Learning to listen is a skill that many parents try to teach their children long before elementary school. However, once in elementary school, not listening becomes more than just an inconvenience or even a safety concern. To be successful in school, children must learn to practice active listening to receive instruction, understand homework, and interact positively with their classmates. Whether you are a parent or an educator, there are activities you can involve elementary school students in to develop their listening skills.
Summary of this practical sheet
1 Telephone
2 Favorite Colors
3 Active listening
4 Active discussion
Phone
A simple game that kids in Kindergarten to Grade 6 can learn over the phone. Divide students into groups of six or seven and ask the children to raise their hands if they think they are good listeners. Select one student from each group to receive a whispered message from you. Give them instructions on how to operate the game and tell them to return to their groups and relay both the game instructions and the message. Tell the groups that the team that successfully repeats your message is the winner. Have the leaders whisper this same message to the person to their right, who then whispers the message to the person to their right, and so on. The person sitting to the immediate left of the leader writes the message down on a piece of paper and hands it to you. When all the groups are done, share the group responses with the class and share your original post. If a student did not understand how to play, discuss the importance of listening and how listening was key to winning the game.
Favorite colors
Explain to the students that you are going to practice listening in class and repeat what was said to see who really heard what was shared. Call a student to tell the class what their favorite color is. Then ask the next student to share both their favorite color and the favorite color of the person in front of them. Ask a third student to share their favorite color with the second student's favorite color. Continue this exercise until all the students have shared. If someone forgets what was shared before them, gently ask the student to try again. Discuss things that prevent active listening, such as daydreaming or overthinking what you, the listener, are going to say without listening to the speaker.
Active listening
Use a role-play exercise to set an example of active listening for the class. Choose a student to share what has happened in her life over the past week. Set an example of active listening by watching the student all the time she is speaking, reacting to what she is sharing, and repeating parts of what she is sharing to her. Then ask the class what steps you took to show that you were listening. Let students play the role of active listening in pairs, giving each student two minutes to talk about a topic. Encourage students not to interrupt, to focus on the speaker, to accept the person's feelings without judgment, and to show by your tone of voice and friendly expression that you care about what the other person is saying.
Active discussion
Introduce a topic to your class, for example: “Some people think children should go to school all year round without summer break. What do you think ? And ask students to discuss the topic. Ask students, one at a time, to share their opinions. After the students have shared for the first time, have all students paraphrase what the student in front of them said before sharing their own opinion. Ask the first student who spoke to paraphrase what the last student shared at the end of the exercise. You can do this exercise either as a whole class or by dividing the students into small groups of six to eight people.