THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED
I organized this book to build the case for teaching listening, but also as a practical guide for K–12 teachers interested in using audio in their teaching, with class activities sprinkled throughout the book. The strategies and activities include suggestions for elementary students and middle/high school students. Readers should start from the beginning and work through to the end for the most comprehensive understanding of how and why to teach listening comprehension. However, you can also jump to the chapter on English learners or listening and reading, if that's where your interest lies. I structured the book to start with and build on academic research and my personal experience in the field as a reporter, because I've learned many people need to be convinced that listening can and should be taught because it will help their students' overall academic performance. That's why I've now devoted my career to it as the founder of Listenwise.com.
Throughout the book, I mention specific audio stories and podcasts that demonstrate a concept or could be used in a class activity. The original source of the audio is referenced in the endnotes, but you can also hear the audio and use fully developed lessons by going to https://listenwise.com/book, where you will have free access to Listenwise Premium for a period of time. Listenwise.com should be considered a digital companion to this book, so I encourage you to engage your ears as well as your eyes as you read.
In the opening chapter, “My Love of Audio Storytelling,” I share my experiences as a journalist and how it shaped my love of audio. It explains how my passion turned into a desire to help students learn through listening and become better listeners.
In Chapter 2, “Listening Is a Skill,” I show you that listening is a skill that can be taught, practiced, improved, and successfully demonstrated on standardized tests. It's a skill that needs to be taught because it's critical to success in college, career, and life. Curriculum standards in all 50 states include listening as a component for K–12 students. Listening skills rose to prominence with the adoption of the Common Core by many states in 2009. The standards across the states require teachers to include purposeful listening in their instruction. And, of course, listening is required in teaching students to speak English.
Chapter 3, “This Is Your Brain on Listening,” looks at how listening is a complex neurological construct that involves multiple areas of the brain. Listening requires more from your brain than many other skills. You will learn from the latest neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and communications and psychology experts. Hearing isn't all that is involved in listening, but it is a critical part. One neuroscientist explains that “sounds are among the most common and powerful stimuli for emotions.”1 Listening triggers a variety of parts of the brain to create a “movie in your mind.”
You can dig into Chapter 4, “How to Teach Listening,” to learn actionable techniques for teaching your students. I will share some proven strategies to improve listening. Whether you are a third-grade teacher using listening strategies to improve reading, or an 11th-grade teacher aiming to improve your students' listening skills for the workforce, this chapter gives you practical ways to start incorporating more listening into your teaching. It shows you how including listening in your instruction can teach academic vocabulary and curriculum content and help students practice reading.
You might not be a reading teacher, so you might not have considered how listening can help your students read. But Chapter 5 may change your thinking. In “The Intersection Between Listening and Reading,” you learn why I believe listening is the missing piece of the literacy puzzle. Despite dozens of new approaches, techniques, and programs, the average national fourth- and eighth-grade reading scores are stagnant. There is an interdependency between listening comprehension and reading comprehension. In general, the poor reader is also likely to be a poor listener. Listening is a foundational part of teaching students how to read, yet by the middle grades it virtually disappears from our classrooms. In this chapter, you learn how using listening regularly in your classroom at any grade level can help improve reading.
Listening is a critically important skill to learning a new language. Chapter 6, “English Learners and Listening,” explores how listening is critical to second language acquisition. Many of you have English language learners (ELs) in your classrooms. As the population of ELs continues to grow in our schools, every teacher needs to know how to help these learners use their listening skills to acquire knowledge and language. Listening is an important way to do that. I'll share with you some ways to differentiate instruction for ELs.
In Chapter 7, “Assessing Listening,” which was co-written with Alistair Van Moere, the Chief Product Officer at MetaMetrics, we look at how even though the majority of our time is spent listening there's been very little research on how to track and improve listening as a skill. Up until recently, listening skills have been self-reported. Despite the correlation between listening and reading, there hasn't been a reliable way to break down and assess listening. This chapter reveals the new ways that listening is being measured in the classroom with the new Lexile® Framework for Listening.
Once you've learned how to improve your students' listening skills, you can learn how to help them create their own audio stories. Chapter 8, “Creating Podcasts,” gives you tools to put your students in the driver's seat of the hottest trend in education, podcasting. It also shares expert tips on making podcasts with your students, which can put their listening skills to work as they create their own audio stories for a wide audience.
This book focuses on the types of listening skills needed in our classrooms. It provides concrete examples and tools for K–12 teachers. While mindful, active, interpersonal listening is an important skill to build, my experience and the focus of this book is on academic listening—in other words, listening to learn. It will give you the confidence and tools you need to use audio resources to support reading, content, and language learning.
There has never been a better time for you to focus on improving your students' listening skills. Many are concerned that technology has fractured our attention and shortened our attention spans. Students need help building their listening stamina. You might think, as do many of the teachers I've met, that listening is a lost art. No one knows how to listen anymore, they say. But I argue that listening is the most fundamental and critical skill to learning, and it's in your power to help your students become the best listeners they can be.
Reference
1 1 Horowitz, S.S. (2013). In the beginning was the boom. In The universal sense: How hearing shapes the mind (pp. 126–128). New York, NY: Bloomsbury.
Chapter 1 My Love of Audio Storytelling
We can hear before we are born, but listening can take decades to develop, practice, and perfect. It took me 20 years to become an expert listener. A professional listener. And I learned that listening is a gift we can share with others.
My passion for listening began when I got my first tape recorder for Christmas (Figure 1.1). Santa delivered my Christmas wish—a bright red Panasonic cassette tape recorder. This was the 1970s, so it was shiny and rounded on the edges. It had an easy carry handle that slid