How to become an active listener in the class: tips for students

Listening to the speaker with full focus and undivided attention to understand and respond better are known as active listening skills. In a classroom, to understand the teacher’s explanation better, and communicate effectively, active listening skills are very important. But today’s kids have a limited attention span which affects their active listening power. For better academic success, this is a must to possess skills for all. Let us discuss the benefits of active listening and tips for students to become active listeners in class.

Benefits of active listening

Better academic understanding

When one doesn’t listen well to the teacher, lack of understanding, confusion, chances of mistakes increases. But with active listening skills, students carefully observe and listen to the teachers. Focused and attentive listening to the teachers helps them to relate and understand the concepts better in classes.

Helps in doubt clearing

When students don’t listen well in classes, they are less aware of what the teacher is teaching, whether they have doubts or not and they don’t understand well too. This affects their further studies as well. But with the help of active listening skills, students can figure out the topics which they are not understanding well. They can ask doubts from the teachers and get instant answers to their queries.

Better communication skills

We all know that communication is a two-way process. After listening to the speaker, the listener has to respond as well. With the help of active listening, students attentively listen to the teacher, understand well. And this helps students to give quality responses and answers. Their communication skills, classroom interaction, and participation are increased this way.

Enhances interpersonal relations

When a teacher sees students listening actively in the classroom, they feel confident and valued. In the same way, when teachers listen to the students well, students feel important and valued. This helps to foster the interpersonal skills between teachers and students.

Tips for becoming active listeners in the class.

Focus on your nonverbal communication

Our nonverbal communication contributes a lot to how actively we are listening to the speaker. Imagine a situation, where a teacher is speaking about a topic in the class, and a student is sitting lazily with their head down, body leaned forward, or looking outside the classroom, somewhere else.

This will make teachers feel that you are not interested in the classes and must not listen actively too. To enhance your active listening skills, all students must focus on their body language. Maintain eye contact with the teachers, nod your head in between, sit in a proper posture and right facial expressions. This will make teachers feel that you are learning and listening to them effectively.

Meditate everyday

We all know that listening actively needs a good level of concentration and focus. The better the concentration power, the more one is attentive in the classes and listens better to the teachers. Meditation is one of the best exercises that all students must do to become active listeners.

Meditation is a mindfulness exercise that enhances the brain functioning, power, and mental well-being of a student. With better brain efficiency, concentration ability is also increased which helps students to listen to the teachers, understand, and respond better in the classroom respectively. This will help students to become active listeners in an online live class as well as in a traditional classroom.

Keep interacting

When one is more participative and interactive in the classes, active listening is automatically increased. All students must try to interact in the lectures as much as possible. Try to get less distracted, relate with the teachers, and keep on interacting whenever given the opportunity. Doubt clearing, giving answers, sharing your thoughts, and participating in other classroom activities can help students to become active listeners as well as communicators.

Ask to repeat if needed

To enhance your active listening skills this tip can help. Sometimes teachers teach at a fast pace and you are not able to listen to all the words and explanations properly. But to listen better and understand everything well, you can ask your teacher to repeat it for you. Don’t interrupt their teaching flow. Raise your hand and wait for the teacher to give you the chance to speak. But remember not to misuse this tip. Only ask teachers to repeat if you genuinely faced difficulty in listening in the first attempt.

Conclusion

By reading the above-mentioned information we can make out the importance of active listening skills for students. It helps learners to understand, communicate and perform academically better. We also discussed some tips which students can follow to become active listeners in the class.

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