Learning to Listen
The recent EARCOS teachers conference was held in Kuala Lumpur. I was able to attend a workshop session with Art Costa titled: Learning to Listen with Skill and Empathy. I didn’t expect to be impacted as much as I was … I guess I should have known better.
In a very simple and effective means of delivery, Art presented the three P’s … Pausing, Paraphrasing, and Probing. If only … if only … if only we could practice these three more frequently in our classrooms.
For a start we need to realize that 65% of communication is non-verbal. As a matter of fact only 7% of communication is with words. Research has showed that we can communicate much better if we were to tweek our delivery and listening style. When we respond to someone else, it is best to mimic them. Think about it, if we use the same type of gestures as our students use, we communicate interest. We should mirror their posture and gestures of others and we will become much more effective listeners and communicators.
Our intentions are far greater than our listening. So how do we improve our intentions. We need to pause our brains … let them rest and really listen. It is better to give a reflective answer than an impulsive answer. It’s best to wait by counting 3 … 2 … 1 and then answer. Punctuate our answers with silence.
Once we have heard, paraphrase to make sure we understand. State in your own words what you just heard. This lets others know you heard and you understand. This will create alignment between you, the listener, and the speaker. It helps to create a trust. Always use the pronoun “you” instead of “I”.
Always paraphrase before asking a question or probing. This will help increase clarity – refine understanding, terminology and interpretation. The bottom of the iceburg is deep, to reach it we must listen with non-judgmental value.
The effective listener will practice the three P’s … Pausing, Paraphrasing, and Probing.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:12 pm
1000% agree Dave. I too went to this session at the Admin conference and thought that it was fantastic. Too often when we think about communicating we only consider one side of the equation.
As an interesting example of how true what Art says is consider an example that Denis Sparks gave in one of his sessions at EARCOS. He related an activity that he once had a particpate with a room full of strangers. The activity was to find someone you had not met before and take turns, for three minutes each, telling them everything you liked about them. He said it was remarkable how easy this was, and how accurate the assessments were. Amazing huh?
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:38 am
I see all of Costa’s Habits of Mind as valuable but am finding “listening with understanding and empathy” to cut across so many areas of my personal and professional life that I am finding it at the top of the list.
I have always found the importance of true attentive listening in instructional technology. As we talk about school change and shift, we need to remember that we first need to start with listening and understanding. Those of us who are the change agents must take the time to understand where our teacher partners are coming from just as we work to communicate what 21st century skills, Learning 2.0, etc. are. The listening happens first and continues as we work to build mutual understanding as we look to where our schools are going.