Study Skills for Higher Education: Challenges in Listening and Developing Active Listening Skills

This article discusses the benefits of opting for the UK education system and the challenges faced by students in listening at university. It also provides tips on how students can develop their active listening skills.

Study skills for higher
education

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ......................................................................................................................................3
Assessment 1...............................................................................................................................3
Assessment 2...............................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The education system of UK is considered as one of the best education system worldwide. It
is divided into four main categories namely primary, secondary, further and higher education. The
study system is highly developed in that country, according to the leading research, it has been
stated that the quality in the education and continuos development in the field of education has
made it the favourite and most popular country to pursue education from (Baxter, Southall, 2021).
There are a lot of courses diplomas and degrees which are offered by the universities of UK, which
are even shorter and more intensive as compared to other countries. This essay will include the
benefits of opting UK education system and further more, the listening challenges experienced by
the students will be discussed including the development of listening skills will also be elaborated.
MAIN BODY
Assessment 1
United kingdom is among one of the countries which has the oldest history when it comes to
education and popular universities. The country has more than 400 universities and colleges which
are offering different courses along with different values and ample amount of opportunities to get
scholarships which can help in supporting both the local and international students as well. Some
other benefits of the education are also there like, Higher quality of education, as their system is up
to date, the students can choose from various number of courses (Amaro, Alves and Sousa, 2019).
Some short duration courses are also available for the students which are quite relevant and
excellent to pursue and also the accommodation costs will be reduced by opting such courses.
Further more the availability of valuable courses also plays an important role in promoting the
higher education system .
The well known universities like Oxford and Cambridge provides a large number of variety
in degrees, diplomas and other short term courses, which can help the students to get great
opportunities to enhance their skills and excel in the field they expertise in. The major benefit is that
the students will be provided by International recognition of their degree, this will encourage the
qualification worldwide (Nováková, Jakab and Michalko, 2021) . The colleges are known by their
excellence in academic records, which will magnify the resume of the students for the benefit of
their future purpose. Along with this, it opens the new doors for exposure, experiences and much
more, by boosting up the personality traits as well.
As the students opt for the higher education system of UK, they will also be developing their
communication and English speaking skills as nowadays English is recognised as a basic skill, The

advantage of choosing Britain seems absolutely obvious, because the students will be listening the
mother tongue of the country all the time, which will further help them to achieve effectiveness in
their English speaking skills, and boosting their confidence too (Beretta and Hellweg,2019)
Including this, they will be able to socialise and discuss more with the colleagues and batch mates.
Being a student who is studying in a prestigious university can be helpful in many ways to
strengthen my career and improving my working qualities, so I decided to go for the education
system of London which is considered as a significant global influence all around the world. Having
tremendous contribution in the field of science, management and psychology. England has a great
literature history too which also influences the students from worldwide. UK has one of the best
educational systems making it a choice in the list of many students from all over the world
including me also who are looking forward to expand their knowledge circle by receiving the top
notch education from a well known college or a university. We all are aware of the fact that the
British education system has an excellent reputation, which is comprehensive and adaptable for the
students. My decision of studying abroad is based on various opportunities and qualities which are
offered by the London universities, such as variety of courses like, hospitality, business
management, and even tourism too. Second thing which is considered by me is the high standards
of teaching, as they will provide the quality assurance to the students by regular assessment and
aptitude check. Besides these features, I can also pursue short term courses which will reduce my
accommodation cost up to an extent, and will add more value to my career. Being asked about my
dream, I can straight away give an answer that studying in London is my biggest dream in terms of
career. Along with that, I will also get a chance to enjoy the cultural diversity, by mixing up with
new people, encouraging my interactions, and getting social with them. England is an interesting
place to live in, having countryside villages, historical landmarks, famous music festivals, and a
great variety of cuisine etc. The best by far advantage of choosing the UK educational system is
that it will improve my effective communication and English speaking skills by enhancing my
employment prospects, including this I can also explore the foreign job market which is more
rewarding in terms of career and salary both. Apart from these benefits, I will also be able to
develop a sense of responsibility within myself because at some point of time, everyone needs to
learn how to become independent and stand on their own and London provides a great opportunity
to work while you are studying, As we can go for various part time jobs, internships, and placement
during the vacations making it more amazing in terms of education. Some other diploma courses
can also be a good option to choose, so that I can develop valuable skills to add into my CV.
Joining seminars, attending various workshops, can give a boost to my academic career and can
increase my certifications too. So basically, these were the reasons why I have decided to give a
great start to my career by choosing to study in united kingdom for a bright future ahead.

