Question: Does everyone understand?
Answer: Yes, Mam!
This particular answer is the epitome of satisfaction for the teachers. But if you ask any of your students to repeat what you just explained, half of the class would be back to square one.
Let’s explore why this happens.
According to Wikipedia, 60% of people are passive learners. They listen and observe but don’t respond; they don’t process the information in their brains. This is the reason why passive listening rarely produces any beneficial results.
One of the devastating facts is that most students are passive during the lecture method.
We understand how it feels to see your efforts go in vein. Don’t worry, educators; there are five excellent strategies to improve students’ listening skills. Keep scrolling to uncover them all.
The Game Plan To Improve Students’ Listening Skills
You know you can’t simply order the children to pay attention; even if they try, they will end up yawning. Grabbing the students’ attention is an art, and we have a master plan to make you an artist. Follow each tactic to build the most engaging study hall.
Explore With Them:
Remember Dora, the explorer? Yeah, the annoying child who always failed to see swapper swiping. She gave us some fantastic lessons like how to count, how to find the missing puzzle piece, and how to be accepting. No matter how annoying she might get during the show, we never change the channel unless we complete the episode. Being a teacher, you have to use the same strategy as her.
Ask your audience an enlivening question. When you successfully manage to arouse one’s curiosity, make them explore. This activity will be the best to restrain your students from buying assignment help, and emptying their pockets.
If your classroom has computers, make your audience search for clues online. In order to engage the maximum number of students, tell them it’s a marked activity. Whoever gets full marks will win. Remember, the activity’s sole purpose shouldn’t be achieving better grades but better knowledge.
The Random Calls
Teach the topic and then randomly call one of your listeners to summarise what you just taught. This activity seemed evil when we ourself sat on the bench, ignoring our professor. But now, being a mentor, it’s mandatory for you to ensure everyone is attentive.
Write the name or roll number of each person in the class on a Popsicle stick. Tell the students that you’ll pick any random stick after you finish teaching them. If they fail to answer the question, they will have to perform a particular educational task as a penalty. The sanction task can be anything, like solving a complex math question or teaching the learners a new topic.
The best thing about this particular activity is that you can prevent students from reaching out to assignment writing services. Because even if they didn’t listen properly, they would do their research to pay the penalty. Their research can protect them from paying research writers.
Scale The Level Of Understanding
Getting “yes, mam” to your “Is the topic clear?” is common.
Remember, their chronic YES is one of their habits; whenever they want you to finish the topic, they’ll say that. Instead of asking close-ended questions, focus on the open-ended question. Ask them to rate their level of understanding from 0-10. If they rate five or below, they rarely understood what you just taught.
In order to create a better indulgence, you can do one thing. Make a pair of the students rated above 5 with those who rated below 5. Tell the children with high rates to teach the topic to the other person.
As they understand their fellows and their mindset, they will tutor them more effectively. Plus, tutoring also helps the person to understand a phenomenon better.
Be A Good Listener!
Some subjects are dry enough that you fail to create an engaging learning atmosphere. Let’s suppose you are teaching future lawyers; what will you do? What is the best way to ensure they don’t miss any essential piece of information delivered in the class?
Encourage them to share their experiences. If you are a law teacher, ask your learner to share any incident where a particular law can be applied. Almost all of your students will have something to tell you. Google law writings in UK and you will find some excellent ways how a particular law can be applied. Share the information with your listeners and create a TED-Ed kind of class environment.
Sharing and listening is the best way to build an engaging and motivating classroom atmosphere.
Video Over Audio:
Some students are not bookworms but film buffs. They prefer watching the scenes instead of reading and imagining them.
Here is what you can do to engross your students. Make them watch short video clips in class. Arrange a projector and play the video clips related to the topic you planned on discussing during the session.
Videos are more enthralling than the actual lecture.
If you ask them which part they liked the most in the video, almost all of them will tell you something. This strategy is better than giving an audio lecture. Because if you ask your students any related question, only a few answers, the rest of them stay muddled.
Closure:
We assume that you have unlocked the top 5 ways used by the professor to create engagement. Teaching isn’t a significant challenge but making someone understand something definitely is. Start implementing the above tactics and notice the quantum leap of your study hall.
You can also practice some other activities to increase your learner’s listening skills. Take them on a study trip, and teach them outside the class. Show your audience practical examples. One of the best things you can do is to play musical chairs. Whoever is left standing out has to summarise the lecture.
Those who think teaching is boring might never practice such incredible teaching hacks. Some subjects are dry; it’s the art of teachers that makes them worth studying. Practice the above-mentioned methods and be the professor; students always remember.
