The Importance of Teaching Listening Skills

If you google “listening skills,” you will see 7 million results about the importance of listening and how to become a better listener. But the links are primarily targeted to communication skills in business. I agree that listening in business, especially in sales, is critical.  But when more than 23 research studies show better listening leads to better learning, more attention needs to be focused on listening in school.

Listening is a critically important skill to improve. And to improve it, you must be able to practice, assess and track progress but sadly there is no tool available to help students practice the discrete skill of listening. Yet research shows it is a skill that can be improved with tracking and practice.

As humans, we have so many important ways we convey and understand information as we communicate.  We are born with ears and are never actually taught how to listen—it’s understood how to do it, we just start. As kids, we grow up learning how to speak by listening to the people who are close to us and imitating others.

While listening and reading share many comprehension processes, there are differences in the way the information is processed.

Now before we jump into details, I want to share an interesting fact with you, over 60% of all misunderstandings come from poor listening and only 1% from poor reading. If you don’t currently teach your students specifically how to listen, it may be time to add activities to your curriculum that strengthen this skill. The benefits of strong listening skills may begin in class, but they extend through all aspects of your student’s academic and personal lives.

So, why it is important to teach effective listening skills? Let’s go over what exactly that looks like. One great way to think of positive versus negative listening skills is through the example of active and passive listening.

Active listening, loosely defined, is paying attention to a speaker, and listening to understand, not to respond. It also includes complete focus on the speaker with minimal distractions out of respect and an intent to learn. In school, one example of active listening would be a student waiting their turn and considering what their peers have to say before stating their opinion in a classroom discussion.

Passive listening, however, is like listening while multitasking. A passive listener might pay attention to a speaker with the sole intent to respond or place some of their attention in another task. A classroom example of passive listening? Students who text during class, interrupt other classmates to voice their opinion, or do homework during lecture or story time may be passive listeners.

To make it better for understanding, let’s talk about the benefits of teaching your students how to listen.

Helping students learn to listen can give them advantages you might not expect. For example, students with strong listening skills don’t just retain more information, but they are also less likely to feel unprepared and frustrated in class. Additionally, improved listening skills can lead to improved self-efficacy, or a student’s belief that they can succeed in class. This means that students who develop better listening skills are more likely to feel confident, comfortable, and prepared to succeed in school.

Learning how to listen can also teach students how to communicate their ideas. This is because students who listen pick up more knowledge to reflect on and think critically about how they respond. Plus, for dual language learners in your class, learning how to listen can help students pick up their second language faster.

The importance of active listening also branches into social-emotional development. Active listening promotes mindful thinking, which can reduce anxiety and depression in students. It can also help students build relationships because as they engage themselves in conversation, their peers are more likely to view them as open and interested. And finally, practicing active listening can promote empathy—a skill that can enrich a student’s life both in and outside of the classroom.

Students who are successful at reading comprehension understand at the sentence level as well as understanding the text as an integrated whole. Reading comprehension involves both decoding print and understanding language. Once students can decode text, their comprehension is dependent on understanding language. Students who have not mastered decoding can still learn language skills by listening to stories and content read aloud. Students can listen on a higher language level than they can read, so listening provides a way to improve students’ language skills, making complex ideas more accessible to students and exposing them to vocabulary and language patterns that are not part of their everyday speech.

Language skills are essential in creating a mental representation of the whole text to understand it. Higher-level language skills can be developed by listening to stories. This develops language skills in all students, even those who struggle with decoding. Therefore, listening can be used to develop these essential language skills with students of all reading abilities. These language skills can then influence and enhance their reading comprehension.

It may seem daunting when faced with children who struggle to listen and attend; however, there are many ways in which you can help to improve your children’s listening skills, some of which you are probably doing already without realizing it. Below is a simple check list of ideas to help nurture good listeners.

● Be aware of the stages of attention development and plan activities to encourage children to move on to the next stage.

