Enhancing Academic Performance: Active Listening Skills in University

This report delves into the critical role of active listening skills for students in higher education, addressing the challenges they face and providing practical solutions. The report identifies barriers to effective listening, such as language differences, increased academic workload, differing viewpoints between students and instructors, and distractions within the classroom. It also highlights how incompetent tutors and noise can also hinder students' ability to listen effectively. The report further explores active listening techniques, including paying attention, providing feedback, deferring judgment, responding appropriately, focusing on body language, maintaining eye contact, and allowing the speaker to finish. By implementing these strategies, students can enhance their comprehension, improve communication, and ultimately achieve greater academic success. This document, contributed by a student, is available on Desklib, a platform offering AI-powered study tools.

STUDY SKILLS FOR HIGH
EDUCATION

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Listening challenges faced by the students at the university.......................................................3
Explain how students can develop their active listening skills....................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Listening skills refers to the ability of an individual to effectively hear, understand,
interpret and analyse the message that has been communicated within the process of
communication. It is a very important skill that needs to be developed within different people as
it will help them in their personal development and growth in their careers. The listening skills
play an important role in carrying out the day to day activities of a day. The listening skills also
helps an individual in the development of interpersonal skills, helps in improving the overall
communication of a person, enhances their level of understanding, helps them in forming good
relations with the family, friends, colleagues, peers, and other subordinates. The present study
discusses the active listening skills and the challenges faced by the students in developing the
skills within the university. It also aims to discuss ways in which students can develop active
listening skills within themselves.
MAIN BODY
Listening challenges faced by the students at the university
While studying within the university and attending classes, the students within the
university encounter various challenges in listening to their tutors. The barriers of listening faced
by the students within the university include unable to unable understand a vast range of content,
unfamiliar accents, requiring concentrating for a long period, distraction, unable to connect the
information and practically implement the same, getting into a debate and many more. It has
been identified that in universities, students from different nations comes to universities which
are located at a completely new place in foreign countries. Similarly, language changes with a
change in the location of the university chosen. Therefore, there are times when a student has to
face difficulty in classroom due to the language barrier as the language of the student might be
different from the one spoken in a particular nation. However, most of the universities prefer
teaching in English but the accents differ from nation to nation which sometimes, makes it
difficult for the students actively listen to what has been taught to them within the class and
affects their listening skills (Alzamil, 2021).
As students opt for higher education, the study material which they are required to study
for a specific semester gets increased. However, the students of junior college within the
universities are not provided with loads of work. Therefore, the sudden increase in the burden of
the students within the university affects their quality of performance and makes it tiresome for

them to concentrate for such long hours continuously. This affects the listening skills of the
students within the classroom.
It has been noticed that many a time, what the tutor is trying to make the student
understand is different from what the student believes about a specific topic. When the existing
knowledge about a topic is differs from what the teacher is trying to teach the student, it
influences the students into questioning their own knowledge about a topic. It influences them
into thinking what they already know was correct or not and why it does not match with the
views of the tutor. This affects the listening skills of the students as they get distracted from the
main topic and starts to think about their own knowledge (MUHO, 2021). Therefore, it can be
stated that getting into a debate and questioning their own knowledge can be a cause of
hindrance for the listening skills of the students.
The students studying under university for the purpose of gaining high education also
face difficulty in cultivating efficient listening skills when they are not able to understand what
has been taught to them and unable to link the present lectures with the previous lectures. It
happens with certain students at times that just because of missing one lecture, they get difficulty
in processing the information and due to that reason, it gets challenging for the students to listen
actively to the tutor, understand and analyse the information in order to form valuable
conclusions. Another challenge faced by the students within universities in active listening
includes incompetent tutors. It has been noticed that various teachers who not use teaching
methods which helps the students in attracting them towards the subject. It is the responsibility of
the teacher to make use of teaching practices which helps them in developing an interest within
the students with respect to the subject (Armstrong, and Ferrari-Bridgers, 2020). The teaching
practices used by the professors should be inclusive and ensure that the students are
understanding what is being taught to them within the class. When the teachers ignore the fact
that the students are unable to understand the subject effectively within the classroom, it affects
and hinders their listening skills and affect the learning and development of the students within
the class. Therefore, it is essential for the teachers to make use of effective strategies and
teaching practices which involves and engages the students within the process of learning. This
will helps the students in focusing towards the subject and effectively develop an understanding
towards the same.

