How to improve you listening skill
Improve your listening skill fast to have a better future!! Do as follows and you are good to go!!!
It looks good, so we are going to go ahead and start. One quick word of introduction to the workshop today: this is technically the first of two parts.
Next week we're going to talk about taking better lecture notes. It's really hard when the teacher is talking at full-speed and that's pretty much how they all talk about knowing what to write and how to write it. One of the reasons that this is part one is that if you're not mentally in the room listening carefully, you can't take good notes.
So the idea is that today we want to try to get that stronger, um... Okay, so that's kind of the idea. To begin with, whenever students see the title of this workshop improving your listening skills, I get some really interesting responses from people. They look at me and say, "Well, actually, yes, and people say, "Hey, I already know how to do that. Hearing and listening are not the same thing at all, and most people, as I said, are really bad at it." So here's my little uh... quickintroduction to this whole thing.
I talk to students Yeah, okay, good. You come to me with the workshop, uh... people's ability to concentrate is kinda scary, so what we're gon na do is we're gon na start with problems. We don't want to think about those too much, but there are a lot of reasons why people have a hard time concentrating. We're gon na talk about three of them really fast, and then we're going to focus on solutions.
It's always nice when there are twice asmany solutions as problems, but anyway, that's sort of encouraging. So um... out of all the reasons you might think of why a person has trouble concentrating, I want to show you three of them. Okay, so the first one which is a major problem for a lot of people is what's usually referred to as "pseudo-listening." Okay, and what does "pseudo" mean? So the question is, do you ever fake listening okay? If you say no, then you're either the greatest listener of all time or you don't understand what that means yet, but let me give you an example of it. Then you'll realize, "Oh yeah, I do that, whether it's some or a lot when I teach a class." So I'm gon na make some of you nervous here in a minute, but that I like to look at people when I'm talking and I don't just stare at my notes. I kind of make eye contact with people as I teach.
Sometimes I look at people and they're looking at me like this. I can tell right away when I look at them that they're really paying attention. I like to look at those people more often than anybody else. Okay, and then there are some people, and I hope none of you are ever like this, because it's pretty disrespectful to sit in class and just Every once in a while, I look at somebody and see them doing this.
Everything looks really good on the outside, but when I look deep into their eyes, there's nobody there. It's like a science-fiction movie. They're just sitting there like that, not listening to a word I'm saying. When somebody goes on a mentalvacation, that's normal. But the question is, how often do you go on vacation and how long are you gone when you go I've always wanted to do this: I see someone in class and notice that they're not paying attention, so I look somewhere else and talk for a few minutes, then I look back and they're still on vacation, so I look over here and talk for a few minutes, then I look back and they're still on vacation.a lot of students misunderstand when I write this down.
It's called "selective listening." Okay, so that sounds like a constant nagging problem or an occasional one, but it's something that happens a lot in a classroom. I'm gon na give you an example of this too. There is a type of critical listening. What I mean by this is that when you listen to something like a sales pitch and you don't automatically believe it, but you analyze it critically, that's a good thing. The first example of this is this: I had a student a few semesters ago who came to me with a major problem in one of my classes. He said, "I have no memory of anything that went on in that class." I said, "Well, let's try an experiment." He closed his eyes and said, "Picture yourself in the classroom"; I' So again, if you allow something really stupid or something really extra kinda bad to bother you, you have no hope of listening the way you need to.
Some of you have had teachers before who did something like this. They expressed a really strong opinion about religion, politics, or something that wasn't even really related to the class. People who do this spend the rest of the class meeting trying to figure out how to eliminate or at least minimize it. Ok, so again, you want to try to settle on one of these three that you think you' The first one is really easy but it has great power to it. The next time you start doing one of those, you should be able to recognize it right away. Okay, so you're talking to somebody and you're looking at them and you're thinkin' uh-huh and then suddenly you think I'm psuedo listening, so you stop.
Okay, so being sensitive is like, I always describe it like this way, Okay, so the second one that I'm gon na give you is, uh, don't raise your hand. I don't know if anybody here bites their nails, but I'm gon na do it. If you do it, and then you realize it's over, it kinda breaks the cycle. Okay, so this is very simple, but it can work really well. This is common sense but most people are not so good at it. There are two parts to it, and those are being physically and mentally prepared to listen.
