Listening for middle school

Middle school students are taught good listening skills in preschool. However, by the time they hit middle school, they seem to have forgotten them!

If your students need to improve listening skills, there are a couple of different strategies or activities you can try. If students have a hearing impairment, please make sure to make changes or modifications to this lesson so that these students can be successful as well.

Following Directions Activity

One fun way to improve students’ listening skills is to give them directions and see if they can follow them. It sounds simple enough, as teachers give directions all the time in class, but these directions are to draw objects in the right space. To add more interest, turn it into a competition. All of the students who correctly draw the items from the oral directions can win candy or a small prize.

Note: You will need the key that is included below.

Steps to Listening and Drawing Correct Shapes

These directions are to be given orally in class. Tell students that you will only be reading each step of the directions twice, so they need to pay close attention.

• Step 1: Turn your paper horizontally. That means “landscape” or long ways.
• Step 2: Draw a two-inch five point star in the left hand corner. The top point and the left point should touch the edge of the paper.
• Step 3: Now, move your pencil to the middle of the paper. Draw a one inch square. Shade or color in the square.
• Step 4: On the bottom right hand corner of the paper, draw a two inch circle. Leave about a one inch margin, which means to come over one inch on the edge of each side of the paper. Inside the circle, draw a happy face.
• Step 5: For the last object, you are going to draw a two-inch equal lateral triangle. It goes in the top right hand corner. Leave a one inch margin on both edges of the paper.

After the students have finished drawing the star, square, circle and triangle, they need to trade papers. Included in this lesson is a key to the directions. Make a transparency of the key or project it directly from the image included.

Students should check that the paper they are “grading” looks exactly like the paper on the screen. The shape sizes should be approximately the right size; however, if the shapes are obviously the wrong size, the students need to “mark it wrong.”

Also, if a student forgot to shade in the square or place a “happy face” in the circle, the student should also mark this wrong.

Assessing Students’ Listening Skills

• Students who drew all four shapes in the right place and the right size are excellent listeners.
• Those who had three shapes correct are above average listeners and need to work on listening to details.
• Students with two shapes correct are average to below average listeners and need to make a conscientious effort to improve their listening skills.
• Students with one shape correct are poor listeners and need to focus on becoming better listeners.
• For students with zero shapes correct, the student didn’t listen at all and needs the teacher’s help.

Key to the Following Directions Activity

Other Listening Activities

The reason students need good listening skills in the middle school is for note taking. At the middle school level, taking good notes from lectures becomes important. Some students will need help in this area.

Testing Student Note Taking

To test students’ proficiency of note taking, teachers can select a short lecture to give to the students. The teacher should make notes from the lecture that he or she would use to study for a quiz. This should be made into a transparency or electronic slide for the projector.

The teacher needs to tell students to take notes from the lecture. After completing the lecture, the teacher needs to ask students to compare their notes to the teacher’s notes. The students should see what they missed and add it to their notes.

Then, the teacher should discuss why the things that he or she wrote down were important.

In addition, the students should share what was left off and ask how to know when a key concept that is spoken should be writing down.

Two additional activities to improve listening is listening to numbers and listening to music.

Listening skills are not just important in pre-school and kindergarten, they are important in a student’s life all the way to college. This is a crucial skill to have in personal and work relationships as well.

by Stacey Lloyd

In today’s world, teaching students to be effective, active listeners, is a vital task. In an environment of quick click, constant scrolling, pithy soundbites, the ability to be fully present to the people speaking around us is a significant skill to develop. But that is just it: it is a skill to be mastered and constantly worked on; it requires plenty of practice to fully develop the effective habits of a good listener. As teachers, we need to provide students with opportunities to discuss, exchange ideas, and listen meaningfully; we also need to give them the tools to do so effectively. 

Why Teach Listening Skills? 

• When we listen effectively, we open ourselves up to opportunities for learning and personal growth. 
• As good listeners, we improve our ability to think critically, by being able to fully engage in a more informed way.
• Displaying the attributes of a good listener makes space for others to be able to express themselves openly, helping to build relationships and exchange ideas.
• True listening helps avoid misunderstandings, and limits the potential for just talking past one another. 
• When really listening to the thoughts and ideas of others, we can develop empathy and compassion.

If the above goals are reached, we set students up to be more active learners, effective communicators, and attuned critical thinkers.  But how do we practically do so in the classroom?

1. Provide Opportunities for Listening

[Almost] every lesson should provide students with ample opportunities to exercise their listening skills. Whether it is through listening to instructions and lectures, paired conversations, class discussions, or media experiences: students should be encouraged to actively listen to others, over and over again. Yet, more importantly, they should be regularly reminded, when doing so, that they need to be exercising the skills of a good listener, and they should be reflecting on their own skill development in this area. 

Click here for slideshows, handouts, printable posters and more: all for teaching listening skills in the classroom!

2. But what are the Attributes of an Effective Listener?

You certainly know it when you encounter a good listener, and this can be a great place to start: ask students who comes to mind when they think of somebody they know personally, who really listens when one talks to them. Discuss what makes them such a good example, and mindmap these attributes on a piece of chart paper. Students will, most likely, describe someone who listens with their whole body, leans into conversations, makes eye contact, gives visual cues such as nodding or smiling; somebody who asks thoughtful follow up questions, who doesn’t interject with their opinions when you are speaking to them; somebody who isn’t clearly distracted while listening, who isn’t merely thinking about what they want to say next; someone who gives positive reinforcement during a conversation and remembers what you say; somebody who picks up on the emotions and feelings of a speaker as they are fully present to the moment of listening; somebody who remembers what was said in a speech or lecture, and can summarize it effectively. If students aren’t forthcoming with these attributes, ask scaffolded questions to draw them out. Then, leave this mindmap up on the classroom wall to regularly reference and remind students. 
  
3. Give Students the Tools to Practice 

We cannot just tell students: “be good listeners”. We need to give them tangible tools to help them develop these skills. The activity mentioned above can be a great starting point, but there are other ways to reinforce the concepts. For example: 

• When holding a class discussion, pause halfway and ask students: “How is your body language right now indicating whether or not you are listening?” 
• When watching a TEDtalk or video clip, teach students to sketchnote as a way of listening to the ideas presented, and engaging with them, rather than daydreaming and drifting off. 
• Engage in paired discussion time where one person remains completely silent for a set time [usually a minute or two] and simply listens, then echoes back to the speaker what they have heard them say.
• During group discussions, split the class into two and have an outer circle observe and play the role of “listeners.” During the discussion they could try and visually represent what is said through drawings or diagrams. At the end, they can be asked to summarize common threads or conflicting arguments. 

Self-reflection is a vital aspect of any meaningful learning opportunity [see here for more on teaching students to be self-reflective], and equally so for the acquisition of good listening skills. All too often, students think that if they are hearing others, they are listening. But we need to make them more aware of their actual proficiency in this area, and instill a mindset of growth and improvement. As a regular bell-ringer exercise ask students: How well did you listen in class today? How could you have been a more active listener today? Download this FREE reflection page to help students reflect on their listening skills

Earnest Hemmingway said: “When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” Let’s take his advice and teach our students to listen completely. 

Looking for other resources for LISTENING SKILLS? Check these out: 

Speaking and Listening Skills in your Reading and Writing Workshop

by Room 213

Common Core Speaking & Listening Rubrics

by Tracee Orman

ELA Test Prep Listening Skills and Non Fiction Text Escape Room 

by The Daring English Teacher

ESL Listening Comprehension - Newsy Video Bundle

by Nouvelle ELA

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