Not all students are same within a class. It has been noted there are students who learn
new things even when there is noise all round and there are students who do not understand
anything even when there is complete silence. However, when some students make noise and
disturbs other students with the class, it affects the listening skills of the students. It distracts
them from focusing on the students and developing an understanding about the lesson. Such
nuisance created by certain students for their own pleasure affects the learning, growth and
development of the students and restricts them from learning new things. It has also been noticed
that fear also restricts the students from listening carefully within the classroom (Jiang, Kalyuga,
and Sweller, 2018). Sometimes, when a student has stage fear or the fear of being judged, it
restricts them from listening to the tutor as they are constantly thinking that what if the next
question is asked to them.
All of these factors serve as the challenges for the students and affects their active
listening skills while studying within universities for the purpose of gaining higher education.
Explain how students can develop their active listening skills
Active listening is the process of listening and understanding what the other person is saying in
order to have a mutual understanding.it is the process of proper listening, observing the verbal
and non-verbal message that have been sent and then providing a proper feedback for the sake of
showing attentiveness for the message that has been presented.t develops a mutual understanding
between the student and the teacher. Active listening is the process that is used for defusing the
situation and seek solution to the problem. It is important for both the students as well as the
teacher to understand the importance of active listening in order to understand each other’s
perspective and by this the teacher will be able to explain well and the student will be able to
understand more accurately.it is the skill that can be acquired and developed by practice.it
involves the strategy that aims in listening properly about what is being said rather than just
hearing the message of the teacher(Hoppe,2018). It provides an opportunity to the students to
develop their skills and it also enhance their academic life. Active listening requires listening
with all the senses. Similarly there are many ways by which the students can develop their active
listening skills like:
Pay attention-The first way to develop active listening skills is paying attention to the message
delivered by the teacher.it is beneficial for the students in understanding the academics properly.

This can be achieved by looking at the teacher directly, putting aside the distracting thoughts and
listen to the teacher’s body language.
Provide feedback-This is one of the important way for the students to develop the active
listening skills like if a student’s regularly provide feedback to the teacher that means he is
attentive and listening properly whatever the teacher has been taught. This develops a mutual
understanding between the student and the teacher and the teacher also take interest in teaching.
This involves asking questions to the teacher, summarizing whatever have been taught.
Defer judgment-Interrupting to the teacher while they teach is the waste of time and this also
results in losing their confidence level.it frustrates the speaker and therefore the teacher will not
able to provide a full understanding of the message. The students can ask the questions to the
teacher after fining the topic and they should not ask the counter questions. All these will help
the students in developing active listening skills (Frey, Fisher, and Smith, 2019).
Respond appropriately-Active listening has been designed for encouraging respect and also for
better understanding of whatever the teacher is teaching to the students. The students are gaining
information and perspective. The students get nothing by attacking the teacher and putting them
down. The students should always be candid, open and honest while giving response to the
teacher, students should assert their opinions respectfully and have an attitude of empathy
towards the teacher like treat them the way you want to treat. By this the students can improve
their active listening skills and this makes them confident in their academic life as well.
Focus on the body language
It has been determined that it is essential for a student to focus on their body language.
The means if a student pays attention towards his body language it gives a message to the teacher
that the students are interested in a specific topic and therefore, the teacher also tries to put extra
effort in teaching the students within the class and make sure that the student id understanding
what has been taught to the students (Syafii, Kusnawan, and Syukroni, 2020). When the body
language of the students gives a message to the teacher that they are interested in the subject, it
develops a confidence within the mind of the teacher and influence them to take care if the
students are able to understand the concept or not. Therefore, it helps the students in the
development of their active listening skills.
Eye contact

In order to initiate a two-way communication, it is important for the speaker as well as
the listener to make eye contact to the point its comfortable. This means that if the student wants
to develop effectively listening skills within themselves and enhance their knowledge with the
help of listening, it is important that student listens to the tutor attentively. For the same, the
students must maintain eye contact with the tutor as it will help the teachers in understanding that
the students listening to him attentively and therefore, it will also encourage the tutor into
keeping a note of he has been teaching and if the students are being able to understand the same
or not.
Let the tutor speak
It is important to ask questions in order to give an idea to the tutor that the student has
been listening and understanding attentively. But, it does not mean that the student interrupts the
tutor by questioning them in between the lesson. The students must learn to listen effectively to
the tutor and let the tutor finish (Krivosheyeva, Zuparova, and Shodiyeva, 2020). The student
should raise the question only when the tutor has finished speaking or taking the lecture.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that there are so many barriers to effective
listening while a student studies in the university. The major barriers include distractions, unable
to understand the subject, change in the accent of the tutor, language barriers and many more of
such reasons hinders the listening of the students. However, the present report includes ways in
which the Students can effectively develop active listening skills within themselves.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Frey, N., Fisher, D. and Smith, D., 2019. All learning is social and emotional: Helping students
develop essential skills for the classroom and beyond. ASCD.
Krivosheyeva, G., Zuparova, S. and Shodiyeva, N., 2020. Interactive way to further improve
teaching listening skills. Academic Research in Educational Sciences. (3). pp.520-525.
Syafii, M.L., Kusnawan, W. and Syukroni, A., 2020. Enhancing listening skills using
games. International Journal on Studies in Education (IJonSE). 2(2). pp.78-107.
Jiang, D., Kalyuga, S. and Sweller, J., 2018. The curious case of improving foreign language
listening skills by reading rather than listening: An expertise reversal effect. Educational
Psychology Review. 30(3). pp.1139-1165.
Armstrong, D. and Ferrari-Bridgers, F., 2020. Improving critical listening skills in EMT
students. Irish Journal of Paramedicine. 4(2).
MUHO, A., 2021. The Impact of Listening Skills on Students’ Motivation to Learn in Second
Language Acquisition. Proceedings of IAC in Vienna 2021. p.42.
Alzamil, J., 2021. Listening Skills: Important but Difficult to Learn. Arab World English Journal
(AWEJ) Volume. 12.
Hoppe, M.H., 2018. Active Listening: Improve Your Ability to Listen and Lead, (French).
Center for Creative Leadership.
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