21 Active Listening and Note-taking Strategies
Acti
ve listening is an important skill that significantly improves your ability to absorb and retain information in both academic and professional environments. Unlike passive listening, where you might hear words without fully engaging, active listening involves a conscious effort to understand, interpret, and evaluate the information being shared. This method not only improves your learning outcomes by ensuring that you grasp complex concepts and instructions but also enhances your interactions and collaborations with others, making you a more effective communicator. Understanding the differences between active and passive listening can transform your approach to lectures, discussions, and meetings, leading to greater academic success and professional advancement. By practicing active listening and note-taking, you engage more deeply with your studies and work, fostering better relationships and a more profound understanding of your coursework and job-related tasks.
Active Listening and Note-taking Strategies
Paying attention
Holding judgment
Reflecting
Clarifying
Summarizing
Sharing
Paying Attention (Focus Circle Activity)
Goal: Sharpen your ability to concentrate on a speaker without distractions.
What to Do: Sit in a circle with your classmates. One of you will talk about a topic for 1-2 minutes. Everyone else must. listen attentively without interruptions. Afterwards, the person next to the speaker will summarize what was said to show they were paying attention.
Practice: listening and reporting skills using reporting verbs
Pair up and discuss your future goals with each other for 5 minutes.
Listens to your partner’s future goals and takes notes. Pay attention to specific details and key points mentioned by your partner.
After the discussions, use your notes to report your partner’s future goals to the class or to another pair.
Examples:
“Maria mentioned that she plans to start her own business.”
“She explained that she is currently saving money for it.”
“Maria also stated that she hopes to begin next year.”
Exercises: Practice using reporting verbs correctly. The first sentence is provided as an example, and the subsequent sentences have blanks where you will need to select the appropriate reporting verb and its correct form.
- Example Sentence: In our last class, the professor explained that the theory of relativity isn’t only about time and space.
- During the debate, Jacob _________ (argue) that global warming is primarily caused by human activities.
- Sarah _________ (mention) in her presentation that the new policy would take effect next month.
- The witness _________ (state) that he had seen the suspect near the scene of the crime.
- Dr. Smith _________ (suggest) taking a different approach to the experiment during the meeting.
- In her email, the manager _________ (emphasize) the importance of meeting the project deadline.
- The author _________ (write) in her book that the economic disparity has widened over the past decade.
- At the conference, the speaker _________ (question) the effectiveness of traditional teaching methods.
- The customer _________ (complain) that the product did not meet his expectations.
Exercises: Questioning for Clarity
Watch the video below and think of what need to be done to improve the conversations between the speakers. What active listening strategies you think was followed and what others that needed to be used?
