Listening skills Aims

Five ways teachers can help students improve listening and speaking skills:

While other areas of literacy often receive more attention and instruction, strong listening and speaking skills are integral to students’ success in both school and daily life. But teaching students how to listen (and listen well) requires using several strategies, as does teaching them to formulate responses to what they have heard. The following tips will provide some ways elementary teachers can help to hone these skills in students.

1. Provide pre-learning activities that enable students to focus on what is important.
These activities might include key vocabulary terms, an outline of what will be taught, study guides and objectives. This information makes it possible for students to know where and how to focus their listening and then develop stronger oral responses that are more focused.


2. Stop repeating instructions.
This advice may go against what teachers typically do, which is to repeat directions or steps multiple times to ensure student comprehension. However, giving instructions multiple times trains students that they do not have to listen the first time, and that the information will be readily available if they choose not to listen. This doesn’t mean students can’t ask clarifying questions, nor does it mean the information is no longer available after the teacher stops talking. Teachers must be clear that students can ask them to clarify themselves, or can ask peers for information prior to asking the teacher to repeat him or herself.


3. Model good listening and speaking behavior for students.
Students learn by how teachers listen and speak, which means it is important for educators to model the behaviors they wish students to emulate. This means that teachers need to practice good listening skills (focusing their full attention on the speaker without interrupting) and good speaking skills — paraphrasing the other person’s ideas before responding, clearly articulating ideas and using correct grammar and structure.