Improving Listening Skills Workshop

Improving listening skills is crucial for better note-taking and concentration, and can be developed with practice and focused attention.

### Improving Your Listening Skills Workshop
* 👂 The workshop is divided into two parts, with the first part focusing on **improving concentration and listening skills**, and the second part on **taking better lecture notes**.
* ❓ When students see the title "Improving Your Listening Skills," many are surprised that **listening can be taught**, as hearing and listening are not the same, and most people **struggle with listening**.
* 💡 The workshop starts by discussing three common problems that affect listening skills: **pseudo-listening, selective listening, and critical listening**.
* 🏖 Pseudo-listening involves **pretending to listen**, selective listening is **being easily distracted**, and critical listening is **being bothered by something to the point of not being able to listen**.
* ✋ The first solution is to **raise awareness of these problems** to be able to **recognize and stop them**.
* 😴 To be physically and mentally prepared to listen, it is important to **get enough sleep**, **eat before class**, and **try to temporarily set aside problems**.
* 🎯 Setting a goal to **listen carefully 100% of the time**, regardless of the teacher's presentation, can help improve listening skills.
* 🏫 Sitting in the front of the classroom is considered the **best position** to have the **highest chance of paying attention**.

### Strategies for Improving Listening Skills in College
* 👂 Listening is a skill that can be developed through practice, just like **playing an instrument or a sport**.
* 📝 In college classes, you should not wait for the teacher to finish speaking before writing notes, as it will **cause you to fall behind**.
* ✍ While teachers do not always require you to write down exactly what they say, **accuracy is crucial** for studying and exams.
* 🧠 Practicing dictation exercises can help improve your **listening and note-taking skills**.
* 😴 Sitting in the front row can help you **hear and see better**, **reduce distractions**, and **build the courage to participate in class**.
* 🎭 If you find yourself getting bored in class, you can trick your brain into paying attention by **sitting up, leaning forward, making eye contact, and pretending to be interested**.
* 📰 Reading sentences from a book or magazine and practicing dictation with a partner at home can also **strengthen your listening skills**.
* ⚠ While it's beneficial to make subtle changes in your posture and facial expressions to show engagement, it's important not to **mock or disrespect the teacher**.

[Music] Okay, you look good, so we're gonna go ahead and start. Okay, um, one quick, I guess, word of introduction to the workshop today. This is technically the first of two parts. Next week, we're going to talk about taking better lecture notes. It's really hard when a teacher is talking full speed, and that's pretty much how they all talk, to know what to write and how to write it, and this gets very confusing. One of the reasons that this is part one is because if you're not mentally in the room listening carefully, you can't take good notes, and so many people struggle with their concentration, with their listening skills. So the idea is we want to try to get that stronger today, and then if you're able to be back next week, I'll teach you how to actually physically write notes in a way that might be different than what you do now and might be better, might be more helpful. Okay, so that's kind of the idea.

okay, here's what I want to say to begin with. Whenever students see the title of this workshop Improving Your Listening Skills, I get some really interesting responses from people. People look at me and they say, You're going to teach us how to listen? and I said, Well, actually, yes. And people say, Well, I already know how to do that. I've been doing that all my life. And hearing and listening are not the same thing at all, and most people, as I said, are really not good at it, and we're going to talk about that to start with. But here's my little, uh, quick introduction to this whole thing, and that is, I talk to students really often, and I don't know if this is going to sound familiar to you, but I talk to students and I go up to one and I say, Do you ever have a hard time concentrating when somebody's talking to you? And here's their answer, Wait, what? They say, Okay, good, you come to me with me to the workshop. People's ability to concentrate is

kind of scary. And so, what we're going to do is we're going to start with problems. Don't want to think about those too much, but there are a lot of reasons why people have a hard time concentrating. We're going to talk about three of them really fast, and then we're going to focus on solutions. It's always nice when there are twice as many solutions as problems. Too bad life isn't quite like that, but anyway, that's sort of encouraging. So, out of all the reasons you might think of why a person has trouble concentrating, some of those are going to be addressed over here. But I want to show you three of them, and what I'd like to have you do while I'm explaining these is to figure out something for yourself. I'm not going to actually ask you, I just want you to think about it. Which one of these three are you guilty of the most often? In other words, it's your personal

