Study Skills for Higher Education: Discussion of Listening Challenges and Strategies for Improvement

This project report discusses the challenges faced by students in the listening process and strategies that teachers can adopt to improve their listening skills. It also highlights the importance of listening skills in higher education.

Study Skills for Higher
Education

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
1. Discussion of listening challenges...........................................................................................1
2. Strategies to be used by teachers in order to improve listening skills.....................................2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Listening refers to receiving of information or message send by another person. This skill
helps a person in order to gain knowledge and develop skills as it helps to listen others (Adeshola
and Abubakar, 2020). It also helps students, teachers, employees or managers of organisation.
There are various skills to be develop by a person in order to complete higher education in
effective manners. These skills also help them to get good career opportunity in life. This project
report includes discussion of various challenges faced a person in process of listening. It also
includes discussion of various strategies to be adopted by teachers in order to improve listening
skills of students.
MAIN BODY
1. Discussion of listening challenges
Listening process is one of important process in communication as it helps to understand
information provided by sender and also respond to that information. There are various
challenges faced by a person in listening process which is important to improve in order to
improve listening Skills. Some of problems face by a person in listening process are as follows:
Repetition of words in sentence is one of problem in listening skills of a person as it makes
message unattractive (McDougall and Holden, 2017). This repetition of words in information
makes it boring and does not gain attention of listener. As listener wants to listen information
related to their interest in well structure manner, repetition of words in this type of information
reduces interest of sender. Listener is paying attention to information and message which are
interesting. This information can be judge in stingray part of it and if sender start is in right
manners than it can be attentively listen by listener but if sender share information with false
start, then it does not gain attention of listener.
Use of unnecessary information in any message make information too large and these
types of information make no sense. It is important for sender to use important information in
order to make information relevant and interest in order to gain attention of listener. These use of
unnecessary words in message results in changes in meaning of information. A person read and
understand small message easily but they try to avoid reading and listening long messages. This
create challenges in listening process and it is necessary for sender to avoid of use of these
unnecessary worlds in message.
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Technical terms are those which cannot be used in general conversation but used in
particular or specific field (Nisha and Rajasekaran, 2018). This technical term can be used by a
person who has expertise in that field and these words are difficult in order to understand and
pronounce. These words sometimes can be understood by listener in wrong context which create
confusion and misunderstanding. This change whole meaning of message and misguide listener.
It is important for sender to compose message in a manner which can be easily understand by
listener and should avoid use of technical words in message share by them.
Abbreviation are short form used by a person of any words. This word is representing
whole words in short form whereas acronyms refer to set of initials form phrase. Sender should
avoid to use of these abbreviation as well as acronyms in order to avoid misunderstanding and
confusion in listening process. These abbreviation as well as acronyms are used in different
context and this may lead to situation in which leader is using this abbreviation in another
context that can be understand by listener in another context.
Complex or convoluted structure also results in various challenges and problems in
decoding and understanding message. Complex structure of information misguide listener and
create confusion. Due to this, listener is sometimes cannot understand information in right way
or leave information without reading it completely. These problems can be faced by students as
information provided by teachers related to assignment or projects, cannot be understand by
students in right ways and due to this they are not able to address all parts of question or may
fails to complete this assignment of time.
2. Strategies to be used by teachers in order to improve listening skills
Listening skills is one of important skills in life of students as it allows a student to focus
in classes and gain information provided by teachers (Saiz-Alvarez, 2017). This helps to improve
their knowledge and helps to develop various skills in a person. It is important for a teacher to
improve listening skills of a person. In order to improve listening skills of a person, various
strategies to be adopted by teachers. Some of strategies adopted by teachers in order to improve
listening skills of their students are as follows:
Listening skills is important to improve for teachers to their students which can be done
with reading pre lecture handout in context to topic. It allows teachers to reread all information
