4_ active listening 6-8

The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them. —Ralph G. Nichols Active Listening At Home Resources Level: Middle School (6-8) Concepts: • Active Listening • Communication Skills • Conflict ResolutionBig Ideas For This LessonActive Listening is about seeking to understand, and to be understood. Just like mindfulness and learning to pay atten-tion, listening is actually a skill that can be learned and taught. As adults, we know from experience that no person is ca-pable of listening to every instruction 100% of the time. Attention, and the willpower to direct our attention, is a limitedresource. Constant listening and attention is an impossible task, but listening can be improved with practice.To invite compassion and patience, take a moment to reflect on how listening is modeled in your home. What lessons hasyour child learned about listening just from watching other family members? What might you keep or change about howlistening is modeled in your home? Active listening goes beyond what we notice with our sense of hearing and can bereferred to as both hearing and receiving a message. Receiving messages requires us to pay attention. Essential VocabularyActive Listening: The choice to engage fully with the speaker and their message. Hearing and receiving a speaker’s message, spo-ken or unspoken. A specific set of skills and techniques for engaging with others through conversation. Examples of skills include:reflections, paraphrasing, minimal encouragers, body language, clarifying questions/statements, and summarizing.Body Language: Non-verbal forms of communication including posture, physical gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact.Clarifying Questions: Open-ended questions that invite further explanation from the speaker and demonstrate attention todetail. For example, “What did you mean by...?” or “Can you explain that more?”Clarifying Statements: Direct, open-ended statements that invite further explanation from thespeaker. For example, “Say moreabout that.” or “Talk about how you felt.”Minimal Encouragers: The skill of encouraging sharing through small, affirmative signals in your verbal and non-verbal commu-nication. This includes short phrases like: “Uh-huh,” “Hmmm,” “Wow,” “Keep sharing,” etc. This also includes non-verbal signals likehead nodding, eye contact, facial expressions, and even the “keep going” hand signal.Paraphrasing: The skill of repeating back to the speaker what was said using slightly different wording.Reflection:(As used in Active Listening) The skill of repeating what someone shared without changing the wording (e.g. If someoneshares “I feel excited” a reflection would be, “I hear that you feel excited.”).Summarizing: The skill of briefly stating the main points of a speakers’ message.© 2018 Empowering Education, Inc. PAGE 1 of 2 All rights reserved.

ACTIVE LISTENING IN CONVERSATIONS | GRADES 6-8 PracticeTry the Draw a Bug activity with your student. In this activity, you will draw a picture of a bug and then describethe drawing to your child. Without seeing your drawing, your child will recreate the bug by using their activelistening skills.Compare the two drawings - do the pictures look the same? Reflect on the experience with your student, pay-ing attention to how this relates to conversations. We all bring our own experience to our communication, andhow we interpret a speakers message may be different than what they intended.Bonus: For an interesting example of how feedback and listening can improve our skills watch the video Aus-tin’s Butterfly (Source: https://vimeo.com/38247060) Student Resources• Paperboy by Vince Vawter (Grades 6 – 9) • Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (Grades 8 – 10) • Communication Skills for Teens: How to Listen, Express, and Connect for Success by Michelle Skeen, Mat thew Mc Kay, Patrick Fanning, and Kelly Skeen• Active Listening Student Production (Video 4:36) Adult Resources• Is Your Child Really Listening?: One Minute Games to Help Kids Focus (Book) by Rhea Farbman (Activities are suitable for various age groups).• Julian Treasure: 5 Ways to Listen Better (TED Talk Video 7:43)• Say What? 5 Ways to Get Students to Listen (Edutopia Blog Post)• The Bug Activity - Active Listening (Excellent follow up learning activity to reinforce the skills of active listening.)© 2018 Empowering Education, Inc. PAGE 2 of 2 All rights reserved.