Challenges and Strategies for Developing Active Listening Skills in University Students

This report discusses the listening challenges and barriers faced by university students and how they can develop active listening skills. It covers various challenges such as lack of control over the speed of tutor, inability to concentrate, defensive listening, lack of interpretation, and more. It also presents strategies for developing active listening skills such as maintaining eye contact, doing yoga exercises, listening to podcasts, and more.

Individual Essay

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Listening challenges students may experience at University......................................................3
Presenting how students can develop active listening skills.......................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Listening is the most important in the communication because the listening ability make
the person better communicator. It plays a most important part in the communication and active
listening helps in become a better socialism, understand thing better in a professional and social
environments, it helps in build the better relationship with people and helps in improve the
problem solving skills. Active listening are not comes with naturally, it can develop through hear
with the concentration. This report will discuss the listening challenges and barriers which are
students face and experience at the college university. This report will also elaborate how
students can improve and develop the active listening skills.
MAIN BODY
Listening challenges students may experience at University
In University, listening properly to the lecturers, class discussion etc. is most important
for the students in order to succeed in examination as well as in life. But on the other hand,
students at university may experience challenge or problem while listening. The lack of control
over the speed of tutor or speaker is one of the major challenge experience by the students at
University. It is because there are some of the tutors at University who teaches and speak very
fast that students unable to get to the point (Cook-Sather, 2018). Hence, it can be said that the
lack of control over the speed of speaking of speaker causes listening challenge for the students.
It is important for the teachers and professors that they should speak in medium speed and ask in
middle of the lecture to the students that they have understand the point or concept or not.
Further, the inability to concentrate on lectures is also one of the listening challenge that
might be experience by the students at university. The students in university have concentration
issue in them the impact of which they unable to concentrate on one thing for longer period of
time. It might be because of the too many distractions such as mental as well as physical
distraction. In this way, it is identified that inability to concentrate is a major listening problem
for the students in university which ultimately affect their studies and marks. For this, it is
significant for the tutor that they should crack jokes in the middle of the lecture in order to
release stress and enhance the concentration power of the students.
The defensive listening is also one of the barrier or challenge of listening which might be
experience by the students at university. Under this challenge, the behavior of the students is

such that whatever tutor has told them they take it as a personal attack (Purwanto, 2020). It is
important for the student that they should take their teachers statement in positive way rather
than giving argument on the same. Basically, this type of listening challenge is faced by every
student at university because of the constant mood swings due to hormonal changes. Thus, it is
significant for the teacher to cooperate with their students and do not scold them loudly at the
time of any mistake.
The lack of interpretation is also a major problem to effective listening that might
experience by the student at university. In this, after completing the sentence of speaker, the
student unable to listen it properly because of the lack of interpretation. Basically, the student
face difficulty in interpretation the meaning of the message conveys by their teacher to them
because of it they are unable to listen it properly (Famularsih, 2020). Further, the listener limited
vocabulary is also a listening challenge in which students unable to listen their tutor properly as
their vocabulary knowledge is poor. The failure to recognize the signals is also one of the
challenge which might experience by the tutor at the time of group discussion.
In the Lack of interest The students experience the challenges in listening due to the lack
of interest because the young generation students not properly focus on the communication and
not listen properly to speakers and teachers as well as electronic gadgets are distracted the
students which are happening personally with everyone (Chen, 2021). The lack of interest in the
communication can create the misunderstand and listener not able to understand properly to the
speakers that what they want to say. Students of universities not take interested in the listening
activity and due to the lack of interest make difficult for the students to listen and learn properly.
In Physical barriers the first process in the listening process hearing but their have the
some physical barriers in the universities like noise and that include the music, telephone rings,
etc. the students are not able to listen teachers that what they want to say because noise is
disturbed the listener and speaker both in universities (Seston and Schafheutle, 2022). The poor
acoustics in the classrooms and conference hall of universities makes the uncomfortable seating
for the students and speakers and develop difficulties for the students to concentrate on the
speaker.
In Physiological barriers the communication process are influence by the speaker and
listener. Students of universities face the physiological and psychological barriers which are
includes the disability, state of health, wandering attention, etc. In the context of state of health,

the physical condition of the students affects the ability of listening. In other words, the pain and
fever and any other discomfort make difficulties for the students to listen attentively. In
furthermore, the poor heath of the speaker also affects the ability to speak loudly so, it also
reduces the listening efficiency of students, and they are not able to understand the speaker.
In the context of Language barriers, it is the linguistic barrier which are created in the
two or more person communication. Students face challenges in language because few students
don't know the English proficiency so, they face challenges in listening and understanding to the
speaker (Aprino and Elfrida, 2022). Language is the biggest barrier in the listening skills because
every student have their own region and birth language that's why the language barrier create in
the universities between the students and with the other speakers. Language barriers are causes
between the two students in the university, means speakers speak the another language, and they
both are notable to understand each other.
Presenting how students can develop active listening skills
Active listening ability is one of the most common technique which is related with
counselling and in this listener focuses on what speaker is saying and tries to understand it
properly. Along with this, responses are made on the basis of understanding of what has been
said. The responses are made empathetic and understanding of listener as importance has been
laid on creating enagagnmet between speaker and listener (Wang and Chen, 2022). Thus, active
listening is associated with counselling, training, conflict resolution as listener should be able to
address various range of problems which is being voices by the speaker. Moreover, active
listening has been used in careers that involved engagement to address conflicts and this method
has been applied in the areas of education also. In area of education active listening do not focus
on conflicts and instead used to empathize learning and between students this concept means to
give full attention to teacher and fellow classmates. Thus, it focusses on resolving conflicts
instead placed on deep learning.
Furthermore, there are various strategies that can be used by students to develop active
listening skills over time. It means that students should adopt new habits when listening to
teachers such as students should try to maintain eye contact with the educators. That will allow
listener to focus on speaker and improve their concentration while listening. Although if eye

