As an experiment I got one of my classes to record—either with their mobile or good old fashioned pen and paper—the sounds in their home. There was the expected tv; siblings fighting, screaming; radio; sirens, traffic noise; however, what was so unexpected was the blaring volume of some of the audio clips that my students had recorded. It was worrying.
Surely a greater focus on listening would really increase literacy rates, not to mention the social benefits of listening to each other. Too often listening skills are pushed aside. My dad always says that we have one mouth and 2 ears and that we should therefore listen twice as much as we talk. From a teacher’s perspective, surely it is the most important of the five senses? Without truly listening to our students how do we know what they know? How do we know what they feel?
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