Promote Student Listening In The Classroom With These Activities

By Author: Priya Varma
Total Articles: 40
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With the level of distractions that technology presents teachers have a tough time getting the attention of students in the classroom. Students are required to listen carefully to maximise learning from lessons and assignments. Listening to and following instructions carefully is vital to do this. When students don’t listen well, they miss out essential information during instruction. Dedicating time that focuses only on listening skills is necessary so students can retain and reproduce the information they are given in the classroom.

Teaching listening skills can be made engaging and fun using different classroom activities. Here are some classroom activities used by the best International Schools in Bangalore to build student listening skills:     

1.The Hidden Phrase

This is an interactive classroom activity to improve students’ listening skills by getting students to pair together and listen for a hidden phrase. In pairs, students work with their partners to create a dialogue that has a secret phrase. Once they create a short dialogue using the phrase, they will present it to their classmates ...
... who will try to find the hidden phrase. Teachers can prepare hidden phrases before the class to make sure each group has a different phrase. The challenge each pair will face is to use the hidden phrase while their classmates listen intently to identify this phrase in the dialogue.

2.Describe the Photo

This is another activity that can be conducted in pairs. One student describes a photograph while their partner listens to them. Students will be sitting back to back in this exercise. The student listening to their partner describing the picture will try to draw out the description they hear. The first student has to describe in detail what they see in the picture so that their partner can draw a close replica of the photo. The pair that produces the most drawings closest to their photograph wins.

3. The Storytelling Game

The teacher starts with a phrase which goes around the room and each child adds to a few words to this phrase forming a story. This game requires students to be active participants and follow the story closely so they can add the right word/words when it is their turn.

These are the top three classroom activities that when conducted by International Schools in Bangalore, have met great success. Students love to engage in such activities and find a significant difference in their listening abilities and overall academic performance when participating in such activities over a period of time.