Listening... it's more than just your ears!





Good listening skills involve more than just your ears!

Mr. T explains to the teachers how their students' listening skills can be developed over time.... using some fun and rather unusual approaches.




Students are to listen only.... they are to do all of the calculation in their brain only.... no paper and pencil!

A young elephant weighs 1500 kilo.  It eats half its weight in grass every day.  How much will it eat in one day?  Five days?

If grass costs 10 rufiyaa per kilo, how much will the elphant owner spend on grass in five days?

 

It's all in your head.... no paper... no pencil! 

The teacher reads this problem to students and they then answer it. 

2+2 - 1 X 2 - 2 divided by 2 + 1 = (     )

The variables here are the speed at which the problem is read and the length of the equation to be solved!

Start easy, with simple, short problems.  Then as the teacher diagnosis their student's abilities, more and more numbers can be added, bigger numbers, more complex calculations.... you might even include the square root at some point!



This is a fun one to do if students have been sitting in their seats for awhile.  It gets them up and moving about, as well as challenging their listening skills.

The first student says.....

"My favorite animal is an elephant."   
Note: the item could be a city, food, book, a famous person, etc.  

Each subsequent student must repeat each aninmal the other students have said before them......

A way to make the same listening skill exercise more challenging is..... notice in the above picture how I am now in the middle rather than at the right end?

After about the third student has said the phrase, "My favorite animal is an elephant, cat and monkey,"  have students one and three change places!  This puts a new twist on the listening exercise!  Student number four will suddenly have a very perplexed look on their face!

Try the above with numbers! Tell students to think of their favorite number, then begin the exercise

"I like the number 9!"  And then it is up to the subsequent students to add to the list of favorite numbers.  See how many numbers can be added before a student can no longer remember them all!

 Try a drawing activity!  The teacher gives the students an auditory description of a picture they want the students to draw...... but only when the teacher finished!  So here goes...

Draw a house in the middle of the paper.
The house has one door and three windows.
One tree is on the left of the house.
Three trees are on the right of the house.
Five mountains are on the horizon behind the house.
Six clouds are in the sky.
A river flows from the first mountain past the house.
Three fish are swimming in the river.

The teacher could stop at this point and allow the students to draw the picture.... or if through past similar activities the teacher has assessed that the students can do more..... the teacher keeps adding more items to be drawn!