Listening Skills in Higher Education: Challenges and Strategies

This essay delves into the critical role of listening skills in higher education, examining the challenges students encounter, such as the use of unnecessary words, complex sentence structures, and technical jargon. It identifies these barriers to effective listening and proposes strategies teachers can employ to improve student comprehension, including the use of hand gestures, technology, and interactive questioning. The essay also reflects on personal experiences with listening difficulties, such as unfamiliar technical terms and speech patterns, and outlines strategies employed to overcome these challenges, emphasizing the importance of vocabulary expansion and an open-minded approach to learning. The conclusion reinforces the significance of effective listening for overall communication and academic success, highlighting the need for educators to implement techniques that foster improved listening skills within the classroom environment.

Listening skills in an
academic context

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Discuss three of the listening challenges that a student face in an academic context.................3
Suggest three strategies teacher can use to help students to improve their listening skills.........4
Describe some listening challenges you have experienced and the strategies that have helped
you become a better listener........................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Higher education is the research that a student pursues after completing high school, and it is
a third level or tertiary education that contributes to the award of an academic degree. Higher
education refers to any form of learning provided to students in post-secondary educational
institutions such as universities, schools, and technical institutes that award students a diploma,
certificate, or degree in higher studies (Al-Kurdi, El-Haddadeh and Eldabi, 2020). Medicine, law,
business, music, art, culture, history, geology, psychology, and criminology are only a few of the
fields in which a student can pursue a career. There are a variety of skills that help students
complete their degree programmes and are also useful in the workplace. A second study was
written with the aim of better recognising the value of listening skills, the difficulties that
students face, and strategies for improving listening skills.
MAIN BODY
Discuss three of the listening challenges that a student face in an academic context
Academic listening skills are critical for an individual’s overall learning because students
must take notes from professor-led academic lectures. The ability of a student to perceive a
message and gain comprehension of what is being said or conveyed to them is determined by his
or her listening skills (Castro, 2019). However, there are a number of obstacles that a student
faces that serve as a barrier to successful listening skills, as detailed below:
Unnecessary words: While speaking, there are certain words or phrases that the
communicator often uses, which is one of the most common barriers in students' listening skills
because these frequently used words create ambiguity in the message, making it difficult to
understand. For example, if I would like to begin, isn’t it? what if I say, or if I say, the frequent
use of these terms can alter the meaning of a sentence, making it difficult for students to decode
the message.
Long sentences with multiple items: Another difficulty student face in successful
listening is a long series of sentences with multiple items, which makes the message more
complicated and vaguer. These long sentence sequences distract the listener from the main
message and cause confusion. For example, pandemics have resulted in a number of deaths
around the world, some of whom were already sick and others who were infected with COVID;

one of the causes for their deaths are poor eating habits and lack of exercise, which has created
havoc everywhere.
Technical terms: When giving a lecture, there are quite a few words that students are
unfamiliar with, making it difficult for them to listen to and understand the actual message.
Students find it difficult to recognise difficult terms or vocabulary used by specialists in relevant
fields when taking notes from presentations, guest lectures, or webinars (Okolie and et. al.,
2020). These words are typically difficult to pronounce, spell, hear, and understand since they
are seldom used and are associated with a specific area, such as laissez faire, thrombolysis, and
so on.
Suggest three strategies teacher can use to help students to improve their listening skills
By considering the mentioned barriers, they can obstruct student’s ability to listen
effectively, it is critical for teachers to use a variety of tools and strategies to keep students
attentive, informed, and engaged in a class when delivering a lecture or during webinars or
presentations.
Usage of hand movements: One of the most important methods for keeping students
focused and engaging in what is being delivered is to use hand gestures or non-verbal techniques.
These hand gestures assist students in accurately encoding and comprehending the message.
Usage of technology: Using technology is another interesting way to help students
improve their listening skills. When giving a lecture or a lesson, the instructor should use
technology to keep the students engaged and provide them with engaging learning opportunities
(Trenkic and Warmington, 2019). Teachers, on the other hand, should prepare a brief lecture
note that includes difficult concepts and word definitions, which can be played concurrently
when delivering a lecture for the benefit of students.
Questioning and recall: Students can overlook a concept that they do not understand,
affecting their overall learning abilities. Teachers may ask students to solicit questions in case
they don't understand anything and try to remember what was just said to make the lesson more
informative and engaging. This encourages students to be more attentive and involved in class,
which aids in successful listening.

Describe some listening challenges you have experienced and the strategies that have helped you
become a better listener
My listening skills were poor during my higher education, and as a result, I was unable to
pay attention in class and missed important information (Westphalen, 2020). There were some
technical terms used by the teacher that I was unfamiliar with, which made it difficult for me to
understand what the teacher had said in class. Furthermore, the dialect, grammar, and rhythm of
speech made it extremely difficult for me to decode the messages that were conveyed to me.
However, in order to enhance my learning abilities, I began to expand my vocabulary, which
I believe is critical for comprehending what is being learned in class. I often tried to maintain an
open mind when it came to learning. Getting preconceived notions and judgments about the
speaker hampered an individual's ability to listen and learn. Since learners do not welcome the
speaker's viewpoint based on presumptions, it is preferable to be objective and non-judgmental
when attending a session or lecture.
CONCLUSION
From the preceding discussion, it has been analysed that in order to become a good
communicator, one must first be a good listener. Effective listening is critical in higher education
as a person develops his understanding of what is being said and how it is perceived. As a result,
it is important for teachers to employ such techniques that will assist them in listening effectively
in the classroom.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Al-Kurdi, O.F., El-Haddadeh, R. and Eldabi, T., 2020. The role of organisational climate in
managing knowledge sharing among academics in higher education. International
Journal of Information Management. 50. pp.217-227.
Castro, R., 2019. Blended learning in higher education: Trends and capabilities. Education and
Information Technologies. 24(4). pp.2523-2546.
Okolie, U.C., and et. al., 2020. A critical perspective on industry involvement in higher
education learning: Enhancing graduates’ knowledge and skills for job creation in
Nigeria. Industry and Higher Education, p.0950422220919655.
Trenkic, D. and Warmington, M., 2019. Language and literacy skills of home and international
university students: How different are they, and does it matter?. Bilingualism:
Language and Cognition. 22(2). pp.349-365.
Westphalen, L., 2020. Transforming Higher Education Teaching for Twenty-First-Century
Skills. In Critical Perspectives on Teaching, Learning and Leadership (pp. 45-60).
Springer, Singapore.