Assessment 2
Discuss some of the listening challenges students may experience at university.
At university it will be difficult for some students to listen an understand the language of the
professors as they might have different accent and slang. Listening not only includes what is being
said by the others but it also relates to understand what they are actually saying. Some may not
understand what others are speaking because of the inability to understand the new language.
Proper listening is important to understand the what teacher is saying but sometimes students may
find difficulties to understand the lectures and will communicate less to other students because of
the language barrier, they will take time to adapt in that environment. There are some factors which
affect good listening of the students which they can't control but few of them can be managed. For
students it is important to know about the factors which affects their good listening. Different types
of noises like physical noise which belongs to our surrounding for example loud music, due to the
vehicles running on the road,etc., psychological noise which is related to distraction created by the
thought in a person's mind, physiological needs include the difficulty to listen or understand things
caused by body of the person who is listening, semantic noise refers to the when listener didn't
understand any word or expression but the person who is speaking is continuously delivering his
message.
But there are some distraction which is neither related to the person who is listening and to
the person who is speaking and interrupts the ability to understand the conversation. A person
should be a good listener and must wait for the speaker for completing his topic. If a student is a
good listener he could understand the speaking style, vocabulary, and his grammar all at same point.
Student may not be able to understand all the words spoken by professor, this will develop the
feeling of failure among the students. They think that the information they are receiving in the
classroom will be burden on them. Major challenge faced by the listener during studying in the
university is speed of the speaker, for this teachers should adopt the right way of teaching, they
must use some audio clips for them with all the regional or accents in the campus. Some students
have limited knowledge of vocabulary and it becomes more frustrating when they are related to to
some important topic, it results in the bad influence on the mental state of the students, they feel
nervous. Sometimes students left behind in order to understand the previous word, they take time to
catch the words speaking during the classes. Teachers should decrease the student's worry by
explaining them words and related terms clearly and never uses hard words while teaching.
Students have to focus on the key point that how they can improve their listening and can
communicate their ideas as listening improves their knowledge and listening to teachers actively
may results in reduction of their stress level. It is believed that person who listens with all his

attention during a conversation, this means they are respecting the thoughts of others. Listening
with attention allows students to grab more knowledge which help them in their professional life
and also gives them greater clarification about the studies.
Most probably students won't be able to understand the reliable text while they are in any
discussion with their professors. Teaching good listening skills to the students focuses on the
process of increasing ability to understand the matter in true aspect of ordinary day situations. An
student can his ability to listen actively by listening news, audio on the daily basis. It is necessary
for the teacher to understands properly the issues of students related to the listening and works in
solving them. University can also offers some opportunities and start programs related to
improvement in the speaking and listening of students. A good listening skills helps students to
improve their language as they are not aware of the accent, speaking styles of the teachers and their
friends, this will increase there communication skills. For solving the challenges faced by the
students related to listening, teachers should divide the material in different levels from easy to
hard, they must focus on the making the native words familiar to the learners. Task should be
decided for the students to improve their listening ability by providing them different material, by
this students will show their understanding towards the new language. Taking help of pictures,
video and diagrams also helpful in improving the listening ability, along with for the new learner
texting in simple way can be used and for the students who already knows the language difficult
texting can be used. When university focuses on the active learning of the listening skills student
will less likely to get confused about what they are studying. When student listens actively to his
instructor and also respond to them this will fill their communication gaps and makes the learning
more interesting, it will also helps the students in improving their overall performance in the
college.
Explain how students can develop their active listening skills
Listening skills are an essential part of a good communication. The term effective listening
is based on actively absorbing the information which is given by a speaker, showing interest and
giving feedback to the speaker (Abdin,and Kanzharova, 2021). It is an important part for the
students to improve listening skills which will help them to promote mindful thinking , by reducing
anxiety and depression among the students. This also helps to build relationships because as the
students will engage themselves in conversation, they will more likely to be viewed as open and
interested. Promoting the listening skills can enhance the basic human interaction and build the
personal and professional relationships as well. To be a good listener is the key part of an effective
communication system. Here are some important terms which can be considered by the students to
opt good listening skills and they should focus on visualizing that what the speaker is trying to say

