Speaking and listening skills are essential to participating in adult culture. The ability to articulate thoughts, feelings, and needs can contribute to academic, interpersonal, and professional success. For safety's sake, children need to be able to express their thoughts and feelings so that they can ask for help and get what they need from adults. Good listeners learn more efficiently.
Listening For Social Interaction
Ask students to develop a list of attributes of a good listener. Discuss the list. Listen to each other's comments on the art of listening!
Ask students to offer encouragement to a speaker by showing in non-verbal terms with their eyes, facial expression, and body stance that they are listening. This social courtesy creates an atmosphere where speakers will generously speak. Ask students to assess their own listening skills. Do they always pay complete mental attention to speakers or do they observe their mind straying to other irrelevant thoughts. Only the student can assess his or her own concentration patterns.
