Teaching Listening Skills to Children: Problems and Solutions

Introduction: The Importance of Listening as a Skill

This essay discusses the process of teaching listening skills to children. The main focus is to describe problems that may arise and then to suggest possible solutions for each in terms of the learning process in general. Listening as a skill set is one of the more critical skills needed by young learners. To illustrate how difficult attaining listening fluency can be, consider this observation from a non-native speaker's perspective: "A common complaint from learners on first visiting an English-speaking country is that their listening skills cannot cope with fast spontaneous speech" (Cauldwell). It is widely believed that, of the four skills humans use most often, listening should be considered by far one of the most frequently used.

Consider how, in the United States, speaking and listening are usually taught in tandem — yet from the teaching perspective, speaking receives far more direct attention over time in terms of practice and specific drills than listening does. Teachers have many tools available to teach listening skills. For example, teachers can have learners respond to commands such as "please close the window," or ask them to choose an object, circle a correct letter, or complete a word on a worksheet. The key to teaching listening is recognizing that it is far more difficult to repeat what was heard or to translate it into another language than it might appear. The teacher must have a firm grasp of what is and what is not a reasonable task for teaching listening skills. In some cases it is a good idea for students to continue a story or to solve a problem; in others, neither method is an appropriate fit. The teacher must have his or her finger on the pulse of the learning experience.

Teachers can guide their students to become better listeners. There is a plethora of research on listening skills, and all of that data seems to point to one outcome: in order to be a good listener, students must be able to focus their attention on important messages while also being able to review critical information. Teachers can therefore model good listening behaviors and provide new insights and rewards for students by advising them on specific ways to listen and showing them how to become active listeners.

One skill that students in the early academic years — such as kindergarten or first grade — can be taught is to pick out the main ideas of conversations and then to ask relevant questions about what they heard. If taught early on, students who acquire these skills are often more likely to be considered good listeners because they have been taught, perhaps without fully realizing it, to become active listeners. These children may remain interested and attentive throughout their later school years and through high school because they are able to consistently focus and mentally filter out external distractions. The earlier these skills are taught, the more effective they become over time. This is not to say that it is ever too late to teach students viable listening skills — it is never too late — but the principle of "earlier is better" generally applies.

Guiding Students Toward Active Listening

One area where teachers carry a greater responsibility for teaching listening skills than they may realize is in modeling their own listening behavior. Students observe the one adult present in a classroom on a daily basis. As one source notes, "According to the authors, counselors and teachers who are persistent in developing their own listening skills will experience great rewards in connecting ELL" (Seo). Teachers who wish to instill listening skills are actually encouraged to allow students to do some talking throughout the day so that students have an opportunity to observe how a good listener — ideally the teacher — applies the skill set in real interactions.

It may come as a surprise to many parents and non-teachers that some children need an invitation to talk. When providing a listening practice opportunity, the teacher should begin the process with a simple prompt such as "How do you like school?" or "Tell me about your day at the park." When a child or children begin to share their ideas or feelings, it is critical that they sense their teacher considers their ideas important. At this juncture, the teacher should be listening patiently.

Human beings often think faster than they speak, and children have a limited verbal vocabulary as well as fewer life experiences to draw on. It may therefore take a child more time to find the right words, and how the teacher handles these pauses shapes children's minds for future conversations and future opportunities to be good listeners. The teacher should convey to students that there is plenty of time. By hearing children out and not cutting them off before they finish speaking, the teacher sends a powerful message. Although this may appear simple, it is a genuinely difficult practice. The teacher must not form an opinion too quickly or dismiss a child's view prematurely, because the impact on the child can be lasting in terms of their attitude toward active listening and gathering information from others.

The Teacher as a Listening Role Model

Feedback from teachers, as already noted, is a critical part of the learning process when it comes to listening. There are also direct feedback assignments that can be given to students learning new listening skills. Feedback is a major part of the motor learning process. It can be understood as a process by which humans regulate themselves by monitoring their own output, or by which they are shaped through others monitoring their progress. In other words, a person feeds back a portion of output data to themselves, or a teacher feeds back information to a student.

A helpful analogy for understanding feedback is the automatic pilot system used in most airplanes. The autopilot function provides the plane's computer with constant feedback about all required information — air speed, altitude, direction, and so on. Each time the airplane moves slightly off course, the computer receives that data and makes minor directional adjustments through the plane's steering system, ensuring the plane continues toward its programmed destination. Feedback processes are also used to control machines such as heaters, air conditioners, and microwave ovens. Similarly, for a student learning new listening skills, feedback can be used by the brain to coordinate the various muscles, joints, blood flow, oxygen intake, and other voluntary and involuntary functions that allow a student to be a more efficient active learner and listener. Externally, students also draw on millions of bits of feedback data from peers, teachers, parents, and others in order to develop natural instincts for responding and, as a result, cultivate good listening habits. A student's responses are modulated, controlled, and refined through this feedback process.

A practical feedback exercise can be as simple as giving a student a specific listening task to complete between classes — for example, listening to a public announcement and writing down what they heard. If no live announcement is available, a teacher can provide a tape recording accompanied by questions, a dictation activity, and a simple listening worksheet, with the intent of reviewing results with the student afterward.

Teachers must consciously cultivate in their students a genuine desire to develop good listening skills, and this takes time and practice. One of the most difficult associated tasks is helping students focus on the speaker. The more a teacher emphasizes that eye contact is essential, the more effectively that message may be received. There are, of course, many underlying challenges, including each child's self-esteem, upbringing, and home environment. Nevertheless, where possible, it is important to teach children not to let their eyes wander around the room or settle on objects past a speaker's shoulder. This practice also reinforces sustained focus and discourages mental wandering.