which is to be discussion in class and provide them brief information related to subject topic.
This helps teachers to understand which information is essential to share and which are not. With
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this teacher are able to share information and knowledge with their students and are able to gain
attention of their students towards them. It boost confidence of professors and teachers as they
are prepared for particular session in class and also make session interesting by providing
necessary information.
Factual information is that information which are related to data, facts as well as
statistics. These make a person efficient as they understand information from data, statistics and
facts (Samaras, Adkins and White, 2021). This factual information is not including theories or
personal interpretation rather than it includes fact-based information. In order to improve
listening skills of students, teachers are providing factual information to their students which
make them to able to understand their students this information. With these activities, students
learn to understand about statistics and data which is beneficial for them as if someone providing
information related to factual information, students are able to listen it properly and understand
that information. These helps teachers to improve capability of their students and also their
knowledge. It also helps to develop additional skills in students along with listening skills which
provide them future opportunity.
Academic language is one of important thing for both teachers as well as students as it
helps students in order to getting good grades and improve both oral as well as written
communication. Teachers needs to improve academic language of their students which helps
them to understand information and message provided by teachers and also to understand
information provided by others. It also helps students to understand technical words used by
teachers in class or people outside educational institute. With this, teachers are able to improve
their communication and language which is beneficial for them in order to get good grades.
Improvement of listening is important for purpose of association as well as evaluation in
lecture (Topalli and Cagiltay, 2018). This is also one of strategy which helps teachers in order to
improve listening process. This strategy helps to evaluate process of listening as it allows a
person in order to improve their listening skills. Teachers can evaluate listening process by
asking questions in classes which helps students to attentively listen in class in order to answer
all question raised by teachers to their students.
Reprocessing is another strategy adopted by teachers in order to improve listening skills
of their students. Reprocessing of information can be done with use of notes as it helps teachers
to recall information provided by them to their students. This reprocessing helps to remind about
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important information provided by teachers in class and remind them (Universities, 2018). As it
is tendency of a person to forget if they did not recall or revise that information. In order to
improve listening skills of students, it is important for teacher to reprocessing of information by
using notes in classes as it helps students to memorise information for long period.
CONCLUSION
From above mentioned project report, it can be concluded that listening is one of important skills
which is necessary in life of a students. It is important for teachers in order to improve listening
skills of their students. There are various challenges faced by a person in listening process which
includes unnecessary words, repetition of words in sentence, false start, difficult structure of
information. Use of technical words and jargon and many more. It orders to overcome of these
barrier, challenges and problems, it is important or teachers to adopt various strategies. These
strategies include teachers should use pre lecture handout in order to prepare for lectures,
listening of important factual information. There are some other strategies including academic
language as it is key to improve listening skill of a person, evaluation of lecture and reprocessing
of information in order to recall of information.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Adeshola, I. and Abubakar, A.M., 2020. Assessment of higher order thinking skills: Digital
assessment techniques. In Assessment, testing, and measurement strategies in global
higher education (pp. 153-168). IGI Global.
McDougall, J. and Holden, H., 2017. The silence about oral presentation skills in distance and
online education: new perspectives from an Australian university preparatory
programme. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 32(2),
pp.163-176.
Nisha, S.M. and Rajasekaran, V., 2018. Employability skills: A review. IUP Journal of Soft
Skills, 12(1), pp.29-37.
Saiz-Alvarez, J.M., 2017. Entrepreneurial ICT-based skills and leadership for business ethics in
higher education. In Handbook of Research on Technology-Centric Strategies for
Higher Education Administration (pp. 373-392). IGI Global.
Samaras, S.A., Adkins, C.L. and White, C.D., 2021. Developing critical thinking skills:
Simulations vs. cases. Journal of Education for Business, pp.1-7.
Topalli, D. and Cagiltay, N.E., 2018. Improving programming skills in engineering education
through problem-based game projects with Scratch. Computers & Education, 120,
pp.64-74.
Universities UK, 2018. Solving future skills challenges.
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