Plan regular listening activities into your week. There are a huge number of games and ideas available to develop listening skills. However, simple ideas such as Stop/Go games, Listening Moments or Musical Statues can all be easily played without the need for expensive resources or props.

Be a good role-model. As adults, we need to be good listeners ourselves. When talking to children, get down to their level, make eye contact and ask open-ended questions, listen to their opinions, and show interest in what they are saying.

Encourage children to listen to each other in different situations and to value listening.

Think about where you position your seat: the window or picture behind you may prove to be too distracting.

Sit children with listening difficulties directly in front of you. This way, you can make eye contact easily and use their name to prompt their attention.

Use ‘good listening’ prompts and create your own good listening rules.

Regulate the group size to fit the needs of your children’s listening skills. Children who struggle to listen will benefit from working within smaller groups.

Encourage participation. If children are struggling to listen to a story, pause, ask questions, or ask them to find objects in a picture.

Your environment can contribute to distractions: such things as hard floors and traffic noise can add to the noise level.

Create quiet areas, dens, and hideaway spaces for children to spend quiet moments.

Use audio resources as part of your children’s regular activities. Audio stories, songs, and listening games such as environmental sounds will all help your children to develop listening skills.

Speaking of how to encourage children to listen and develop comprehensive abilities, podcasts are always a great way to start.

Students listening to an amazing podcast designed for kids with series and stand-alone episodes with small stories is very helpful.

what’s amazing is that the choice of words and language of these podcasts help in understanding the language and comprehending sentences, it helps with development of self-imagination, and like I said at the beginning, we learn from listening. 

Ways that teachers can challenge Children with exceptionalities

All children need love, encouragement, and support, and for kids with learning disabilities, such positive reinforcement can help ensure that they emerge with a strong sense of self-worth, confidence, and the determination to keep going even when things are tough.

In searching for ways to help children with Exceptionalities, remember that you are looking for ways to help them help themselves. Your job as a parent is not to cure the learning disability, but to give your child the social and emotional tools they need to work through challenges. In the long run, facing and overcoming a challenge such as a learning disability can help your child grow stronger and more resilient.

Looking in this matter I wanted to share tips and strategies for new teachers so they can learn ways to challenge these students in a healthy manner and help them achieve their goals in the long run. Always remember that the way you behave and respond to challenges has a big impact on children. A good attitude won’t solve the problems associated with a learning disability, but it can give kids hope and confidence that things can improve and that they will eventually succeed.

First, I’ll be discussing tips & strategies that parents can do to help their child:

Keep things in perspective:

Remind yourself that everyone faces obstacles. It’s up to you as a parent to teach your child how to deal with those obstacles without becoming discouraged or overwhelmed. Don’t let the tests, school bureaucracy, and endless paperwork distract you from what’s really important—giving your child plenty of emotional and moral support.

Become your own expert:

Do your own research and keep abreast of new developments in learning disability programs, therapies, and educational techniques. You may be tempted to look to others—teachers, therapists, doctors—for solutions, especially at first. But you’re the foremost expert on your child, so take charge when it comes to finding the tools they need in order to learn.

Be an advocate for your child:

You may have to speak up time and time again to get special help for your child. Embrace your role as a proactive parent and work on your communication skills. It may be frustrating at times, but by remaining calm and reasonable, yet firm, you can make a huge difference for your child.

Remember that your influence outweighs all others:

Your Student will follow your lead. If you approach learning challenges with optimism, hard work, and a sense of humor, your child is likely to embrace your perspective—or at least see the challenges as a speed bump, rather than a roadblock. Focus your energy on learning what works for your child and implementing it the best you can.

Focus on strengths, not just weaknesses:

Your child is not defined by their learning disability. A learning disability represents one area of weakness, but there are many more areas of strengths. Focus on your child’s gifts and talents. Your child’s life—and schedule—shouldn’t revolve around the learning disability. Nurture the activities where they excel and make plenty of time for them.

