Developing Student Listening Skills

Have I got a skill for you? In my classroom, especially during my classroom management, the beginning of the year. It’s very important that my kiddos listen to me with their whole body. You might say listen to me with your whole body? Sounds wild, and crazy. The kids think so too because they know that just their ears are listening to you and that should be all they’re responsible for. Well actually, we discovered something called whole-body listening. I have it posted up in my classroom, and we review it every day when my kiddos are in a whole group activity. We start with the eyes. It’s so important to make sure your eyes are looking at the speaker at all times. It’s so easy to get distracted, but to keep your eyes focused means that you are listening with your eyes. You want to listen with your ears. Just have them do their job, they, listen just keep your ears open, and ready to hear new things. With your mouth. We can listen with our mouths by keeping it closed. While someone else is speaking, we keep ours closed to show respect that we’re listening to the speaker. We listen with our hands. In my classroom, we keep our hands locked and in our lap, and that way we know that our hands are not going to be distracted by another child or something else going on in the room. We listen with our feet by keeping them still, and on the ground. We listen with our body by keeping it still and together. We listen with our brain because our brain is thinking about what the speaker is saying. And most important, we listen with our heart. Give your heart and your all to whoever is talking. Thank you. So, to review I introduced the idea of whole-body listening at the beginning of the year. I post the chart in my classroom, so the students can see it. Then, we review it every day.