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

This report discusses the challenges faced by students in higher education when it comes to listening and the strategies teachers can use to improve their listening skills. The challenges include false starts, technical terms, long sequences of clauses, distractions, and making assumptions. The strategies include getting to know students, talking less, using hand signals, giving listening tasks, and listening for a purpose.

Study Skills for Higher
Education

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Five listening challenges ............................................................................................................3
Strategies which can be used by the teachers for developing the listening skills.......................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
Books and Journals.....................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Higher education is the step after the student has left its school and this higher education
includes the graduate and undergraduate programmes. This is the stage in which the individual
learns and studies about those things in which they have interest(Al-Mansoori and Koç, 2019).
Study skills are those skills which is required by every individual so that all the discussions
which are taking place in the class could be easily understandable. Every person requires some
type of skill which might be helpful either in the workplace or in their academics. But for the
students having skills is very important so that they understand the study well and does not found
any issue while studying. This report will cover listening challenges which the student founds
and the strategies which can be used by teachers to improve the listening skills of students.
MAIN BODY
Five listening challenges
There are different challenges which are faced by students in their academics which have been
discussed below-
 False start- False start is not the same as that of corrections and repetition but the start of
sentences which is not correct. The false start of sentences is the main issue which creates
the difficulty of listening to the students. The main difficulty starts from this point only in
which the students are unable to listen well (Arkoudis, 2018). But if the student is
intelligent enough then they might not face any difficulty in understanding the thing
perfectly. But for understanding and learning any topic it is very important that the start
of any new topic is correct because the students are not aware about the topic and if it is
started wrongly then every student will perceive it differently.
 Technical terms- The technical terms are the difficult words which might not be known
by other individual. Those individual who are having the knowledge in technical terms
then it will be very easy for them but those who are unable to understand it well then they
might find it difficult to understand(Stewart, 2021). This is the other challenge in

listening which the student have to face in their study. The technical terms are the
difficult terms which is difficult to understand properly and if the students are not able to
understand the things properly then at this point the listening also gets distracted in which
they are unable to understand the things properly.
 Long sequence of different clauses- The teacher at some of point of time does not come
at the conclusion straight away but except that piles up many sentences which creates the
difficulty of understanding the sentences correctly(Grundy, 2020). This means that when
the student is not able to draw the conclusions perfectly because there are many things
which are added up in the lines. This makes the situation very blurred as the student by
not able to understand the things properly gets distracted very easily. It is a true fact that
students will focus on the things when it is clear to them easily and when they are able to
draw the conclusions.
 Distractions- There are different things by which the student are unable to concentrate
on the things. The most important and the most likely to happen challenge is the
distraction which is faced by the students. There are many reasons for which the students
gets distracted which makes it difficult for the students to listen to what the teacher is
saying in the class. It can be when the student is day dreaming about the things which has
happened in the past or might be for other things(Calma, 2021). Day dreaming makes it
very difficulty for the person to develop and increase its concentration for the things
which is happening in the class or in any other places.
 Making assumptions- Sometimes it becomes very difficult for those person who are the
ones to draw conclusions before the things have been communicated to them. In the case
of academics when the student know little about the topic and which makes the
confidence higher of that student regarding having full knowledge of that topic(Sari,
Nasution and Wahyuni, S. 2019). This reduces the chances of listening to the things what
is being said by the teacher because the student have drawn the conclusion already and
this makes it difficult from the side of listening to the things which has been spoken in
the class.

Strategies which can be used by the teachers for developing the listening skills
There are different strategies which are used by the teachers so that the listening skills of
students can be improved which are discussed below-
 Get to know more about students- It is very important from the side of teacher if they
want to increase the listening skill of the students that they have to know more about the
students. It is because if the teacher takes time to understand what the students really
wants and what they likes then at this point teachers have to understand the students
properly (Li and et. al., 2021). This can be done by teacher using any of the strategy as
they can do this by playing games and this will help the students to focus on more what
the teacher is saying. Further this will be useful to increase the focus of the students
whatever is going in the class.
 Talk less- It is important that the teachers have to talk less and have to communicate with
the students by asking them the questions which have been taught in the class. It is
because at some point of time teachers start talking to the students which at time becomes
very boring for the students as well. So if the teacher also wants to increase he listening
skill of the students then at that point they have to engage the students with them by
asking them the questions.
 Use a hand signal- It is very important from the side of teacher that they use hand
signals so that the students participate in the class and what the teacher is talking in the
class. This is the most interactive way which can be made attractive to students who
might be feeling boring in the class(Tsalikova and Pakhotina, 2019). Interactive way of
teaching is considered to be the most important type of teaching because thus is the only
way by which the students will feel excited enough to attend the class and listen actively
to what they are saying.
 Giving listening task- It is very important that the teacher must develop the exercise in
which the listening task is given to students. This includes giving some topic to students
in which they will share their thought as what they have understood about the topic. This
is the most important strategy which has been useful with good results because by using

this strategy the student will answer what they know and this will be helpful to the
teacher in knowing about the things.
 Listen for a purpose- When some purpose is given to students then it increases the
concentration of them and also builds good class environment. Giving some purpose and
motivation to students helps in developing the focus of them and at the same time it also
gives them the reason as why they have to listen to things properly in class(Kumar and
Nanda, 2019). When the students are not listening in the class then it means that either
they know about the topic already or either they are not having any purpose or reason to
study that particular topic.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that study skills is the most important factor
for the students which helps in developing the self motivation of the students and also helps in
the development of organised skills. The development of these skills are important because the
students can make the retention of the knowledge which they are learning in the classes. But
without the skills students would not be able to understand the things and boost their level of
concentration which is required in the classes. It is because students will be motivated enough
top study when they are able to understand in the classes. If they are not then it means that there
is lack of study skills which needs to be developed.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Al-Mansoori, R.S. and Koç, M., 2019. Sustainability in Higher Education: The Impact of
Transformational Leadership on Followers’ Innovative Outcomes A Framework
Proposal. In Sustainability on University Campuses: Learning, Skills Building and Best
Practices (pp. 227-243). Springer, Cham.
Arkoudis, S., 2018. Integrating communication skills through distributed expertise. HERDSA
News. 40(1). pp.3-4.
Calma, A., 2021. Assessing and assuring learning: university teachers’ reflections on effectively
addressing skills deficits in business studies. Studies in Higher Education. 46(3).
pp.594-605.
Grundy, S., 2020. The Past, Present and Future of Q-Step-A Programme Creating a Step-Change
in Quantitative Social Science Skills. Numeracy: Advancing Education in Quantitative
Literacy. 13(1).
Kumar, V. and Nanda, P., 2019. Social media in higher education: A framework for continuous
engagement. International Journal of Information and Communication Technology
Education (IJICTE). 15(1). pp.97-108.
Li, W. and et. al., 2021. Intellectual migration: considering China. Journal of Ethnic and
Migration Studies. 47(12). pp.2833-2853.
Sari, M., Nasution, M.I. and Wahyuni, S.F., 2019. The strategy of spiritual leadership: The role
of spiritual survival, workplace spirituality and organizational commitment at private
universities. International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science. 8(1).
pp.64-72.
Stewart, B.A., 2021. An empirical approach to identifying employability skills required of
graduates in the environmental sciences. Industry and Higher Education. 35(2). pp.89-
101.
Tsalikova, I.K. and Pakhotina, S.V., 2019. Scientific research on the issue of soft skills
development (Review of the data in international databases of scopus, web of
science). The Education and science journal. 21(8). pp.187-207.