Recognizing Exceptionalities:

By understanding the different types of learning disorders and their signs, you can pinpoint the specific challenges your child faces and find a treatment program that works.

In this age of endless budget cuts and inadequately funded schools, your role in your child’s education is more important than ever. Don’t sit back and let someone else be responsible for providing your child with the tools they need to learn. You can and should take an active role in your child’s education.

If there is demonstrated educational need, the school is required by law to develop an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) that delivers some educational benefit, but not necessarily one that maximizes student achievement. Parents who want the best for their kids may find this standard frustrating. Understanding special education laws and your school’s guidelines for services will help you get the best support for your child at school. Your child may be eligible for many kinds of accommodations and support services, but the school might not provide services unless you ask for them.

Now let’s talk about other ways you can implement to benefit student’s learning abilities. I will be sharing 11 of these.

1. Use computer-based programs to hold the interest of students:

You can use your own images to personalize lesson plans for students who have specific interests. One standardized platform allows teachers to create effective, customized lesson plan, that can be shared with other students and teachers who may share the same interests. The products preceding Stages Learning Line have been researched and implemented in schools around the world and have proven to be effective learning tools for instructing students.

2. Set the desks in the classroom is rows:

Rather than using circular seating around large tables, if possible. Students with autism need their own space. The student with ADHD is easily distracted, so a seat close to the teacher, facing forward works best. Children with special needs are easily distracted, so keep their desks away from the windows, doors and activity centers in the classroom.

3. Post classroom rules in a conspicuous place in the classroom, and review the regularly:

Ask students to take turns reading the rules aloud as part of the daily routine. Make sure all students understand the rules of the classroom and the consequences for not adhering to them. It may be helpful to allow the class to help formulate the classroom rules.

4.        Use visual aids:

such as charts, graphs, and pictures. The Stages Learning Line computer program consists of colorful, vivid pictures that are sure to please. Children with autism tend to respond well to technology. Stages Learning Line is very appealing to them and allows them to be interactive while learning.

5. Peers can be wonderful role models for students on the spectrum:

Pair compatible children together when working on projects or participating in classroom activities. Many children welcome the opportunity to be a peer role model to the special needs student. The experience is not only positive for the student with autism, but for the peer counselor as well.

7. Have a predictable schedule:

Children with autism tend to prefer predictable routines. Give advance warning if the daily schedule is going to change. If there is going to be a field trip, a special guest in the classroom, or a substitute teacher, try to let the class know in advance. Unexpected changes in the routine can be difficult for the child with autism.

8. Teach social skills:

Social skills such as hand raising, taking turns, and sharing as part of the learning curriculum. All students will benefit when reminders are given. Children with autism often engage in self-stimulating behaviors such as hand flapping, rocking or even slapping themselves in the face. Help the other students in the class understand these behaviors.

9. Provide opportunities to take a break:

Read a story, play a short game, stand up and stretch, or have casual conversation. Sometimes an opportunity to get out of his seat and walk around the room can be very calming for the child on the autism spectrum. Try to be aware of the signs that your student may need a short break.

10. Focus on student strengths:

If a child is interested in dinosaurs, baseball, dogs, or water sports, he or she needs the opportunity to exhibit expertise in that subject. Stages Learning Line was developed with the personalized lesson plan in mind. Students with autism thrive when they are studying a lesson plan that was formatted specifically for them.

11. Be aware of environmental triggers:

Loud noises, bright lights, and hot or cold temperatures can disrupt a child’s thinking pattern and cause an unnecessary classroom outburst. Be mindful of these environmental triggers and eliminate them whenever possible.

If you are an individual teacher who is struggling to support diverse learners in your classroom, consult with your school psychologist, special education team, and counseling support staff. These team members are on the forefront of emerging best practices and can consult with you to come up with innovative ways to ensure that kids feel connected, engaged, and supported.

Most importantly though, connect with the parents! Parents are doing the best they can with the tools and skills they have at home, under stressful circumstances. When educators partner with parents, especially now, when the parent is the primary source of support during the day, that’s where the real change can happen for our students.

