Today, we will be exploring the importance of effective listening skills and how they can impact the process of teaching and learning. By actively listening to both the teacher and their peers, students can reap numerous benefits. Moreover, feel free to share how listening skills have influenced your PHE lessons, along with the strategies you’ve implemented to enhance your students’ listening abilities

After presenting you with various thought pieces authored by my colleagues, Inosse Chavane and Rosa Jorge, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce my own thought piece, which I developed during the Teaching Preparation Program (TPP). TPP required us to identify a problem and devise a solution. In my thought piece, I have divided the thought piece into several sections. This week, I will be presenting the problem I identified pertaining to listening skills, along with the rationale behind my decision to conduct this action research. Additionally, we will discuss the goals of this research, and introduce the literature review related to listening skills. In the following week, we will continue with the literature review, and ultimately, in the third week, I will share the methods I employed to address the issue, along with the results of my research. Please feel free to utilize these strategies in your own lessons and remember to return and share your own experiences with us

The title of my thought piece was:

Developing effective listening skills enhances understanding and helps students to avoid repetitions, going out of content or taking inappropriate action.

Having the title I moved to the main issue which was during the classes,  students were demonstrating low levels of listening skills, which made them misunderstand the teacher’s and peers’ explanations. During their contributions, they were more worried about giving their opinion or contribution than understanding what the other colleagues said. Those attitudes were visible during the class while one person was talking they raised up their hands and asked to talk at the same time, losing the opportunity to understand and probably use peer’s contributions to enrich or strengthen opinion and keep in the context of the topic, or else miss the opportunity to correct or teach another peer in the event of a disregarded contribution. This was the main problem. Now, why is it important for me as a teacher to address this issue? 

It’s because listening skills are essential for learning since they enable students to acquire insight and information, and to achieve success in communicating with others. Life within and outside school affords many listening opportunities, but some students fail to seize them because they let their minds wander or they may concentrate on what they want to say themselves rather than on what a speaker is saying. If they learn how to listen to others, the others will listen to what they have to say as well, they will respect them because they show respect to them by listening. (Sharma, 2011)

So my interest in doing this action research came because I faced these situations during my PHE classes, where students concentrate more on what they are going to say instead of listening. Also, this research helped me to develop my listening skills somehow during teacher discussions. I used to behave the same way ( focusing on talking rather than listening).

Academically, I wanted to bring improvements in future action research in the PHE area, and also use PHE to develop skills that students can use in different environments.

Social,  I wanted students to transfer the knowledge and skills they have gained during this action research to their everyday interactions in the community 

Objectives

• Develop effective listening skills for PHE students

4.1.Specific objectives

• Check evidence of active listening during Lessons
• Reflect on evidence based on active and passive listening during the class
• Identify strong points and areas of improvement to support my students

Literature review

 Listening

The process of listening is often contrasted with hearing. Lundsteen (1979), considered hearing a physical act and listening to a mental act. Hearing, she said, had to do with our physiological capacity to receive and process sounds. Problems with our ability to hear could hinder our listening. Hence, it behoves each of us to have our hearing checked if we think it could be affecting our ability to listen. In contrast to hearing, listening has to do with assigning meaning to the stimuli received by our brain. To listen is to attach meaning to the aural symbols perceived.(Purdy, 2017)

 We will maintain this defined distinction between hearing and listening, even though the words may be used interchangeably in our day-to-day usage. We may say “I did not hear you.” But we did hear, we just were not fully attending and hence were not listening. (Sometimes, if we quickly focus our mind on what was said we can still remember what was said. The words remain in short-term memory for a brief period of time and can be recalled.) There is also confusion in our everyday usage because parents tell their children “You’re not listening.” What the parent often means is “You are not obeying.” In the Germanic roots of the Anglo–Saxon language there is a sense in which “to listen” means “to obey”. Hearing and listening will have precise meanings in this text. There are several distinct definitions of listening, and there is little agreement about which is the best; nor should there be.(Purdy, 2017)

Listening, however, is not automatic. To be better listeners we need to understand and work with the components of the listening process. For our purposes, whatever definition of listening we choose we must know that:

• Listening can be learned,
• Listening is an active process, involving mind and body, with verbal and nonverbal processes working together,
• Listening allows us to be receptive to the needs, concerns, and information of others, as well as the environment around us.

 Listening is comprised of seven essential components:

•  Volition,
• Focused attention,
• Perception,
• Interpretation,
• Remembering,
• Response,
• Human element.

These seven components are an integral part of the dynamic and active process of listening. That listening is dynamic means that while there may be essential components the act of listening itself is never the same twice. We must be constantly alert and open to improvisation as the elements of the listening situation change. (Purdy, 2017)

Communication has two dimensions: speaking (expression), and listening (reception). For most of Western Civilization, speaking has been the form of communication regarded as most important. The first books on communication were about how to be an effective speaker. Listeners were recognized, but only as they were important to the purposes of the speaker. In fact, speaking has been championed as the way to success throughout Western history. We give honours and awards to great speakers, but how many people do you know who have been recognized for their listening talents? There is even a popular speaking course that purports to teach “how to win friends and influence people.” The road to success is not through listening, they suggest. (Purdy, 2017)

Listening is a communication method that requires the listener to understand, interpret, and assess what they hear. The ability to listen actively can improve personal interaction by reducing problems, increasing cooperation, and fostering understanding. (Sharma, 2011)

Listening is one of the receptive skills and as such it involves students in capturing and understanding the input of English. Reading, the other receptive skill, involves students in understanding and interpreting the written word. Listening is probably more difficult than reading because students often recognise the written word more easily than they recognise the spoken word. Furthermore, when reading, students can go back and reread a phrase whereas with listening they only get one chance. With reading, it’s the reader who sets the pace whereas with listening it’s the speaker or recording that sets the pace (Lucy Pollard, 2008) cited by (Nurpahmi, 2018)

A large portion of learning in school begins with listening. However, many students have not developed active listening skills. The result is poor note-taking, difficulty remembering things, and poor test performance. Learning to actively listen and using the skill during lectures will greatly improve your success as a student. (Manallack, 2003)

Thank you so much for reading this piece, next week we will continue with the literature review so that you can have a better understanding of how important listening skills are and how they impact teaching and learning. 

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