Okay, so I'm gon na ask you a couple of questions. Feel free to just call out the answer. What do you need to do physically in order to be ready to listen? Yeah, get enough sleep, not during class but the night before, right? What else do you need to do? Yeah, eat, not during class but before everybody else in here, and this is probably a bad thing for me to say, because it's twelve fifteen and if there's anybody in here who is really hungry right now, goodluck trying to concentrate on me. If you're really tired and you're hungry, good luck trying to concentrate.
Everybody here has had the experience of sitting in a class and five minutes after it starts, your eyes are already starting to close because, well, you know, when you get hungry and time passes, you get hungrier. So, for example, if you have a class that meets on Monday and Wednesday at whatever time, you're just doing what you can. For the mental part, all I'll say is that this could mean many things but mostly It's about the worst advice I could ever give you. But the other one is this: be aware of it.
I always tell people this is a stupid sounding thing, but it can work. Okay, so the third one, which is a pretty simple idea too, is to set a goal. I used to walk up to a classroom when I was in college and I had problems like you. I would imagine that I would look at all four walls and think, "How long is this world going to last?" and I would say, "How carefully are you supposed to listen?" and I've had people say, "Well, maybe fifty-one or fifty-two percent."
If you end up aiming for this and you fall a little short, which you will, and you end up paying attention eighty or ninety percent, that's better than almost everybody else in the class. If your whole thing is well, depends, it's all up to the teacher, then you're gon na be all over the place. So it's your personal responsibility to go in and do what you can to get interested, even if the lecture is not. I know that sounds hard sometimes, but I know it is okay.
I'm gon na go ahead now while I'm Getting into the next couple and I'm gon na give you one of these and can you pass one, two, or three rows back, um... front half and back half. OK, so when this gets to you, I want you to keep listening to me This is a listening workshop but with one eye and one ear.
I want you to go ahead and fill that out and pass it on to the next person. Okay, the fourth one of these solutions is this: it's more than one word, but here's the question: where is the best place to sit in a classroom to have the best chance of paying really good attention? The front, and oftentimes, I get somebody in the back of the room, front, yeah Well, before I explain why, let me ask a quick question. Who do you think tends to get picked on the most? Well, first of all, let me ask a quick question.
How many of you have at least one class this semester that's in a room that's bigger than this one? Well, I'm assuming some of you do. If you don't, let me ask a quick question. What are some of the good reasons for sitting in the front? Okay, so here's the big one for today. If you've been listening all your life, listening is not the same as playing an instrument or playing a sport or anything else. If it's a skill, then that means you can get better at it. So here's the big one. Okay, so here's the big one for today. If you've been listening all your life, listening is not the same as playing an instrument or playing a sport or anything else Well, this is the big one and that is practice. I want you to practice listening. Okay, so we're going to do a little activity now and I want you to treat this as a realchallenge.
I want you to see if you can do it. It's not easy at all. I want you to go ahead and number your paper from one to four. Just for the sake of time. I'm gon na read a sentence to you and I want you to have your pen or pencil ready. Okay, but one rule during this exercise is you're not allowed to OK, so I want you to listen to me read the sentence and then, as soon as I finish saying it, I want you to write it on your paper. But here's the other rule: you have to write it exactly as it appears in the sentence. So the first sentence I read to you is actually going to be very easy. Every other one after that is going to get harder. How does it get harder? Yeah, longer. So it's like I'm taking your brain and I'm trying to stretch it like a rubber band okay, having you hold the words in there long enough to be able to write them down perfectly okay and I want to again emphasize the word "perfect" over and over again. So here we go and I'm gon na only read it once because I can't repeat anything because it's a listening exercise, so listen first and then try to write it fairly quickly but exactly OK. Here's number one. OK, now that should have been pretty easy. This next one is a little bit longer and requires a little bit more concentration.