This is the new normal for now. The landscape is constantly changing, so we must take measures to adapt, in the best way we can, with the tools we have available. While we can’t smooth out the ocean of challenges altogether to provide an ideal learning experience in a pandemic, we can figure out ways to ride out the waves together, so we are providing the best educational experience for our students as we possibly can. The only way we will get through this is together. 

Hands-On Activities for English Language Learners

I want to share the importance of hands-on learning it’s one of the three main learning styles students possess. The buzz word we are looking for is kinesthetic learner. All that it really means is that some students learn best when their sense of touch is involved where others depend primarily on their sense of sight or hearing. Hands-on learners are often the ones to whom standard lesson plans don’t cater, so it’s worth making a point to include movement-based activities when planning any lesson.

Another reason to teach hands-on is because research shows it’s one of the most effective ways to teach English language learners. The teaching method known as total physical response (TPR) intentionally associates physical movements with language instruction. The method is so effective, even beginners thrive under this type of instruction. Some classrooms rely completely on TPR for instruction, but I find that blending movement activities with other teaching methods is most effective at any level ESL class.

Finally, hands-on teaching gives your students a great experience. If someone asked me about the most meaningful lecture I heard in high school, I’m not sure I could name one. I can, however, tell you about several hands-on activities I did in those otherwise less than memorable classes. Students remember the activities that involve their whole person. They engage more easily and remember information better. Most of all, they tend to have fun, and all of that is what makes hands-on lessons essential and effective.

-           The benefits of hands-on learning:

Hands-on is by no means a “new” movement in the classroom. That being said, even today, many schools find it difficult to incorporate hands-on projects and principles into student work. This can be a particular challenge for public schools, which often have tight budgets and less freedom in developing curriculum. And that’s a real shame, because hands-on learning brings so many benefits to students, including:

l  It is a more engaging way to learn

l  It can lead to increased retention

l  It can offer practice in problem solving and critical thinking

l  It often results in a physical creation

Some children learn best by looking at visuals. Some children learn best by listening to a parent or teacher speak. And some children learn best by reading and writing about something. These are called visual, auditory, and reading/writing learning styles, respectively. But there is a fourth learning style that is easy to overlook: Kinesthetic learning, which is a fancy way of saying “learning by doing.”

There are a lot of theories about why hands-on learning is so effective. The reality is, there is no single reason “why.” But one hard-to-argue fact about hands-on learning is this: It is incredibly engaging.

When students are encouraged to do something, they are engaged in active learning. They’re practicing their skills and they’re putting their knowledge to the test. Most importantly, they are actively creating knowledge, instead of passively consuming it.

In order to create, in order to do, students must be engaged in their education. And engagement has for years been linked to greater academic success like increased test scores and greater academic achievements.

-           Hands-on gives students practice.

Beyond simply leading to better engagement, hands-on learning allows students to practice the skills that they have already learned. As anyone who has ever learned a skill or learned information can attest to, the more practice you get, the better you will be at that skill, and the better you will be able to retain the information.

We can, for example, see this in action in many science classes around the country, which pair traditional study (lecture, discussion, reading) with active learning concepts in lab sessions. While students may learn about a concept in the classroom, it is by walking through an experiment in the laboratory that they are able to put that concept into action and gain practice in actually applying it. This process has been shown to lead to higher retention and a better understanding in the subject.

-           Hands-on gives students something “real.”

When it comes to education, one of the most difficult things for young children to understand is why what they are learning is important. They want to know: When will I use this in my life? Why does it matter?

Incorporating hands-on learning into the classroom or into the home is an easy way for parents and teachers to show their children exactly how what they are learning can be used in the real world.

Through hands-on learning, students will often actively create something, whether an essay, story, piece of art, construction project, or something else. This is something real. It is something that a student can look at and think: I was able to create this because of what I have learned and because of the skills that I have practiced. Because of me, it is here.

