Chapter 4
Listening: Understanding the Message in the Words
Written by: Katie Gorman
“So powerful is good listening that it can allow us to hear through considerable language barriers and understand the intended meanings behind each other’s words.” Chapter 4 discusses the importance of listening to each other, including listening to our students. It defines listening not as hearing only the words but understanding the intended meaning behind those words. We must devote our full attention to our students when they are speaking to us and put aside our own point of view in order to fully comprehend what our students are saying. After understanding what they are saying, we can then comment on it further.
Listening and responding to our students is a three-step process: 1. We really take in their words, 2. We figure out the true intention of their words, looking at tone, context, and other signals for clues and 3. We think about how to respond. Two ways to complete this process are pausing and paraphrasing, discussed further below.
First, let’s discuss why we should listen. We should listen in order to help us know our children individually, culturally and developmentally. Obviously at the K-center we have students of various and diverse backgrounds unfamiliar to us so we need to understand their needs, thoughts and feelings. Knowing our children in this manner also helps them feel safe and welcomed in the school community. Listening also helps the students learn about themselves. Being self-aware helps the students learn to the best of their ability by helping them become more conscious of how they learn, think and develop ideas. Listening also builds a sense of community by teaching our students, through example, how to listen to each other. Listening also helps make our questions more effective. By truly listening to our students, they are more likely to continue responding because they believe we are hearing them, which in turn also helps students to take their learning more seriously. Lastly, listening to our students helps them to become better communicators. Our students will learn from us the importance of taking in a speaker’s words, searching for the intended meaning in one’s words and responding to the speaker.
In order to become a better listener, the text discusses two technical strategies: pausing and paraphrasing. Pausing simply means allowing some wait time before responding. There are times pausing and then responding with a simple gesture or utterance will suffice; however, other times you may have to tell your students you need to think about it more. But you will need to go back to it later when you have the proper response! One important note to remember in pausing is to be consistent from student to student so all children feel valued. A hint offered in the text is to count silently to five before answering a student; soon enough it will be come natural.
The second technique is paraphrasing which has three purposes.
➢ Encourages students to make sure what they said was what they really meant.
➢ Allows teachers to make sure we’ve understood students correctly.
➢ Leads both the students and teachers to think more deeply and in more sophisticated ways about a topic.
Paraphrasing is more powerful when holding problem solving discussions, making plans, or trying to specifically deepen mutual understanding of an issue. There are several effective ways to paraphrase starting with using your own words. In order to successfully do this, reinstate the main idea, name indirectly expressed feelings, organize thoughts into categories and name principles that tie ideas together. Also, avoid using “I” which takes the focus away from the student. Thirdly, keep it brief so the focus stays on the student. Another strategy is to use an approachable voice so our voice and our carefully chosen words help our students feel safe in communicating their true thoughts and feelings. Lastly, follow paraphrasing with an open-ended question to help broaden your student’s focus.
The main idea throughout this chapter is to truly listen by searching for the speaker’s intended meaning beneath the words. Pausing and paraphrasing are two effective strategies but we must be committed to understanding how our students feel and think when they are trying to communicate with us.
Chapter Four: Listening: Understanding the Message in the Words
ReplyDeleteby Gina Applegate
Kelly Mowrer
Rebecca DeSantis
This chapter opened up with a super-cute story about a married couple that spoke two different languages and how they were able to understand each other, and when asked this question, they answered, “We listened.”
As teachers we have to have the ability to listen to everyone of our students. When we listen we are looking for the meaning of what the speaker is trying to get the listeners to understand. We have to be able to have the ability to listen to what our students are saying, and what they are really meaning.
Teachers need to listen to find ways to communicate with our students. Paula Denton gives us some suggestions to be able to be successful at this. First, when you listen you are getting to know your students. This allows us to understand our students and when your students know that they are understood,they feel more comfortable. As we all know, the most important thing that a Responsive Classroom has, is that all students feel comfortable and safe in an environment, they will feel safe to learn. Secondly, when we listen,children learn more about themselves. In order for this to happen, not only do you have to listen to the students, but also you have to reflect what you are hearing back to them. Another is listening builds a sense of community. As Responsive Classroom teachers, we feel that this is self-explanatory. When we listen we make our questioning more effective. Here Paula Denton feels strongly that when you are asking open-ended questions (which she spends a whole chapter on) you need to listen to your students. They will know if you are interested in what they are saying, and if they feel as if you are not, they will stop answering your questions. When they know that we are listening, they will lake their learning more seriously, because it is not only themselves who care that they are learning, but their teacher as well. And when we do both of those we are being models to our students and giving them the opportunity to become better communicators.
Paula Denton says, in this chapter, that there are two strategies that will help us listen more carefully to our students. The first is pausing. By this she means to provide some wait time. She say’s three to five seconds. The second is paraphrasing. Here she believes that if we restate the main points of what the speaker said we should encourage students to:
· make sure what they said was what them meant
· it allows teachers to make sure we’ve understood the students
· and it leads the student and the teacher to think more intensely
In order to paraphrase successfully you need to do these things:
· use your own words
· avoid using “I”
· keep it brief
· use an approachable voice
· follow paraphrasing with an open-ended question
Good listening goes hand in hand with using words powerfully. When we listen to our students in this manner we will see our students start to feel more comfortably in our classroom community that we all strive to set up withour Responsive Classroom training!