, as it will help them to remember the key words and phrases. The next term is related with active
listening, as it shows that students are interested in the topic and also helps to ensure that they
correctly understood the topic. To improve these skills the students should try not be judgemental
while listening and must avoid the interruption. If students are not doing their work and not
reviewed the notes from previous class, it can become very difficult to process the information
along with asking questions can be the best way to set focus in classrooms which will help to
keep the conversation clear and helps to avoiding the misunderstandings, and will also develop
the ability to concentrate and ignoring the distractions. Students can also improve their listening
skills by opting various methods like joining the counselling sessions ,watch motivational videos
and watching some inspiring videos this things helps to improve listening techniques (Burns, and
Siegel, 2018). They should be more focused, alert and patience to being a good listener . Good
listener play a major role while speaking in the conversation, so to being a good listener they should
try to target this points like try to engaged in the current moment ,avoid all distractions including
phone and other , react in the moment , don't try to pretend because listen is process to understand
and always try to repeat back what the speaker says this helps to make sure that we have to
understood the topic.
Briefing of the main points of the message must also be performed to give the students a
chance to correct their mistakes. They also try these activity which helps to develop and sharpen
listening skills are listed blow - read stories book ask them to predict what will happen next .this
prediction helps to develop the logical guess , play some mind game with friends and family and
also play some telephone game like one person whisper a sentence to next person and each person
repeats it to the next until the final person have this person say the sentence aloud and see how
much the two sentences have changed this types of games helps to develop the listening skills ,
create a list of questions and then ask with your friend and family after one person has answered
and see how many the other can remember then switch the roles an see how well the other person
does, they can also play a the “ spot the change “ game. In this game write a short story and read
then give this to other and making some changes and read it again when each time they hears a
change helps to improve the thinking power and try to being creative when follow the directions
(Wilson, 2020).
This all activities takes lot of concentration and determination to be a better listener and
practising the actively listening techniques will help the students to become a batter communication
and build listening skills. Along with all these activities meditation can also play an effective role in
helping to increase the focus and patience levels of in individual it also helps us to calm down in
certain situations and also try to focus on Non- verbal cues it will help to know that whether the
speaker is lying or feel nervous and uncomfortable as well as a host personality traits that provide

context for what the other person is saying (McAndrews,2019). Being kind and empathic towards
other people can encourage the effective listening skills along with student have heard about active
listening, it is an important techniques to master and uses the power of the sense. Being able to
listen without interrupting is power skill and also try to summarize the topic as it helps both the
parties to be clear on mutual responsibilities and follow- up.
CONCLUSION
The above report is detailed discussion on the skills required by the students for higher
education, it also discusses about the different benefits of studying in UK university for the students
such as they will get recognition of foreign degree recognition, become more developed in each
field, get expert in speaking English language and also gives the personal reflection about the topic.
This report also focuses on the challenges students face such as language barriers, accents,
vocabulary, rate of speaking while studying in the university along with this there is discussion on
methods to improve the listening skills of the students and about the focus and patience of the
students. It was concluded from this report that students will get good quality education and
importance of good listening skills to overcome the several barriers which they face while studying
in the university.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Abdin, A. and Kanzharova, A., 2021. TEACHING LISTENING. Global Science and Innovations:
Central Asia (см. в книгах), 4(9), pp.83-87.
Amaro, P., Alves, A.C. and Sousa, R.M., 2019. Lean thinking: a transversal and global management
philosophy to achieve sustainability benefits. Lean Engineering for Global Development,
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Baxter, L.P., Southall, A.E.2021. Trialling critical reflection in education: the benefits for school
leaders and teachers. Reflective Practice, 22(4), pp.501-514.
Beretta, C. and Hellweg, S., 2019. Potential environmental benefits from food waste prevention in
the food service sector. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 147, pp.169-178.
Brown, T.H., 2020. Childhood hearing impairment. Paediatrics and Child health, 30(1), pp.6-13.
Buitrago, J.A.L., 2020. The Influence of Metacognition in the Teaching and Learning Process of
English Listening (Doctoral dissertation, Greensboro College).
Burns, A. and Siegel, J., 2018. Teaching the four language skills: Themes and issues. International
perspectives on teaching the four skills in ELT, pp.1-17.
Chuang, Y.H., and et.al., 2018. Effects of a skill demonstration video delivered by smartphone on
facilitating nursing students' skill competencies and self-confidence: A randomized
controlled trial study. Nurse education today, 66, pp.63-68.
McAndrews, M., 2019. Short periods of instruction improve learners’ phonological categories for
L2 suprasegmental features. System, 82, pp.151-160.
Nie, Y., 2020. On-line classroom visual tracking and quality evaluation by an advanced feature
mining technique. Signal Processing: Image Communication, 84, p.115817.
Nováková, I., Jakab, F. and Michalko, M., 2021, November. Benefits of Interactive Augmented
Reality in Education. In 2021 19th International Conference on Emerging eLearning
Technologies and Applications (ICETA) (pp. 276-281). IEEE.
Wilson, D.E., 2020. Moving toward democratic-transformational leadership in academic
libraries. Library Management.