Active Listening: A structured format for improving communication.

Do you ever get cut off when you're talking to someone?  Your short pause as you collected your thoughts was the irresistible opportunity for your partner to interject with their thoughts.

Or maybe you were the person who couldn't NOT interject.  That silence was just too awkward.

Why does this happen? Is it that we just have so much to say and must get it out?  How do you think that makes the person who was interrupted feel?  Do they feel like their voice/thoughts were heard?

This happens all the time in adult life, and especially in schools among students.  No matter what, there are often people who tend to dominate conversations (I wonder, are they really conversations?) and people tend to fall into, or are pushed, into a passive roll.

Some people are introverts, and are very comfortable being quiet.  Just because they aren't talking doesn't mean they aren't engaged.  Even if they are quietly engaged, there's still a missed opportunity if they don't have the opportunity to speak.

Active Listening

Six years ago I attended a workshop put on by the Passage Works Institute called Creating the Engaged Classroom which is based on a book called The 5 Dimensions of Engaged Teaching  They have a practice called Active Listening that forces pairs into either speaking or listening roles.

I had a bit of an epiphany about it at the time because I realized I have so much collaborative work in my class, and I expect students to communicate with one another, but I never taught them HOW to communicate.  The most important part of communication is LISTENING.  

This practice was a structured tool that taught students how to manage their speaking and listening so that conversations were more equitable.  I have used it regularly in my classes ever since, and truly made my students better communicators, and thus more effective, in their group work.

Here's how it works:
Partner A and B pair up and are given a prompt to discuss. Both will take turns speaking for a predetermined amount of time.

Partner A speaks for the determined amount of time.  In that time ONLY partner A can speak. If they run out of things to say, they can remain silent for the remainder of the time, or resume speaking if and when they have something more to say.

Partner B does not say a word. They face their partner. They make eye contact. They give non-verbal acknowledgement of what the person is saying, but do not speak. They don't ask questions. They don't interject. They just listen. And if there is no more to say, they both sit in silence until the time is up or partner A decides to say more.




After the allotted time, Partner A and B switch roles.

The Implementation

The first time I do this, I have students talk for 30 seconds, and I pick a topic that is very easy to talk about.  Your favorite food?  Your favorite board game?  I love to draw a Would You Rather card; "Would you rather always have a bag over your head or have your foot stuck in a bucket?"

Then we do it a second time.  Now a minute. Same type of question, or maybe a little more challenging.  This time most students speak for 45 seconds or so, and then run out of what to say.  Here's where the personality types come out.

If Partner B can't handle the silence, they'll interject.  Maybe they'll just feel really awkward.
Sometimes Partner A has a really hard time speaking that long.  They feel awkward too.  Some find their way and start talking again. Some just sit in an awkward silence.

After this, we debrief the activity.

• How was it as the speaker?  Was it easy? Hard?

• How was it as the listener? Was it easy or hard?

• Was one easier than the other?

• How is this like or unlike normal conversations?

Themes that come up:

• Some students love to speak. The speaking was easy. Or it's the other way around. Some students love to be quiet and the listening was easy. 

Too much speaking by one person?

• Typically we have a predominant preference.  Those of us that are really good at speaking, might be the ones that overpower a conversation and need to listen better.  We need to learn to moderate ourselves and not speak too much.

• Some of us prefer to be quiet, or speak slower.  We need to make sure we strengthen our speaking "muscles" and work on getting our points across.

These are good conversations to have as a class.  They set the expectation that everyone's voice is important and being a good communicator means you can balance BOTH your speaking and LISTENING.  I once heard we have two ears and one mouth, so we should remember to listen twice as much as we speak.  That's cute and all, but let's just be more aware of how much we speak and be conscious of everyone's voice in a group discussion.

Building on the Practice
You have to do this again. Some time soon.

Progressively increase the amount of time you have them talk. They will get better at it.  Always start with a small interval of time and work up to something longer.  Same with questions. Start with easy questions, and then build in higher level questions.  These can by all means be content related questions.

After you do this three to five times, students will really get it. It won't take long for them to be comfortable talking for 2-3 minutes.  Once you have done the active listening process for a while, and you tell them "have a regular conversation now, but apply what you've learned through our active listening practices" they will be excited to speak in a normal conversation style.  You'll be amazed because the quality of conversation will be better.  Fewer kids will interject and the conversations will be more balanced.

In the future when you do group projects, or discussions, just a gentle reminder about speaking and listening at the outset will lead to a high quality level of communication throughout.

Some Ideas: 

1.  When doing this practice, use it to progressively move up Blooms Taxonomy. This pdf gives sentence stems for asking higher order questions.

• Level 1: Recall
• Level 2: Understanding
• Level 3: Apply
• Level 4: Analyze
• Level 5: Evaluate
• Level 6: Create

2.  Pick a level, depending on where you are in a lesson.  Just teach a new topic? Do a level 1 or 2 question. End of the period and them to take it deeper?  Pick a level 4, 5, or 6

3.  Periodically, give them a prolonged chuck of time.  5 minutes of just speaking.  If you've built up to it, you'll be amazed by what they're capable.

4. Do this practice every time you do a new seating chart, especially if students are in groups. It's a great way for each group member to have a face to face with their new partners, and build their skill too!

Do you have experience with a practice like this? How did it go? Have other ideas of how to use it?  She your thoughts in the comments below!