That realization is incredibly empowering, because it shows students that they can have an impact on the world around them. It shows them that they can use their education to achieve something. And it’s a physical embodiment of what they’ve learned.

-           Hands-on lets students be creative.

Creativity is a muscle. Just like other muscles, it needs to be regularly exercised or else it will become harder and harder to be creative. Hands-on learning gives your child one more opportunity to exercise their creative skills so that they don’t lose them.

It’s important to note that when people hear the word “creativity,” their minds often go immediately to subjects like art and music. While these are of course important classes for children, and should play a role in your child’s education, they’re not the only way that your child can be creative. Given enough practice, it’s possible for your child to put their creativity to use in classes as diverse as history, science, and even math.

You might be wondering how that could be. To answer simply: Creativity encourages children to develop a new way of thinking about something. This new way of exploring a concept or idea can lead to insights that may otherwise have been hidden. For example, your child may have learned to complete a math problem in a certain way. But that doesn't mean it’s the only way that the problem can be solved. A creative student may look at a problem and find a brand-new way of completing it. That’s why I’m such a strong proponent of Singapore Math.

-           Hands-On Learning in the Time of COVID-19

When children are enrolled in a school that emphasizes hands-on learning, most of that learning is likely to take place in the classroom. Science labs, makerspaces, and even just traditional classrooms are all equipped with tools to facilitate such exercises.

Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 and the social distancing guidelines necessary to keep the pandemic at bay, children may not physically be in the classroom at this time. This means that they may be lacking the tools and supervision required to help them complete various hands-on learning tasks. This does not, however, mean that hands-on learning no longer has a role to play in your child’s education.

If your child’s school hasn’t taken steps to build hands-on activities into their remote curriculum, luckily there are steps that you can take to facilitate these yourself. You might, for example, encourage your child to create a diorama illustrating a critical scene from their summer reading assignments. If your child is an aspiring coder, there are many resources you can turn to online (or purchase from a store) to let them practice their skills. The possibilities really are endless.

Long-term, however, you should speak with your child’s school to understand what steps they are taking to bring hands-on learning into their virtual classrooms, especially if we are faced with a second round of distance learning this fall. If they are unable to give you an adequate answer, and if hands-on learning is important to you, then it may be time to think about transferring to a school that does have a plan and can meet your expectations.

What can parents do to encourage hands-on learning in their children?

When children are young and at home, parents have more control over how their children learn. At this stage of a child’s life, it’s important for parents to encourage hands-on activities that will challenge their child to learn through doing.

But when a child moves beyond the home—entering a nursery program, preschool, kindergarten, or grade school—parents who prioritize hands-on education will need to find a school that shares this priority. In addition to evaluating the school’s curriculum and asking questions during the admissions process, parents should also keep an eye out for schools that embrace Maker Education, which encourages learning through doing and offers many other benefits similar to hands-on education.

Now let’s talk about some super-cool hands-on exercises That Teach English Prepositions.

1. Draw My Directions

Drawing is a simple way to engage students’ bodies as well as their creativity when they’re learning about prepositions. In this exercise, you will give instructions for drawing a picture without telling your students the object they are drawing.

As you give the instructions, you should use prepositions to describe each piece of the picture in relation to the other. Students will not be able to see the picture you are describing.

2. Preposition Simon Says

Games are fun and functional in the classroom. Simon Says is a great game, especially when students look like they’ve been sitting too long. You can do a simple version of Simon Says to teach and review prepositions.

Have all your students stand and choose one object that everyone has and can use while playing. You might choose a pencil, a book, or their desk chair. Play the game as you normally would, but with each instruction use a preposition to describe where the player is in relation to the object you are using.

For example, you might give instructions like:

Simon says stand on your chair.

Simon says put your hand under your chair.

Simon says hold your chair in front of you.

