mates too.?

2. Increase class participation?

When students actively listen in the classrooms, their understanding is improved. With an increased level of understanding, students connect and relate to the taught topics better. This enhances their participation in the classrooms. They interact more. Students answer the questions raised by the teachers more accurately. This makes students more participative in classroom activities.?

3. Better communication skills?

Communication is a two-way process. Along with a speaker, a listener is equally important in the completion of effective communication. When a student listens actively to others, they understand well. Good understanding helps them to give the right response and feedback to make communication better.?

4. Better understanding?

When a mind is distracted, has poor focus and concentration, properly listening to the speaker is reduced. But by staying away from distractions and listening attentively, students’ understanding is improved to a great extent. They tend to clear their doubts and queries from teachers as well.?

5. Enhanced academic performance

With better class participation, interactions, communications, and understanding of the academic lessons, the overall knowledge and exam scores of the students are improved. This makes students overall successful in education.?

Make students active listeners: tips for teachers?

Repeat the complex sentences?

Lessons are mixed with some easy and tough topics. The easy topics were actively listened to and understood by the students quickly. But the topics which are difficult, lengthy, and complex are not understood by the students in a single time. They are not able to listen to every word of a complex topic quickly.?

In this regard, teachers can repeat the information which is difficult twice. This will help students to actively listen and understand what is being taught to them. By using LMS portals, teachers can manage time and classes properly to teach the tough topics more than once.?

Use technical teaching aids?

Simply lecturing students or reading textbooks in front of them is not sufficient to make them active listeners. Students find these activities monotonous. Only listening to teachers without any interest makes them get easily distracted. These distractions affect the active listening habits of the students. With the growing technology in education, teaching is no longer limited to textbooks and guides.?

We all know that today’s generation is quite interested in technology. By teaching them with the help of audiovisual technical aids, teachers can make students active listeners. These visual aids are attractive and catch students’ interest. With a good level of interest, active listening and attention of the students are improved. These technical tools can be used in both online classes and traditional ones too. Some examples are PowerPoint presentations, modules, educational videos, and animations.?

Maintain a right pace?

Both teaching too fast and too slow can affect the active listening of students. When teachers speak too fast or quickly, students are not able to process and understand anything. Lack of understanding makes them less active at listening too. And when the teaching speed is quite slow, students get bored. Boredom leads to distractions. To ensure that students are actively learning and listening, teachers should maintain the right speaking and teaching speed which is understandable for all.?

Ask questions?

By asking questions in between explaining and lecturing the lessons to students, teachers can make them active listeners. When students know that the teacher is going to ask them the questions, they tend to listen better. They stay away from distractions, concentrate better, and listen to the explanations given by the teachers carefully to answer accurately too.?

Conclusion?

By reading the above-mentioned information, we can make out that active listening has several benefits to the students. It only helps them academically but in professional careers too. We also discussed the tips which teachers can use to make students active listeners in the classroom and develop this skill permanently too.