Listening to Students
Sometimes students come to us with problems that are beyond typical day-to-day concerns. Regardless of what action you decide to take based on what you heard, these are critical times for listening carefully. Below are some effective listening guidelines.
- Be fully present; stop any other activity. Listen to the student with undivided attention. This is not a time for reacting to or interpreting the information. Restrain from finishing the student’s sentences or helping the student find their words.
- Establish rapport and trust. The student needs to feel safe and to understand that you are a person they can feel comfortable revealing their problem(s) to. Define what your role is: to help the student.
- This conversation needs to happen in a safe place that is public but out of earshot from other students and faculty. Online this would be done through email.
- A student may fear that adverse consequences happen to people who air problems. Assure the student that communicating the problem will only help them and that you will be supportive.
- Try to understand the student’s motivation and underlying need. If the student’s problem relates to you, your teaching, or your class, and the complaint is valid, be open to finding solutions that are mutually agreeable.
- Treat the issue as important. The problem the student is sharing is important to the student. Value that perspective regardless of how you may feel.
- Listen without judgment. This is not the time to try to solve the problem or answer the student’s questions. Your objective is to try to understand the problem from the student’s perspective. This can be challenging and is dependent on many possible factors such as differences in culture, religion, and status.
- Watch for what is being communicated. Most face-to-face communication is non-verbal. So in addition to the words spoken, look at the student’s facial and body language and hear what is said around the words. Again, there may be cross-cultural communication issues to consider that relate to non-verbal communication as well as emotional and role constraints.
- Ask follow-up questions. Carefully stated questions combined with patience may uncover the core problem the student is experiencing.
- Thoughtful silence afterwards is useful. Out of this silence the student may come up with a solution.
Resources:
Empathetic listening
3 Tips for Active Listening
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