Listening Tips
by Numair A. Choudhury

Listening—really listening—to students is critical to the student/teacher relationship, for knowing their teacher is interested in what they are saying makes students feel cared about and emotionally connected to school. Since research shows that feeling connected is requisite to students' motivation to learn, showing that we listen is important not only as a matter of kindness, but also as a motivational strategy. An average person can think about 4 TIMES FASTER than a lecturer can speak. Effective LISTENING requires the expenditure of energy; to compensate for the rate of presentation, you have to actively intend to listen. NOTETAKING is one way to enhance listening, and using a systematic approach to the taking and reviewing of your notes can add immeasurably to your understanding and remembering the content of student input.

Before Class

• Be very familiar with the assigned readings to establish immediate background context and knowledge.
• Do what you can to improve physical and mental alertness (fatigue, hunger, time of day, where you sit in the classroom may affect motivations).
• Choose notebooks that will enhance your systematic notetaking: a separate notebook with full-sized pages is recommended for each course.
• INTEND TO LISTEN.

During Class

• Concentrate on what the student is saying. Pay attention to speaker for verbal, postural, and visual clues to what's important. Listen not merely to the words, but the feeling content.
• Sit where you can see and hear the speaker easily and where other distractions are at a minimum.
• Determine why what the speaker is saying is important to the class. If you don't have an immediate, vivid reason for listening to a speaker, you are an unmotivated listener. Practice the habit of paying attention.
• Listen for the pattern of organization in the speaker. Does he/she begin or end with a brief summary of the main concepts, themes, or ideas? How are details or examples used to develop specific points? What is the relationship between the points presented?
• Ask yourself: what questions does this student answer? What are possible questions that information and principles from lectures could be used to answer? What is the relationship between the student's points and the readings?
• Not everything uttered by a student is important. Hold yourself accountable for being selective and differentiating between levels of importance. Organize your notetaking as a way to review, test your understanding of ideas, and prepare for responses.
• Resist distractions, emotional reactions or boredom.
• Label important points and organizational clues: main points, examples
• When possible, paraphrase the student's points into your own words; but if you can't, don't let it worry you into inattention!
• Ask questions if you are not clear on something.
• Be aware of your own feelings and strong opinions. If you have to state your views, say them only after you have listened.

After Class

• Clear up any questions raised by the students by asking them individually.
• Fill in missing points or misunderstood terms from the text or other sources.
• Edit your notes, labeling main points, adding recall clues and questions to be answered. Key points in the notes can be highlighted with different colors of ink.
• Make note of your ideas and reflections, keeping them separate from those of the students.

Periodically

• Review your notes: Glance at your recall clues and see how much you can remember before rereading the notes. See how you feel your students have progressed.
• Look for the emergence of themes, main concepts, and methods of presentation over the course of several lectures.

Provided by:
Numair A. Choudhury, who is studying for a Ph. D, in Aesthetic Studies at The University of Texas at Dallas. He was born in Bangladesh. Prior to UTD he studied and loved creative writing at Oberlin College, Ohio, and then at the University of East Anglia, Norwich.