Listening Skills

Aim

This is a straightforward listening exercise suitable for all levels. Participants will learn the importance of verbal and non-verbal signals when communicating face-to-face and practice their own listening skills.

The exercise entails role-play and should take 45 minutes to complete.

Learning Objectives

You will be able to …

• recognize the verbal and non-verbal signals a speaker portrays
• understand how a listener responds to a speaker to demonstrate they are listening

What to Do (30 minutes)

Introduce the topic with the key learning points, and divide the participants into groups of three. Allocate each individual in the group one of the roles: speaker, listener or observer, giving them a brief description of each role:

• The speaker should decide on a topic they can speak about for approximately five minutes. The exercise will work best if the topic is something that is important to them: their job, their family, a decision or a question.
• The listener’s role is to practice their listening skills. They should use appropriate signals such as eye contact, body language, silences, verbal and non-verbal signals to show the speaker they are listening. Their verbal input should be as limited as possible.
• The observer should observe the listener's verbal and non-verbal skills and count as many behaviors (eye contact, body language, verbal encouragement such as ‘yes’, or ‘go on’) and topic jumps as they can. They should attempt to be as accurate as possible and should also time the sessions to five minutes.