Listening is sometimes thought of as passive, not active, because you aren’t moving. It’s not like writing, talking or running. How many times have you been in a conversation where the other person is talking and you did not hear one thing they said? Your ears work fine, but your mind was elsewhere. To listen and hear someone you need to focus. This week, I learned Habit 5 which is “seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
As an ESL teacher of nine years, I have practiced “hearing” between the lines. I may not speak Arabic but I hear tone and emotion. When I speak to a student or a teacher, I try to hear the intent of their words. (Much easier to do in English.) If they are describing their feeling about a troubling situation, I ask questions like, “It sounds like you are really upset, am I right?” Being an empathetic listener is not always easy and I've not always done well at it. It’s most difficult when I'm involved in a high emotion situation. In a disagreement, for example, I may not want to hear what the other person is saying because I want to make sure that I am heard. One behavior change I can make is when someone is talking to me and I’m upset, I will: 1. take a deep breath and try to genuinely hear and understand their perspective before delving into my own. or 2. remove myself from the conversation and go back to it when I am cool and collected. With the teacher I am coaching, I will ask her to describe a time that she was not a good listener. What went wrong? How could she have handled it better? I will teach her about Habit 5 and ask her to set a personal goal around it. Then in our next coaching session, I will ask if she successfully practiced seeking first to understand, then to be understood.
1 Comment
David
10/4/2015 02:47:34 pm
Sheila,
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Sheila L. DavisPassionate Adult ESL Instructor at Grossmont Adult School. Seeking to learn new habits and unlearn bad ones. ArchivesCategories |