Listening for Fun and Profit
Addressing Listening Standards on State Assessments

Who doesn't love kicking back and listening to a good story?  I know I sure do!  I think the rise of audio books is attributable to our love for hearing a compelling story well told (that, plus the fact that we're always on the go, too busy to sit down with a book).  When we're studying a novel, I don't fret too much if students are listening to it on audio rather than reading the text (although I encourage them to follow along in the text as they listen).  I'm not teaching 14 year olds how to sound out words and interpret the squiggles on the page--we've moved beyond reading to analysis and evaluation of plot, setting, language, and character. 

The increasing popularity of non-print media has, I think, driven the move to assess listening skills on state and Common Core tests.  Unfortunately, of what I've seen on our Florida test, the assessment tasks are neither particularly rigorous nor relevant.  Students are usually presented with some banal and forgettable news report, and asked the most general of questions.  Certainly, they don't have to remember much in the way of detail.  But that doesn't mean listening skills should be ignored--being able to appreciate and glean information from listening is a useful life skill.  I enjoy reading aloud to students and they respond with pleasure (they seem to be impressed by my oral interp skills--lol).  I read Capote's A Christmas Memory and Margery William's Velveteen Rabbit (funny, there must be some mold or something in my copies of these stories--I'm usually pretty snuffly by the end).   Since I'm doing the reading, it's easy for me to stop and ask questions or clarify odd language, then we can discuss the whole story at the end.

And of course, Poe and Kipling make wonderful read-alouds.   I made some active-listening handouts to go with The Tell-Tale Heart and The Elephant's Child (one of Kipling's Just-So Stories).  Each handout (just one page, front and back) focuses the listener's attention on important literary elements of the story, rather than factual recall, trivia questions about the plot.  I was pleased at the students' response--they found both the stories and the activity engaging.  Click onto the image below to read a description of my assignment and how to purchase it.


Informational text is also fair game for active listening.  NPR's various news programs (Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Fresh Air, etc) provide audio texts of 3-5 minutes that are perfect for asking students to listen for main idea, cause and effect, reasons, and examples.  The "This I Believe" series provides fantastic spoken essays covering a myriad of topics by famous and ordinary folk (I loved and used the Ben Carson essay for many years, until I found out what an ass he really is).