3. Four Corners

This active game challenges students to think before they move. They will be choosing the correct preposition to complete a sentence. Start by labeling each corner of your classroom with a preposition. You can target prepositions of location, phrasal verbs, or any other aspects of English prepositions you want.

Have all your students stand in the center of the room with the furniture pushed out of the way. To play, you read a sentence aloud or project it on a screen or smart board. Replace the preposition in the sentences with a blank. After students hear the sentence, they must run to the correct corner of the room to complete the sentence logically.

Any student who runs to the wrong corner of the room is out of the round. If no one moves quickly to the wrong corner, that is if everyone chooses the correct answer, the last person to get there is eliminated. Keep playing until only one person remains. If you like, change up the prepositions in your corners and play another round.

4. What’s Missing

This is a memory game that will necessitate the use of prepositions. Start by putting a tray or desk at the front of your room. The tray should have several common items on it–between five and ten is usually a good number. The more items you have on the tray, the more difficult the activity will be.

Give students one minute to study the objects on the tray. Then hide it from their view and either move one object or remove it. Now show the tray to your students again. They must determine what is different.

So, if you moved an object, they might say, “The pencil is next to the pen now. Before it was across from the coffee mug.” If you remove an object, students might say, “The cup is no longer on the tray. It was in front of the pencil case, but it’s gone now.”

When students get good at noticing your changes, try removing one object and moving two or more others. If you like, award points to the first person to notice the change.

You can extend this activity by letting students arrange and move their own objects. Give them several pictures or small objects to arrange on their desks, and have each person do the activity with a partner. Let students take turns moving the objects around and being the one to guess the changes that were made.

5. Paper Bag Neighborhoods

In this art/grammar activity, students will create their own model town based on the directions you give them. Start by giving each student written directions on how to build a paper bag house. Your directions should include specifics locations for windows, doors, etc. These directions should include prepositions.

If you like, have several different versions of the directions so that not everyone’s house looks the same when it’s complete, or give different directions for schools, libraries, and public service buildings. You can also let students decorate their houses. Then give the class instructions on how to arrange the houses into a town.

You’ll need a large area of your classroom or a blank bulletin board to hold the completed town. Make sure your town description also includes prepositions to specify where each building should go (e.g. the police station is across the street from the school). Have students work together to put their roads, landmarks, and houses in the correct positions in the town.

6. I Spy Lookout

Give students a copy of an “I spy” page or project one on your board.

Ask your students to find certain objects that appear in the picture. When someone has found the object, they share with the class where it is, but they are not allowed to touch the picture or point to the object. They must use prepositions to describe its position in relation to the other objects on the page.

You can also play this game in reverse. Have one student give clues to a certain object in the picture. Their classmates must then guess which object they’re describing, based on the clues. The person who first identifies their classmate’s object gets to describe the next one for the class.

Implementing Podcasts into our Daily Instruction

Welcome to podcasts. Where podcasts are concerned, the majority of people usually fall into two camps: the ones who eagerly pop in their earbuds every time a new episode of their favorite podcast is released, and those who’ve never made it through an episode or who still aren’t quite sure just what a podcast is.

Right now, podcast stats show that there are over 700,000 active podcasts with more than 29 million available episodes – that’s a lot of content!

In terms of your students, just 10% of monthly podcast listeners are in the 12-17 age range, so it’s still a somewhat undiscovered medium you can use to capture their attention. Adding something unexpected is the perfect way to supercharge your class!

Even if you’re a total newbie, getting started with podcasts in the classroom is an easy skill to add to your teaching toolbox. Whether you’re using them to listen together or individually, or you’re having your students record their own podcasts, there’s space for podcasts in any syllabus.

Students’ attention spans are famously short, and there are more distractions competing for their attention today than ever before. How do podcasts cut through the noise?

First of all, if you’re assigning a podcast for homework, your students can listen anywhere: on the school bus or driving home, walking around their neighborhood, while they’re working out or just in the comfort of their own bedrooms.

