Challenges and Strategies for Improving Listening Skills in Higher Education

This essay discusses the challenges faced by students in developing effective listening skills in higher education and strategies that teachers can adopt to help them improve. The challenges include linguistic, cultural, cognitive, and visual barriers, while the strategies include reflective speaking and listening, use of technology, and check-ins with students.

SKILLS FOR HIGHER
EDUCATION
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Skills for higher education are the skills that individuals need for their development
which involve compositions, communication, problem solving and communication etc., in their
education. These skills are important for the growth of an individual for their future careers.
These skills can enhance the confidence, competence and self-esteem of the students. However,
they can listening have few barriers too. In this essay, the different listening challenges will be
discussed from the given case study. The strategies which teachers can adapt to help their
students in improving their listening skills will also be discussed.
Listening skills refers to the abilities to listen effectively the messages and understanding
them in the same way the messenger conveyed (Assiter, 2017). Listening is the key to an
effective communication a without the ability to listen effectively the messages conveyed in the
communication can be easily misunderstood. It is the most important skill in the higher
education. Effective listening is important as it shows the messenger they empathize and show
that the listener is serious and understands the messenger being conveyed.
However, if the listening skills are not easy to adapt and often have various challenges.
The most common challenge in listening is linguistic challenge which makes it difficult for the
students to recognize the individual words in the flow of a communication. As students are used
to perceive words written as separate entities in their books and papers (Yurko and Styfanyshyn,
2020). These challenges include the speed of delivery, academic & special vocabulary and
accent. Sometimes the listening material is made up of everyday conversation so it may contain a
lot of casual words and expressions such as a slang. As students are mainly exposed to formal
and bookish language, so they might not be familiar with those expressions.
Additionally, linguistic challenges can also include grammatical complexity of the
message being conveyed such as long sentences, complex noun phrases and false starts used by
the speaker which might be difficult for the listener to interpret (Kirbas, 2017). The conversation
might include some technical terms which can be difficult to hear, pronounce, spell and
understand for the listener. Speaker can use words with dependent prepositions which express
specific relational meanings for the listener and the speaker. There are many abbreviations and
acronyms which can have different meanings in different contexts. So the speaker might be
explaining something and the listener might interpret something else from it.
The cultural differences can also become a challenge in the listening of the students.
These differences can be the speaker's accent and assumptions about the information being
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shared and their roles in the conversation (Eggenberger, 2021). The cultural barriers can include
language, as the people from different cultures have different languages and words interpretation
in their cultures. This can cause misunderstanding between the speaker and the listener. In some
cultures the signs and symbols can mean differently so the speaker might intents to interpret
something but the listener might not understand the same.
The content of the lecture can itself become a barrier in the listening. The content might
be too long which might take a bit longer to understand by the listener (Celik, 2017). However,
until then it can cause the listener to lack behind the topic. Sometimes the content of the lecture
includes the prepositions which express relational meanings to the speaker and listener which
can cause misunderstanding of the content. The complex structures such as noun phrases used in
the content of the lecture can also make it difficult for the listener to understand the message
conveyed.
Another challenge in listening is cognitive barrier. These barriers include the difference
between the speech and processing which can give the listener time to think about other things
while the speaker is communicating. Therefore, it can limit the listener's ability to concentrate
upon the lecture being conveyed (Oxford, 2019). These barriers can be caused by lack of
preparation of lightening, disorganized messages which can interfere with the listening skill
where only half of the mind is processing the lecture.
Students might also feel visual challenges which can affect their listening. Visual
challenges can occur from physical setting as if the student is sitting far from the audio and
visual aids being provided during the lecture. They can also arise when the lecture is being
presented through the power point slides and the listener might find difficult to see and hear the
slides. This can cause them in non-understanding of the lecture (Gafurova, 2020). The noises
during the lecture can also take the mind-off of the listener. Physical distance can also cause the
students to not recognize the speaker's body language and expressions which can make it more
difficult for the listener to understand the speaker's conversation and their meanings. The
physical distance of teachers from the students can also affect the listening of the students as they
might it hard t recognize the facial expressions and body language of the speaker across from the
distance. So the teachers should prefer taking the classes in low masses and arrange the sitting
arrangement in such a way that all the students can see the speaker clearly.
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Additionally, the teachers can use the various strategies and tactics to deal with such
challenges of listening to help their students. One of the strategy is to have the students to check
in with each other (George, 2019). During the lectures students might miss the content of the
lecture. Instead of finding out by the teachers their-selves they can have them check in with their
fellow students. The teacher can give some time to students to compare their notes and
understanding of the content with their fellow students about something they need clarity or
something they have missed. It will also help the students to stay focused during the class.
