If you're unfamiliar with the CASEL framework, we highly recommend reading here first, as it will greatly enhance your understanding of soft skills.
Introduction to Active Listening
Active listening is the skill of fully concentrating on the speaker, understanding their message, providing feedback, and responding thoughtfully. Children utilize this skill in learning environments to absorb information and maintain their focus, while adults need it in almost every social interaction, from team collaborations to family conversations. By fostering active listening, parents, caregivers, and tutors can help children develop into empathetic, understanding, and engaged individuals.
Active Listening is mainly associated with the following CASEL core areas of competence:
Social Awareness: Awareness and empathy for individuals, their emotions, experiences, and perspectives through a cross-cultural lens.
Relationship Management: Communicate and interact effectively.
Core Behaviors associated with Active listening, by age:
6-8
6-8
Social Awareness - Considering Others: Learners demonstrate respect for their peers' points of view.
Example: When a peer shares a story about their weekend, the learner listens attentively without interrupting and later asks questions that show genuine interest.
Relationship Management - Following Directions: Showing they have listened by accurately completing tasks as instructed.
Example: After listening to classroom instructions, a child can repeat the steps back to the teacher and complete the task accordingly.
9-11
9-11
Social Awareness - Participating in Group Activities: Learners actively listen to peer contributions, indicating their appreciation for group dynamics and collaboration.
Example: In a team activity, a learner listens to the team’s strategy and acknowledges their teammates' suggestions for plays, showing collaboration and respect for the group’s input.
Relationship Management - Engaging in Conversations: Learners are expected to listen without interruption, showing their understanding by contributing relevant comments.
Example: During a group discussion on a class project, a learner waits for their turn to speak and builds on another's idea, showing they have listened to and understood the point made.
12-14
12-14
Social Awareness - Developing Empathy: Active listening is key to empathizing with different viewpoints and forming deeper social connections.
Example: A teen listens to a peer's concerns about school stress, acknowledges the feelings shared, and offers support.
Relationship Management- Supporting Peers: Teen learners provide comfort or advice by listening to and understanding their peers' perspectives.
Example: When mediating a disagreement between friends, the teen encourages each person to share their perspective, listens without interrupting, and helps them find common ground.
15-17
15-17
Social Awareness - Deepening Empathetic Connections: Advanced active listening leads to profound understanding and empathy for others' situations and feelings.
Example: A high school learner volunteers at a community center, listening attentively to seniors, sharing stories of their youth, and showing genuine interest and understanding.
Relationship Management- Contributing to Discussions: Learners of this age group participate in discussions by actively listening, summarizing, and responding to complex ideas.
Example: During a debate, a learner listens to opposing arguments, summarizes the key points, and formulates a well-considered counter-argument that addresses those points.
Promoting Active Listening
For Parents and Care Givers
For Parents and Care Givers
Encourage family conversations that involve sharing and reflecting on each other's thoughts. For example, introduce a 'conversation starter' topic during family meals.
Role-playing can also help learners practice attentive listening and appropriate responses. For example, create scenarios where one family member plays the role of a character with a problem or story to tell, and another plays the role of the listener. The listener practices active listening skills by maintaining eye contact, nodding, asking clarifying questions, and providing feedback that shows understanding.
Encourage your child to tell you about their day and listen without judgment or immediate advice, reinforcing the importance of understanding before responding.
For Tutors
For Tutors
Facilitate activities that require pairs or groups of learners to listen to one another, exchange ideas, and provide constructive feedback. For example, group activities can include 'Roundtable Sharing' where a small group of learners discusses a topic, and each member contributes one idea or thought. The rest of the group practices active listening and then provides feedback, ensuring that they engage with and respond to the ideas presented by their peers.
Classroom exercises can also involve following spoken instructions to complete a task. For example, learners listen to a series of spoken instructions for a task, such as creating a simple piece of art, solving a puzzle, or assembling an object. After the instructions are given, learners attempt to complete the task without further guidance. This exercise helps hone their ability to listen attentively, process spoken information, and apply it to achieve a specific outcome.
Use role-playing exercises in the classroom to practice active listening skills, such as having students paraphrase their partner's statement before responding.
Feedback and Reflection
Feedback and Reflection
In feedback sessions, focus on the learner's ability to engage with and understand the speaker.
Encourage learners to reflect on their listening skills by summarizing the main points of a conversation or lesson and considering the perspectives of others.
Regular feedback sessions should be conducted where learners reflect on their listening experiences. Ask open-ended questions such as, “What did you find most interesting about what your peer said?” or “What could you do differently next time to understand better?”
Use a feedback sandwich approach: start with a positive observation about their listening, suggest an area for improvement, and end with another positive remark to encourage and motivate the learner.
Provide learners with a simple self-assessment checklist that includes active listening components like eye contact, nodding, not interrupting, and asking relevant questions. After a listening activity, learners can use the checklist to reflect on their own performance.
Additional Resources
Additional Resources
Watch a short video about Active Listening from Harvard Business Review.
Read in Forbes, about the power Active Listening has to boost your development.
Explore in PsychCentral how to become a great Actice Listener step by step.
Recommendations for related activities or courses on the Morphoses platform.
References
References
Chatzinikola, M. E. (2021). Active Listening as A Basic Skill of Efficient Communication Between Teachers and Parents: An Empirical Study. European Journal of Education and Pedagogy, 2(6), 8-12.
Flavia, M., & Enachi-Vasluianu, L. (2016). The importance of elements of active listening in didactic communication: a student’s perspective. In CBU International Conference Proceedings (Vol. 4, pp. 332-335).
Maras, A., Pongračić, L., & Marinac, A. (2021). Skills of teaching active listening in younger school-age students. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Academic Conference on Education, Teaching, and Learning (IACETL).
Mascadri, J., Brownlee, J. L., Johansson, E., Scholes, L., Walker, S., & Berthelsen, D. (2021). Children’s perspectives on why and when teachers listen to their ideas: Exploring opportunities for participation in the early years of school. International Journal of Educational Research, 107, 101747. ISSN 0883-0355.
Communicating Beyond Words: Active Listening as a Key to Readaptation and Reintegration of Refugee Children. (2016). In U. Markowska-Manista (Ed.), The Interdisciplinary Contexts of Reintegration and Readaptation in the Era of Migration - an Intercultural Perspective (pp. 188-203).