Teaching Listening Skills During Presentations
Presentations are becoming ever more common as teachers change to student-centered classes. These may be students or possibly guest speakers addressing the class.
Regardless of who is speaking, the remainder of the students are comprising an audience that must be informed of its expectations during a presentation.
We’ve developed a short, simple set of rules we call ‘Expected Behaviors of a Good Listener’. All of our classrooms (each subject area) have posted these rules, and review them and utilize them whenever a presentation is given. They are easy to teach, remember, and monitor.
Rule 1
Look At The Speaker. This is a no-brainer. The audience is there to watch and listen to the speaker, and attention is mandatory.
Rule 2
Keep Your Hands Still. Free hands are unable to tap pencils, rustle paper, or drop spare change on a tile floor (one of my all-time greatest pet-peeves).
Rule 3
Never Talk When The Speaker Is Talking. This one again seems obvious. The audience is there to listen to the speaker, not to listen to another member of the audience.
Rule 4
Never Distract The Speaker. This is supported by the previous rules, but will also cover other situations. The audience should not make faces or body gestures that detract from the speaker’s ability to present.
Rule 5
Keep Questions, Comments, And Laughter To Appropriate Times And Levels. Students will often have questions and comments about the presentations, and these are best posed at the end of the presentation. There will also be instances where funny things will happen or humor is used by the speaker. It is ok for the kids to laugh at these times (it’s ok for the teacher to laugh too). We’ve had instances where puppet show stages and scenery props have fallen over. We’ve had tongue-twisters gone awry. We’ve even had hilarious costumes and actions by characters.
These and many others will happen as you present more often. That’s ok, because these funny moments will help students remember the information better. Just remind students that laughter needs to be kept to an appropriate level, and not to carry on with it. Questions and comments can also be carried on too far. Don’t let this time become an attack on the speaker (unless you’re in a debate class!)
Ok, so what do we do about a student who chooses to not follow the expectations? We never give warnings, first of all. Once we’ve covered the rules, we expect immediate compliance. Many students have difficulty getting up in front of class without someone ‘stealing their show’ or causing them embarrassment.
Basically we take points away from that interrupter’s presentation grade. The amount of the deduction is generally up to the individual teacher and weighted for the assignment. The first time it happens, we take off approximately 10% of the possible points.
The second time is decreased up to 25% (we have little tolerance for disrupting a speaker). If it happens again, the student loses all credit and is removed from class for the remainder of the presentations.