contact is maintained then students will also be able to learn and understand things fast with help
of expression (Ilham, Elfiza and Murni, 2022). Furthermore, one of the best way to improve
concentration through doing yoga exercise as well as listening to podcast will enhance the power
of listening. Although listener should not interrupt when speaker is communicating their
thoughts and major points as it will disturb the flow of speaker and student will not be able to
understand things easily. So it will be better that students should not rush the speaker but instead
let them finish making their points.
Although wrong assumption about what is being communicated and allow the speaker to
finish their points and at last it should ask question as it will engage teacher and students. One of
the best strategy that can be used by students is synthesize that means repeating what the speaker
said in listeners own words. In addition to this, students should listen for total meaning such as
every message has two part the content of text and underlying feeling. Both play crucial role
while giving message meaning as often message real meaning lies within emotions instead of
content. Moreover, students can make use of practice activities such as reading stories and ask
them to predict about situation thus it will require child to listen to the details to make a logical
guess (Holcomb and et.al., 2022).
Teacher should have conversation about things child is interested in as it will give student
a chance to engage in real conversation, practicing both speaking and listening. Moreover,
students can also make use of listen notes which is a podcast search engine that have huge
collection of podcast on wide range of topics. It is one of the greater way of listening materials
for students and it can easily download on mobile devices and listen them according to them
convince. This podcast will help teacher and students to find listening materials according to
their interest. In addition to this, Teach Vid is another app that combines listening with videos
that allow students to learn things quickly through graphical presentation. This app mainly
collects video through YouTube and build various construction such as text reconstruction,
jumbled sentences. It is very useful app as it allows students to choose the type of exercise it
want to improve particularly listening skills.
Furthermore, strategies that can be used by teacher in order to improve listening skills as
well as engage them in active listening. The first step is to build connection with students as
closer it will listener will listen more deeply during school lessons (Go'zal, Munisaxon and
Pokizaxon, 2022). Thus, this technique will allow teacher to becomes a real person with who

students can connect easily. However, it has been stated that when connection between child and
speaker is good then it will pay more attention to communication. Along with this, teacher
should remember that deep listening involves engagement as it helps in answering the question
effectively and encourage deep understanding. Although letting students to talk and share their
thoughts will allow students to better learn things efficiently and quick.
Another strategy that can be used by teacher is to design lessons in such a way that it
encourages active listening. Such as there should be questioner ask between lecture or at the end
of the lesson in order to analyse weather students has understood the concept or not. Moreover,
teacher should make use of power point presentation in order to grab attention of learners as
most of the children can easily learn through images (Fiester, 2022). Proper learning material
should be given to them after class so that it can check their notes with other children that will
give them Chace to synthesize and engage with one another regarding material. In addition to
this, teacher should engage learning activities and ask them to complete an activity or answer
questions at any time as it will allow learners to pay more attention in the classroom.
Thus active listening is beneficial for teachers and students both have an opportunity to
grow as well as learn new things.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that active listening is important for students
but also for teachers. It will also help students to increase learning and teacher should structure
classes and make use of strategies that will help students to engage in active listening. Moreover,
study has reported about issues and challenges faced by students during active listening.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Aprino, D., Elfrida, E. and Lubis, A.A., 2022. English Students’ Difficulties in Understanding
Listening Section of the TOEFL Test. Journal of English Education and Teaching. 6(2).
pp.250-270.
Chen, X., 2021. On the Construction of College English Listening and Speaking Ecological
Classroom From the Perspective of Eco-Linguistics. Theory and Practice in Language
Studies.11(10).pp.1295-1299.
Cook-Sather, A., 2018. Listening to equity-seeking perspectives: How students’ experiences of
pedagogical partnership can inform wider discussions of student success. Higher
education research & development. 37(5). pp.923-936.
Famularsih, S., 2020. Students’ experiences in using online learning applications due to COVID-
19 in English classroom. Studies in Learning and Teaching. 1(2). pp.112-121.
Fiester, A., 2022. Developing Skills in the HEC Communication Competency: Diagnostic
Listening and the ADEPT Technique. The Journal of Clinical Ethics, 33(1), pp.42-49.
Go'zal, I., Munisaxon, T. and Pokizaxon, S., 2022. THE WAYS OF HOW TO INCREASE
LISTENING SCORE IN IELTS. Academicia Globe: Inderscience Research. 3(04).
pp.256-259.
Holcomb, J. and et.al., 2022. Development of Training Curriculum to Improve Patient
Communication Skills and Social Support Among Community Health Workers. HLRP:
Health Literacy Research and Practice. 6(2). pp.e142-e150.
Ilham, N., Elfiza, R. and Murni, D., 2022. STUDENTS’LISTENING SKILL AT THE
ELEVENTH GRADE: ART ANALYSIS STUDY. Student Online Journal (SOJ)
UMRAH-Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan. 3(1). pp.358-362.
Purwanto, A., 2020. University Students Online Learning System during Covid-19 Pandemic:
Advantages, Constraints and Solutions. Sys Rev Pharm. 11(7). pp.570-576.
Seston, E.M., Schafheutle, E.I. and Willis, S.C., 2022. “A little bit more looking… listening and
feeling” A qualitative interview study exploring advanced clinical practice in primary
care and community pharmacy. International journal of clinical pharmacy. 44(2).
pp.381-388.
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Wang, Y. and Chen, H., 2022. Are human resource managers with good listening competency
more likely to avoid job burnout?. BMC Public Health. 22(1). pp.1-13.
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