FRD - Episode 3( enhancing listening skills in schools)

In this podcast episode, we learn about enhancing listening skills in education. Activities like storytelling, audiobooks, music, podcasts, and reflective listening can help improve comprehension and critical thinking. Teachers can incorporate these activities into the curriculum to create an engaging learning environment that enhances students' cognitive abilities. Welcome to the third episode of this podcast. So in this episode we will discuss enhancing listening skills in education. So we will discuss how we can enhance learning skills in education and also its importance. Okay, so let's begin. So enhancing learning skills through engaging activities is a powerful way to captivate students' attention and foster their ability to comprehend and interpret information. Here is a brief discussion, as I mentioned earlier, on incorporating various activities to improve listening skills. So the first one you can see is incorporating storytelling and audiobooks in the curriculum. Storytelling and audiobooks offer a wonderful opportunity to enhance listening skills. By integrating engaging narratives and audio content into the curriculum, students can develop their listening abilities while immersing themselves in captivating stories. So this helps them build vocabulary, improve comprehension, and strengthen their ability to follow and understand complex narratives. So teachers can incorporate storytelling activities by reading aloud to students, organizing story cycles where students share their own stories, or inviting guest speakers to share real-life experiences. Additionally, including audiobooks as part of the curriculum allows students to practice attentive listening, appreciate language nuances, and develop an appreciation for different genres of literature. So moving on to the second one, we are seeing promoting active listening activities using music or podcasts. Music and podcasts are engaging mediums that can be effectively utilized to promote active listening in the classroom. Teachers can incorporate music by playing songs related to the curriculum, and students can listen attentively to the lyrics, identifying themes, and analyze the messages conveyed. Similarly, podcasts provide educational content packaged in an audio format, offering students a wealth of material to actively listen to and discuss. Teachers can assign specific podcast episodes for listening, followed by a group discussion or written reflection where learners now reflect on what they have listened to and what they have learned from that particular podcast. This exercise sharpens critical listening skills, encourages thoughtful analysis, and sparks meaningful conversations among students. So the last one for this one is fostering critical thinking through reflective listening activities. Reflective listening activities prompt students to think critically about the information they hear. So they hear, evaluate its creditability, and draw their conclusions on what they have gained about the information so they start to understand the information by their own. This activity enhances listening skills by encouraging students to engage actively with the content and consider different perspectives. So teachers can design reflective listening activities by playing recorded speeches, TED Talks, or presentations, and then asking students to write reflective essays or engage in group discussions that analyze the speaker's argument, evidence, or receptacle techniques. Critical thinking is further sharpened when students practice active listening during debates or mock trials. By actively listening to arguments and counter-arguments, students learn to evaluate the quality and relevance of information, supporting the development of their critical thinking skills. By incorporating activities that utilize storytelling, audio books, music podcasts, and reflective listening, teachers can create an immersive and engaging learning environment that employs students' listening skills. These activities not only improve comprehension, but also cultivate analytical thinking and students' overall cognitive ability. So listening really helps a lot when it comes to improving the child's cognitiveness and thinking capabilities. Thank you for listening to this episode. Hope to see you in the next one.