how exceptional teachers improve listening — smart classroom management
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How Exceptional Teachers Improve Listening — Smart Classroom Management
http://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2013/09/28/how-exceptional-teachers-improve-listening/[30/09/2013 08:34:25]
How Exceptional Teachers Improve Listeningby MICHAEL LINSIN on SEPTEMBER 28, 2013
If you were to break down what makes exceptional teachers so effective, you would find theirability to teach students to listen one of several key common traits.
You would also discover that this one area of classroom management in particular is a nearobsession with them, preoccupying much of their thinking about teaching. Despite the constantflow of what’s new and next in education, it is listening upon which they build their scaffold oflearning.
It is listening, they will reveal to you in quiet-corner conversation, where the secrets of greatteaching can be found. Because without locked-in, active, and accurate student listening, nothingwill go as planned or as hoped or as could be.
And yet, it doesn’t take long to notice that for the better part of the teaching force, listening isn’tsuch a great priority. Sure, teachers harp on it again and again and stew over its weakness amongtheir students, but few recognize it as the pinnacle of importance that it is.
A Skill Like Any Other
Teaching students to be good listeners is a skill with its own strategies and techniques that anyonecan learn and put into practice.
You can find two dozen or so articles on the topic already published and ready to implement in theattentiveness category of our archive, and we’ll be sure to visit more in the coming months, buttoday we’re going to focus on a particularly unique listening strategy, one employed after providinga direction.
It’s called the post-direction strategy. It’s simple. It takes no particular practice or preparation. Andyou don’t need any special skill outside of your powers of observation.
But the best thing about the strategy is that you can use it all the time. For every time you give adirection, you can, and should, begin looking for opportunities to apply it. In time, the strategy willbecome so much a part of your teaching that you won’t give it a second thought. It will be just theway you do business.
How It Works
When most teachers notice a direction being followed poorly, or not at all, either by an individualstudent or an entire class, they’ll immediately call out above the common noise and offer areminder, a hint, or a rephrasing of the direction. And although this approach may indeed guidestudents to their target, it does nothing to improve listening going forward.
In fact, it causes students to become less attentive.
The way the post-direction strategy works is that instead of jumping in to help at the first sign oftrouble, you will allow them to struggle. That’s right. You’re going to allow your students a fewprecious moments to flounder, sit stupefied, and wander about uncertain, best-guessing what youasked of them.
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How Exceptional Teachers Improve Listening — Smart Classroom Management
http://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2013/09/28/how-exceptional-teachers-improve-listening/[30/09/2013 08:34:25]
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You’re going to allow them time to stop and ponder and survey their memory for the words youused and the movements you modeled. You’re going to allow them to move forward tentatively,groping to jog their recollections and mental captures.
As long as they’re in this mode of searching for answers, which you’ll recognize in their bodylanguage and facial expressions, you’re going to let them work their way through it. You’re going tolet them come to the sheepish realization that they didn’t listen to your directions very well.
You’re going to let them face adversity and overcome it.
The only time you’ll intervene is if they’re out of options—at which point you won’t simply interveneand offer a reminder. No, you need a stronger message. So instead of simply letting them off thehook, you’ll stop them in their tracks, send them back to their seats, and provide the exact samedirection again.
What you want and hope for, though, is for your students to soldier their way through it, to proceedunsure, searching the dark, fumbling for the light switch—before finding it all on their own.
Now it’s important to note that if your students are in any way misbehaving or are otherwise notearnestly trying to follow your directions, you should stop them immediately. For this is a behaviorproblem—and a topic for another day—not a listening problem.
Why It Works
Listening deteriorates in an environment of incessant reminding and hint-giving.
The post-direction strategy reverses this slide and restores listening to its full power by sending theunmistakable message that for every time you give a direction, it is expected your students canand will listen and follow it.
You see, when they know you won’t be quick to fill them in, hold their hand, and repeat yourselfover and over again, they’ll naturally, automatically, have an open, active, and homing ear towardthe sound of your voice.
The post-direction strategy gives them tangible proof that they need only listen to your directionsonce, that they are capable and self-reliant and don’t require the steady diet of reminders they’vegrown so accustomed to.
By making the strategy an everyday part of your teaching, you’ll be able to provide complex, multi-step directions matter-of-factly. You’ll be able to continually challenge your students and buildupon greater learning. You’ll be able to express what you want, recede into the background, andwatch . . . just watch . . .
As your students tenaciously check off the tasks and objectives you’ve given them without somuch as a glance in your direction.
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Related posts:
1. A Simple Way To Improve Listening2. The Most Common Speaking Mistakes Teachers Make: Part 23. The Most Common Speaking Mistakes Teachers Make: Part 14. How To Get Your Students To Listen To You5. An Amazing, Eye-Opening Following Directions Strategy
Tagged as: improving listening and following directions, student listening
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How Exceptional Teachers Improve Listening — Smart Classroom Management
http://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2013/09/28/how-exceptional-teachers-improve-listening/[30/09/2013 08:34:25]
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Chris Fikes September 28, 2013 at 5:26 pm
Many students have learning disabilities tied to listening skills or to memory so it isimperative that directions are given in a variety of ways, including written. When I giveinstructions for work, it is also written on the board or on a personal check-off sheet. When astudent asks me what to do next, I point to other students or the written instructions.
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