The Active Listening Approach

Activation of prior knowledge

It is important to give students the opportunity to use what they already know – their prior knowledge – to help their comprehension and motivate them by bringing their lives into the lesson.

Focus on key skills

If students know why they are listening, they are more likely to listen successfully. Through the systematic presentation of key skills – listening for main ideas, listening for details, and listening to make inferences – teachers can help students determine their purpose for listening and understand what they are hearing.

Interesting content

Active Listening presents stimulating cultural information for students to know and share. Teaching students new and interesting facts about other cultures leads to increased motivation.

Listening leads to speaking

Presentation of extensive listening tasks in Active Listening leads to personalized speaking opportunities. Teachers can build on listening tasks to provide speaking practice, while at the same time, students get practice in listening to each other

Click on the link below to download a copy of Steven Brown's booklet "Teaching Listening."