It still shouldn't be too bad, but we'll see about number two. Okay, number three is still a little bit longer, so again concentrate and, uh... do the best you can at being perfect with this. Here's number three: he usually eats two soft tacos and a burrito whenever he goes to Taco Bell. Okay, before we get to number four, I'm actually gon na tell you two things. One, I want you to go ahead and add a number five. I know you don't want to, but I'm gon na have you add a number five. Two, I want everybody to be totally silent. Okay, so if you blank out, just sit there and be quiet. Okay, so again, you're trying to be perfect.
This is not easy, but we'll go for it. So here's number five. After running four miles on the beach, the young woman walked another mile in order to cool down and then went home. I love watching you do this. I usually do things like this. I'm gon na tell you one thing: I love watching you write. So here's what I usually do. I'm gon na tell you one thing: I love watching you write. So here's what I usually do. Okay, we'll knock almost all of you out right here. everyone elseBut look at your creative writing to see how you do OK. Number four, the four young children, you're not supposed to say anything yet. The four young children spent the whole afternoon playing on the swings and slides at the local park. Okay, anybody still perfect? What have we got?
Okay, now let's see how you do on this one. First of all, when you are in a college class and you're trying to listen and take notes, are you normally supposed to wait for the teacher to finish saying something and then start writing it? No, if you do that, you're always behind. Here's why. If the teachers are talking like this, and you can't write like this, you're stuck. So wait and then write. I have a lot of different lists of five sentences that are kind of the same length as those, but a few years ago, I read the same exact sentences that you just did with me. He came up to me and said, "You lied." He walked up to me and said, "Now look at sentence number three." I said, "I'd be happy to see if you got it right." He said, "Now look at the sentence because it'll help you appreciate it more." So one last little part of this and then we're going to get to our final one is that I've actually had students do something that I never asked them to do before. They grabbed a magazine or a newspaper or a novel, anything with writing on it, and said "Could you do me a favor."
One short sentence, one medium sentence, and one long sentence. Then they went home and wrote down the same thing that I had asked them to do. So they try to copy exactly what they were told in the classroom and then a few days later they try it again and then a few more times, and after several weeks they notice that these are all easy. It's almost like exercising every couple days. So this is not a specific suggestion, but if you didn't do so well on this, it helps to try that okay. And then the last one that we're going to talk about, just for a couple minutes. I will email you later.
I want you to write down one more thing. I'm gon na have you write down one more thing. I'm gon na sort of demonstrate this to you. Then we'll be all set. This is an odd idea, but it definitely works and that is What does that mean? Well, I'm going to demonstrate something here. What is fake listening called again?" Yes, pseudo listening, and we said that's a problem. People say, "Well wait, is it a problem or is it a solution?" It's not the same thing at all. Pseudolistening is when everything on the outside looks good, uh... and you're not listening to one word. Okay, pretend to be fascinated. I want you to look up here for a second. OK, I want to demonstrate something. If you're sitting in a classroom and you are listening to the teacher, and you are like this: "OK, what message is my body sending to my brain? Yeah, this is pathetic.
When is this going to be over? This is the worst thing ever." When you are like this: "What message is my body sending to my brain?" Well, let's see, we got an hour left. Let's see, you have two choices. One reason you do that is because it's respectful to the teacher. OK, teachers know that not everything they teach is going to be interesting to everybody. When you're like this, your body can fake-out or trick your brain. When you're like this, your body is saying "look at me, this is the greatest thing ever!" but your brain is saying "no, no, I don't think so." but when you're like this, your body can fake-out Leaning forward, not like this, but leaning forward and eye contact and facial expressions So I'm gon na tell you one last thing. That's a warning. One of my students said, "I always get bored in one of my classes, so I tried what you said, and I leaned forward and did all the things you said, and I got into really big trouble." Well, he went too far okay, and this is what he said, "don't ever do this, which is a good thing to do."
Okay, so we're all set now with thisok up. Teachers know when you're putting them on, so don't make fun of them. They take a class in marker one, and they can hit you right in the head. So don't make fun of them. Just make subtlechanges. Okay, don't slap anybody next to you. If they're falling asleep, don't pinch yourself too hard. But whatever you can do,