Teachers can also aid their students in listening through the use of technology. They can
use various technologies like audio speakers and mikes if the lecture is to delivered to numerous
students. Teachers can also provide laptops in the classrooms to deliver PowerPoint
presentations so that every student can see the lecture on their desks (Dinsa and Gutema, 2017).
This will save a lot of time and also the student will remain focused on the lecture. Lecture can
also be presented through visual aids like videos or graphics which the students might find more
interesting than the regular lectures. The students will remain attentive and listen the lectures
with interest.
Additionally, the teachers can imply the rule of no cell phones during the lectures to get
rid of distractions. The most common listening barrier caused to the listener is the distractions
caused through their mobile phones. A vibrating cell phone, continuous notifications and the
urge to use social media is very distracting for the students (Listening Strategies - 18 Expert
Strategies for Effective Listening, 2021). They can imply various rules like if the students have to
access the internet during the classroom, strict restrictions upon the use of social media should be
implemented. This will stop the students to go on scrolling social media while the teachers are
speaking and will keep them attentive towards the speaker and the content being delivered.
However, students can have trouble focusing upon the lecture being delivered if the
speaker uses long paragraphs and sentences. In that case the students will find something else to
drift their attention to something they find more interesting. So the teacher should prepare the
lecture in such a way that it contains short sentences and pauses after 2-3 sentences. After
explaining a paragraph the teachers should ask the students some questions so that they remain
attentive to the topic (Kundu, 2017). This will also help the teachers to access what the students
have understood and what not. The teachers should clear the technical terms before phrasing the
sentences so that the students will be able to interpret the sentences.
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Teachers can use the technique of reflective speaking and listening. The teacher can use
reflection to diffuse the tricky questions (Deveci, 2018). They can use the language of the
content of the lecture in such a way which describes the feelings of the students so that it can
reduce the intensity of the feelings allowing the students to move ahead. It can also strengthen
the communication bonding between the students and the teachers. Reflective speaking will also
provide the students a voice for the issues that are affecting them in their assessment, listening
and understanding (Saraswaty, 2018.). The students will become more ready to accept the status
quo when they feel that their opinions and voices are being heard. This can be achieved only
when the teachers use reflective speaking and listening in the lectures.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the higher education skills are those skills which are
necessary for the growth and development of the students. Listening skills are a part of those
skills which enables the students to understand the lectures conveyed appropriately. However,
listening contains various challenges such as linguistic challenges, grammatical errors or the
physical and visual challenges. The teacher can adopt the strategies like check-in with the
students and reflective listening and speaking which can aid students in effective listening.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals:
Assiter, A., 2017. Transferable skills in higher education. Routledge.
Celik, O., 2017. The importance of listening in communication. Global Journal of Psychology
Research: New Trends and Issues. 7(1). pp.8-11.
Deveci, T., 2018. Listening as a lifelong learning skill: what, why, and how. In 16th
International Conference on Literature, Languages, Humanities and Social Sciences. (pp.
85-90).
Dinsa, D.T. and Gutema, T.M., 2017. Effective Listening: Teachers’ and Students’ Awareness
about its Roles in Academic Achievement.
Eggenberger, A.L., 2021. Active listening skills as predictors of success in community college
students. Community College Journal of Research and Practice. 45(5). pp.324-333.
Gafurova, G., 2020. A model for preparation a listening skills lesson. Журнал иностранных
языков и лингвистики. 1(1). pp.30-34.
George, M.S., 2019. Enhancing Basic Communication Skills through Listening Using
TELL (Doctoral dissertation).
Kirbas, A., 2017. Effects of Cooperative Learning Method on the Development of Listening
Comprehension and Listening Skills. Online Submission. 5(1). pp.1-17.
Kundu, J., 2017. Use of Teaching Aids in Language Teaching. IJRAR-International Journal of
Research and Analytical Reviews. 4(3). pp.247-250.
Oxford, R., 2019. Teaching and researching listening skills: Theory-and research-based
practices. Research-Driven Pedagogy, pp.10-34.
Saraswaty, D.R., 2018. LEARNERS’DIFFICULTIES & STRATEGIES IN LISTENING
COMPREHENSION. English Community Journal. 2(1). pp.139-152.
Yurko, N. and Styfanyshyn, I., 2020. Listening skills in learning a language: the importance,
benefits and means of enhancement. Collective monographs. pp.38-46.
Online references:
Listening Strategies - 18 Expert Strategies for Effective Listening. 2021. [Online]. Available
through: <https://www.rhythmsystems.com/blog/leadership-four-steps-to-effective-
listening>. [Accessed on 13 August 2021]
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