“Improving Students’ Listening Skills” (pdf)

Although listening has been shown to be the most frequent communication activity, and students desperately need listening training, the educational system usually ignores listening. After citing 10 bad listening habits which interfere with good aural communication and describing the characteristics of effective listeners, this paper offers 12 listening exercises that can be used by instructors in a wide variety of academic fields. Finally, the paper briefly describes a successful listening course taught at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, and its impact over the last 10 years. Thirteen references are attached.