In this activity, students practice listening with full attention in realistic academic and professional situations. By working with a personal example and using a structured listening checklist, they become more aware of their listening habits and learn to focus on presence, understanding, and withholding judgment. Through reflection and discussion, students gain insight into how effective listening supports clear communication, collaboration, and meaningful interaction.
- Activity goal
- Practice skills | Reflect
- When
- In class
- Where
- Online
- Duration
- < 30 minutes | < 60 minutes | > 60 minutes
- Group size
- Small | Medium
Step-by-step plan
Step 1: Introduction
Explain to students that the goal of this activity is to develop presence through intentional listening in realistic academic or professional situations. Emphasize that effective listening requires attention and withholding judgment.
Ask students to think of a recent situation in which listening played an important role, such as giving or receiving feedback, resolving a misunderstanding, working through a group disagreement, supporting someone or clarifying instructions during a project. Ask them to select one concrete situation they feel comfortable working with. This can be a situation that went smoothly or a situation that was challenging for the students.
Step 2: Introduce the listening checklist
Introduce a listening checklist that students will use during the activity. Explain that the focus is practicing listening with your full presence, this means: not interrupting, not preparing responses and not jumping to solutions. Walk through the checklist together so expectations are clear.
Example items include:
- Allow the speaker to finish before responding
- Maintain natural eye contact and attention
- Summarize what was heard
- Ask clarifying (not leading) questions
- Notice when attention drifts and refocus
- Avoid judging or giving advice
- Pay attention to tone, pace and nonverbal cues
Explain that students should focus on being fully present rather than solving the speaker’s issue.
Step 3: Listening in pairs
Divide students into pairs and assign roles (Speaker and Listener).
- The Speaker talks about their chosen situation for 5 minutes, while the Listener practices full-presence listening using the checklist. Clarify that the focus of this listening exercise is to get a complete understanding of the experience of the speaker sharing about the chosen situation in which listening went very smoothly or was particularly challenging.
- Afterward, the Listener briefly summarizes what they heard. Then students switch roles.
Step 4: Individual reflection
After both rounds, students individually reflect on their experience using the checklist. Possible reflection prompts include:
- What was challenging about staying fully present?
- What helped me stay focused?
- Which listening habits support or hinder my effectiveness?
- How can this skill be useful in academic or professional contexts?
You can let students share their reflections in pairs and/or facilitate a plenary wrap-up. Ask students to share patterns they noticed in their listening, what surprised them and how it felt to be listened to with full attention.
Consider the tools and materials mentioned here as suggestions. In many cases it’s possible to use alternative tools. Please turn to the Learning & Innovation team of your faculty first to see which online and offline tools are available and how to apply them.
Online
- Listening checklist
- Timer
Tip 1
- Model what effective and non-effective listening looks like yourself.
Tip 2
- Ensure there is enough time for reflection on how the listening exercise went.
Tip 3
- With groups of three, you can divide the roles as a Speaker, Listener and Observer. The observer uses the checklist to give targeted feedback afterward.
