We can all tell, whether a child or an adult when someone is actively listening. We can tell from the eye contact to the body language, to the facial expressions, and then finally the response one gets in return. All of us want to be heard and for our words to be understood. Active listening is an essential life skill as it helps both adults and students learn and build healthy and positive relationships with others.

Now imagine a classroom full of active listeners.  Students listen intently, participate, and engage in what the speaker is saying.  A teacher’s dream, huh?! When students know and feel that they are heard and understood, they are more likely to engage. Teaching, modeling, and providing guided practice in active listening transforms students into active listeners.

Teaching Your Students to Become Active Listeners

Introduce The Roles: The Sender and the Receiver

The sender is the person speaking and the one who is giving the information. The sender could be the teacher, a student, a presenter, etc. The sender’s job is to speak clearly, deliver the information, and engage the audience.

The receiver is the one receiving the information and is the active listener.  The receiver’s job is to actively listen to the sender, process the information, make sense of it, and respond. This is challenging for many students and needs to be taught and modeled with a lot of guided practice. Here are some strategies that you could implement in your classroom to promote active listening.

1. SLANT is one of my favorite strategies for students to practice active listening. Post these posters in your classroom and remind students to LIVE by it!

Sit up straight and sit as close to the speaker as you can.

Listen with your eyes, ears, body, and heart.

Ask and answer questions.

Nod your head showing that you are receiving.

Track the speaker with your eyes.

2. Establish and Follow Rules for Active Listening

• Always face the speaker and maintain eye contact.

• Be attentive and engaged (listen with your eyes, ears, body, and heart).

• Try to feel and understand what the speaker is saying.

• Don’t interrupt the speaker.

• Wait your turn to ask thoughtful questions or comments.

• Give the speaker feedback.

3. Active Listening Practice

• Always review with students that there are 4 ways to listen, with our eyes, ears, body, and heart.

• Remind the receivers that to understand what the senders are saying, they’ll need to really listen and pay attention. It takes practice like any other skill.

• Pair students up to practice listening skills, one student being the sender and the other being the receiver.

• Students take turns telling their partner about one of the following, a happy memory, a funny story, or a proud moment.

• Instruct the receivers to look at the senders (eye contact), ask thoughtful questions about what the sender is saying after he/she is done speaking, and show they are interested in how they look and how they act using SLANT.

• Give students about 5 minutes each to tell their stories.

• Have students volunteer to demonstrate their listening skills by sharing a story they heard from the senders.

4. Active Listening Note Taking- Thoughtful Questions & Comments

Another way to have your students practice active listening skills is to have them do some note-taking. I give my students Active Listening Note Taking Cards to first practice recording thoughtful questions and comments while listening to promote active thinking and listening. Note-taking often eliminates student distractions as they are focused on the speaker and the note-taking task at hand, they have their questions and comments ready when the speaker is ready. Teach students to practice active thinking and listening so they bring more to the discussion. I let my students know when I’m ready for thoughtful questions and comments and they will show me a “Q” if they have a question or a “C” if they have a comment.  They might even use both their hands to show that they have a question and a comment (see 7 signs/hand gestures for Classroom Management posters here).

5. Practicing Skills with Active Listening

Teach and model how to practice active listening with these 5 skills: restate, summarize, reflect, ask questions, or make connections to the speaker.

Restate- Paraphrase what the speaker said to make sure you understand and to show that you are paying attention.

Summarize– Summarize what the speaker said by including keywords, the main idea(s), and details in a sentence or two.

Reflect– Reflect upon what the speaker is saying by sharing a thoughtful comment or feeling.

Ask Questions-  Ask questions to get more information and to encourage the speaker to elaborate on their ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

Making Connections- Make connections to the speaker by relating what was said to your own life experiences and to the real world.

After teaching and practicing all the skills, you can give your students the note-taking card with all the skills, and students could choose ONE skill they’ll focus on while listening.

Get the Active Listening Note Taking Cards & SLANT Posters here. These can be laminated for easy reuse, written directly on, or used with a sticky note. You could also make a laminated set of these cards for each student and attach it to a binder ring for easy access and practice. Perhaps you just want to paste one page (3 note-taking cards) at a time into a notebook

You could teach, model, and do guided practice with active listening during these classroom activities.

• During a lesson

• While watching a video

• When someone is presenting (speaker, teacher, student, parent, etc.)

• When a student is sharing their work

• During a read-aloud

• While students are peer coaching

• Maybe even while listening to a podcast

You’ll see that with modeling, teaching, and guided practice in active listening your students will become active listeners and will be more engaged. There will be fewer distractions and more learning. How do you promote active listening with your students?

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