Challenges and Strategies for Effective Listening in Higher Education

This study explores the challenges faced by students in terms of effective listening in higher education and provides suitable strategies that can be adopted by teachers to deal with these issues. The challenges of listening include false starts and repetition, unnecessary words, technical terms, complex structure, and abbreviation and acronym. The suggested strategies for teachers include active listening, preparing the environment, listening for details, knowing the context, and signposting language.

Skills for Higher
Education

Introduction
In academic setting, skill set is really important in order to make a successful career.
There is requirement of a lot of skills such as listening, communication, leadership and more
with an aim to make a successful career (Erlmann, 2020). The present study is based on listening
skills which are considered imperative in academics. Challenges which are faced by students in
terms of effective listening are covered in the report. Further, it also covers suitable strategies
which can apply by teacher to deal with the issues of listening effectively
Main Body
Listening challenges refer to the inability of students to interpret the message in an
appropriate way. Due to lack of listening skills, students face a lot of challenges in their life.
They are not able to pay attention and answer the question of teacher. In academic setting,
listening skills also hamper the academic performance of students. They are not able to perform
well in class-room activities. In this context some listening challenges often encountered by
students are outline below:
False starts and repetition: It is important for a student to listen properly what is explain
by teachers. It is one of the major challenges of listening where a sentence is started wrongly or
repetitive words are used in whole sentence. False start confuse listener and they interpreted the
whole sentence in wrong manner (Smith, Sundstrom and Delay, 2020). Apart from this,
repetitive words also make the content ambiguous and make it difficult for listeners to
understand the concept in an appropriate way. Including same word again and again make the
whole concept more confuse which is difficult to understand.
Unnecessary words: Sometimes, certain unnecessary words are included in speech. It
makes the whole speech more lengthy and also make it challenging for listener to understand the
concept. For students, it is difficult to learn the concept while teacher add some extra words
which are not even required (Tran and Ma, 2021). It is human tendency to add extra words even
during normal conversation. It has become a major listening challenge that is often faced by
students during classroom lectures. For instance, extra words such as like, often and more such
types of unnecessary words are used during class room sessions.

Technical terms: Although, technical terms make the whole content more engaging and
attracting. But, these terms are difficult to understand which enhances complexity of
understanding the content. Here, technical terms such as hemicraniectomy and more can used
by teachers. These terms are not only difficult but sometimes hard to pronounce. Using these
kind of terms, make it difficult for students to understand the whole concept in right manner
(Östersjö, 2020). Use of technical terms is one of most common listening challenges in academic
setting. It is imperative to make minimum use of technical terms during class-room lecture. It
makes the content smoother and also reduces down the level of complexity.
Complex structure: Sometimes, teachers also structure the whole sentence in complex
way. Due to this, it becomes challenging for students to grasp the concept in proper way. It is
found that complex structure increases the overall difficulty level of content. Here, students are
unable to understand what is being explained by teachers (AKBAR, Hambali and Suganda,
2020). A complex sentence includes one or more dependent clauses, conjunctions and relative
pronouns. For instance, although she is smart, she failed her exams. This sentence is an example
of complex structure. Listeners face challenges while hearing this kind of complex sentences.
Abbreviation and Acronym: An acronym is a short phrase which is pronounced as
individual letters. It is found that teachers often use short acronym during their lecture. Some
students are aware with the acronym while some are not. It becomes a challenging task for such
people who are not well-aware with abbreviation. It is not a challenge merely in academic setting
rather people often use abbreviation in daily conversation (Sahay, 2021). Using acronym has
become an emerging listening challenge which enhances the complexity level of content. For
instance, there is an acronym called PESTLE is used in academic setting. Here, each and every
letter has its own meaning. Students who are not familiar with this term might find it difficult to
understand.
The above discussion shows that there are several challenges of listening which often
arise in academic setting. Here, technical terms, acronym, complex structure are some major
challenges which are often faced by students in class-room session. These kinds of challenges
make it difficult for students to understand the content in an appropriate way.

It is found that there are several challenges faced by students in terms of effective
listening. It is the responsibility of teachers to examine the issues which are faced by students.
Here, teachers have positive association with students. They not only teach the concepts to
students but also guide them towards right career path. In this context, teacher can adopt below
mentioned strategies in order to help students with listening challenges:
Active listening: For students, it is important to pay attention to what is being studied in
the class. They are required to listen teacher with concentration rather thinking about something
other. In addition to this, physical presence is not enough for become a good student. It is also
vital to pay attention and listen carefully while present in class. It is a crucial way to cope up
with listening challenges face by students (Hwang, Hsu and Hsieh, 2019). Here, active listening
helps in understanding the concept in an appropriate way. It also plays a crucial role in clearing
out all the doubts of student. If students listen with diligence, they can easily ask their queries to
teachers. Apart from this, it also makes a student enable to perform well in exams (Mahdavi and
Miri, 2019).
Preparing the environment: It is the duty of teachers to prepare such an environment
where students can learn without any disturbance. They need to use simple and easily
understandable words. Additionally, Teachers are required to make minimum use of technical
terms. Also, they need to structure the sentence in such a way which can easily understand by
students. Apart from that, teachers need to make familiar students with abbreviation before using
it (Maftoon and Fakhri Alamdari, 2020). Therefore, it is the responsibility of faculty members to
arrange activities in between of class-room sessions so that all students can relax for a particular
period of time. This helps in enhancing concentration of students which is crucial for active
listening.
Listening for details: There are several concepts explained by teachers in class-room.
Teachers need to motivate learners to listen the concept with concentration so that they can
extract more and more details out of it. Additionally, they are required to prepare students for
detailed listening in order to meet with challenges of listening. Listening in details helps in
understanding the concept in an appropriate way (Chen, Kolmos and Du, 2021). This broadens
the learning criteria of students so that they can perform well in academic setting.

Know the context: Understanding the context is more important as it clear the whole
concept. After understanding the context, it is easy for students to embark on a successful
academic journey. Additionally, It minimizes the confusion level of students as they get the
detailed knowledge about context. Hence, teacher’s emphasis that learners grasp the context
rather only listening whatever is said by teachers (Cao, Zhu and Meng, 2021).
Signposting language: It includes the words or phrases which are used by individuals to
guide listeners in coherent way. Main aim of this is to make clear that what has happened and
what will happen next. Therefore, Teachers use this language as guide as that students can follow
what is explained by them. It helps in articulation of writing and also ensures that readers do not
lose concentration during study (Skinner, Leavey and Rothi, 2021). In addition to this, teachers
can also use this language to make piece of writing more clear and understandable.
After going through with above discussion, it is found that there are ample of strategies
can used by teachers in order to address listening challenges of students. In this context, they can
use strategies such as preparing environment, signpost language, active listening and more. With
the effective implementation of these strategies, teachers can easily address the listening issues in
an appropriate way.

Conclusion
Out of above discussion, it is concluded that there are ample of skills required for
successful completion of higher education degree. Listening skills is one of the imperative skills
which need to present in students so that they can grasp the concept in well-define manner. There
is discussion regarding challenges of listening among students. On other side, suitable
suggestions have also been provided which can used by teacher to address listening issues.

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