By Dr. Hanif Kanjer
In most schools today, “listening skills” appear on lesson plans, evaluation rubrics, and report cards. But when you dig deeper, you’ll find that our approach to teaching listening is often strikingly one-dimensional.
More often than not, the teaching methodology looks something like this:
Play an audio clip. Ask students to fill in the blanks.
And that’s it.
While this may help students sharpen their ability to listen for facts, it barely scratches the surface of what it truly means to be a good listener.
Let’s step back for a moment and ask ourselves:
What does it actually mean to “listen well”?
Effective listening isn’t just about catching details or remembering names and numbers. True listening is about:
Listening for understanding
Listening for critical thinking
Listening to form informed opinions
These are nuanced cognitive skills. They involve empathy, analysis, synthesis, and reflection—not just passive reception.
So why are we using the same fill-in-the-blank method to “teach” all types of listening?
If we want students to become thoughtful, analytical listeners, we must align our teaching methods to those specific goals. That means rethinking how we design lessons, what kind of materials we use, and how we assess progress.
Each type of listening should have its own pedagogical framework:
🔹 Listening for Understanding:
Approach: Guided listening with discussions, paraphrasing tasks, summarizing exercises
Assessment: Ask students to restate ideas in their own words or explain the speaker’s intent
🔹 Listening for Critique
Approach: Analyze arguments in speeches, podcasts, or debates
Assessment: Ask students to identify assumptions, bias, logical flaws
🔹 Listening to Form Opinions
Approach: Encourage reflection and comparison of perspectives
Assessment: Have students write or speak about their stance after listening, with justifications
Before designing lessons or choosing assessment tools, educators should ask:
What exactly are we teaching when we say “listening skills”?
Why are we teaching it?
What are we trying to assess?
Does our method of assessment reflect the real-world value of the skill?
Are we creating passive listeners—or active thinkers?
The “Whats” and “Whys” must come before the “Hows.”
Because when we don’t define our purpose clearly, we fall into the trap of convenience—standardized methods that are easy to implement but ultimately ineffective.
It’s time we move beyond checkbox pedagogy.
Listening is not a mechanical skill. It is a deeply human one—vital for leadership, collaboration, empathy, and innovation. If we want to prepare students for the real world, we must teach them to listen not just with their ears, but with their minds.
Let’s raise the bar.
Let’s teach listening as it deserves to be taught—with depth, intention, and clarity.