For better understanding of certain concepts in a language, you need to listen effectively. Here are some listening activities for students, so that they not only hear but listen and learn new things.
When you are sitting in a restaurant there are many people talking, the waiters taking orders, vending machines being operated, or the cooks cooking in the open kitchen. You can hear all these sounds, because you have ears which are meat to hear the sounds. But if you happen to overhear your neighbor's conversation, you find out he/she is talking about their day at office! This is called active listening, where you not only hear a certain piece of information but concentrate on it, analyze and try to understand the concept.
Listening is a very important activity for our existence, as it is one of the main factors in communication, which all of us need and should be inculcated within us at a raw age. This ability to understand, evaluate and interpret the words which are heard physically could be used to reduce conflicts and improve relationships, to teach others what you understand, and to make life easier and healthier. We have a few listening activities for students, as they are in the best learning age. Take a look and use some of the active listening activities for your benefit!
Active Listening Activities for Students
When a child is sent to school, the first activity which is carried out is introducing yourself! When a class of little children tell their name out loud and clear, it is called the most effective listening activity as the other kids start memorizing it and gradually associate the person with his/her name. After this, there are many other listening activities for students such as learning alphabets and numbers, shapes and colors, words and sentences, which are repeated many times. It is very important that students trying to learn something new, listen to themselves speak it out loudly as when you hear yourself, you can memorize and learn more quickly. This rule is applicable for individuals and students of all ages, thus giving everyone a chance to learn and listen more effectively. We have a few such activities mentioned below, read on.
Various Sounds
When you want to recognize regular sounds which exist around you all the time, but haven't paid attention to them yet, the simplest thing to do is make a list of all of them and listen to them. You can use this activity for yourself, for kids or any other students you are trying to train.- It is also one of the simplest and most effective active listening exercises one can go through for better listening skills. Visit the beach, join a music class, sit in a park, go to a lake or river side or a farmland, visit a construction site, or any other place where you would get to hear a variety of natural sounds.
- The sounds of flowing water or bubbles, musical instruments, strong winds or breeze, insects and animals, children playing and swinging, bulldozers rolling tar on the road or drilling machines demolishing the road, etc., are all the unique sounds which are present around us, but all you need to do is listen.
Phone Numbers
Many a times, when we are trying to memorize somebody's phone number, we think they are easy to remember for the next 2 minutes, but forget them right after 1 minute! Well, that's because we follow the wrong way of memorizing.- Like alphabets, numbers are also learned or memorized the best when they are spoken loudly, so we could hear them and store them in our brain. Therefore, try to read out all the phone numbers in your contacts list loudly and clearly to yourself or the other person.
- Through this activity, the precise numbers are heard by us and because we concentrate and understand the order, it is easy to memorize them. Once you have learned these with respect to their owners, you will remember all the phone numbers for the exact owner automatically.
Games and Activities
Another great one of the listening activities for college students, could be playing some knowledgeable games with those students which need to learn active listening skills. These games could be group activities or could be played individually.- If you are teaching these effective listening techniques to a group of students, the importance of listening, you could play games such as; Pass a message, Lip read or mime games, draw with description (one partner describes verbally and the other partner draws without looking at him).
- Narrating speeches, hearing audio clips of well known songs or movies, voices of famous people, etc., are some of the activities which you could use to make students recognize the sounds. If they are able to recognize the right people, songs, or movies, it means they have been listening to these examples carefully.
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/listening-activities-for-students.html
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