This means that students will listen to podcasts longer than they’d do traditional homework because it allows them the freedom to multitask.

Then there’s the imagination element. Just like with reading a good book, a podcast allows students to picture what they’re listening to and create their own visual images in their minds.

Finally, podcasts come in a format that’s attractive to them. By being able to pull up a podcast on their smartphones, they’re engaging with a medium that they already know and use more than any other. It’s going with the trend rather than fighting it!

Using Podcasts as Part of Your Curriculum:

There are a million different ways to incorporate podcasts into your curriculum. For every age group, subject and language, there’s a podcast, so it’s just a matter of finding the one that’s right for your class and what you’re trying to teach. Using podcasts in the classroom is a great way to really bring your lessons to life. Once you’ve found a podcast episode that aligns with your lesson, you have two options for listening:

1-                 Ask students to listen individually on their smartphones or tablets with their headphones, either in class or for homework.

Listen as a group in class.

2-                 You can go one step further by choosing the podcast of your choice you can stay with them and answer their questions afterwards to keep your students engaged. That way you’ll ensure that your students are actively listening and not spacing out!

The Benefits of Using Podcasts in the Classroom:

If you are listener yourself, you must be aware of the effects podcast can have on your personality, but we often underestimate the benefits of certain things, let us explore the primary advantages of using a podcast in your classroom.

1-                 Reading along with a podcast builds confidence and literacy:

Word recognition is the most crucial skill for very young students; however, with older students middle school and upwards, decoding becomes more automatic, and listening comprehension becomes the primary component for learning language. Podcasts allow students to practice their listening comprehension of complex texts that are both conversational and formal, and the corresponding transcripts enable students to confirm their success.

In addition, students learning English as a second language report that they like how they can read the words and promptly "hear how they're supposed to sound." Pronunciation and prosody, the patterns of stress and intonation used when people are speaking, aid in understanding, especially for English-language learners.

2-                 Podcasts present a broad array of narrative types and subject matter:

With podcasts, you can choose the content and form that fits your particular lesson, and the possibilities are endless: fictional stories, educational and inspirational TED talks, current events/world news, history, sports, pop culture/entertainment, and investigative journalism. Using an array of forms keeps your class fresh and engaging, and podcasts expose students to a wide variety of methods of communication, including narration, casual dialogue, scripted dialogue, and interviews.

Also, featuring diverse subject matter keeps the class exciting and gives them access to a whole world of knowledge and wisdom. English classes can fall into a rut of using the same types of stories; podcasts can provide new subject matter that not only keeps you and your students more engaged but also allows students to experience exemplary communication outside traditional texts.

3-                 Reading along keeps easily distracted students extremely focused:

Students report that reading along with the audio helps with their focus and keeps them from "spacing out" while listening. Plus, many of our students explicitly recognize that they can look back and reread something they didn't understand when they first heard it.

4-                 LISTENING SHAPES YOUR BRAIN AND MEMORY.

Our brains make a mental imagery —the “movie in our minds”—of what we hear. When we listen, our ears aren’t just passive absorbers of information. We are activating systems in the brains that are responsible for sight, sound, motor control and olfaction.  “We imagine sounds using the same brain regions that allow us to hear real sounds,” says cognitive scientist Benjamin Bergen.

5-                 Listening improves social-emotional wellbeing.

Researchers found that when someone is engaged in a story, it’s positively associated with psychological safety and negatively associated with social anxiety. And that connection actually improves your listening.

6-                 LISTENING SUPPORTS MULTILINGUAL LEARNING.

For the English learners in classrooms, listening provides an equal opportunity to access content and hear authentically spoken language. While listening can occur at different speeds to improve comprehension, everyone is listening to the same text. Unlike reading exercises in which the text is leveled down to the reader’s ability, listening—with the right scaffolding—has the same high level of academic language and content vocabulary. In addition to learning about the world, listening is an excellent way to build background knowledge of the subject, a key element of listening comprehension, especially in learning a second language.