weakness, and one thing I know for sure, this might surprise you. I know even though I don't know anybody in here, really, I know that all of you suffer from all three of these. And how can I know that? Because you're a human being. You'll understand as I go through them. Okay, so the first one, which is a major problem for a lot of people, is what's usually referred to as pseudo-listening. Okay, and what does pseudo mean? Yeah, it means false or fake. Okay, so the question is, do you ever fake listen? Okay, and if you say no, then you're either the greatest listener of all time or you don't understand what that means yet. But let me give you an example of it, and then you'll realize, Oh yeah, I do that. Whether it's some or a lot. When I teach a class, at any given moment, everybody in the room is in one of three categories related to this issue. And so I'm going to make some of you nervous here in a minute, but that's okay.

some people when I'm talking and I don't just stare at my notes. I kind of make eye contact with people as I teach. Sometimes I look at a person and they're looking at me like this, and I can tell right away when I look at them they're locked in on me and they're paying really good attention to me. Okay, do I like to see that? Uh, yes, it's nice to know somebody's listening, so I tend to look at those people more often than anybody else. Okay, and then there are some people, and I hope none of you are ever like this because it's pretty disrespectful, who sit in class and are just like this and all that, and they're advertising the fact I'm not listening. I don't care. Who cares if I'm being rude? I'm not listening. That doesn't happen very often, but every once in a while. And then there's the third group. All of you are in this group every once in a while, but some of you when I describe

this you realize i almost live there and i've got to get out of there these are people like this as i'm teaching i look at somebody and i see them doing this everything looks really good on the outside but when i look deep in their eyes there's nobody there they're gone on what i call a mental vacation and if you saw this from the front of a room it's it's it's like a science fiction movie like somebody sucked them right out of their body they're just sitting there like that and i know they're not listening to one word i'm saying okay when somebody goes on a mental vacation that's normal but the question is for you and don't answer me how often do you go on vacation and how long are you gone when you go and i'll let you know a little secret sometimes i've looked at somebody in class and i see them and i know that they're not listening so i look somewhere else and talk then i look back

and they're still on vacation, so I look over 
here, and then I look back, and a few minutes later, they're still on vacation. And so I've always 
wanted to do this, and I'm really big on respect, so I would never do this, but this is sort of 
a dream, weird dream. I would go up to him like 
this, right in the middle of class, and I lean 
over and say, Where are you? Take me with you, 
wherever they are. It's obviously a lot more 
interesting than what we're doing. They're on 
a beach somewhere. I don't know what they're doing. 
If you're the type of person who lets your mind 
wander, and then it comes back after a few seconds, 
and then it wanders later, welcome to the human 
race. But if you take frequent flyer vacations and 
you're gone for like 10 minutes at a time, that's 
not good. Obviously, you're missing a huge amount of 
the work. I've uh, I don't know if this has

happened to you before, but when I was a student, I tried so hard to concentrate. But sometimes, it's hard, okay, and you know that. And every once in a while, I would drift away and go on vacation, and then a couple minutes later, I would come back into my body, and I'd start listening again. And the first thing I heard the teacher say is, Okay, so don't forget that, all right? And I'm thinking, I have no idea what you're talking about. So, does that again, don't answer me, does that sound like a constant nagging problem or an occasional one? It just depends on you, okay? The second one is something that a lot of students misunderstand when I write this down, but I want to try to give you a little example of this too. It's called selective listening, okay? Now, selective listening usually means you listen to what you want to hear, you tune out the rest, right? That's sometimes a problem, but that's not exactly what I mean by this. What I mean by this is this.

word and that is distractions. Okay, so the question for you is, how easily are you distracted, and as a result, you don't listen carefully to the person talking to you. This could be in a conversation, this could be in a classroom. And I'm going to give you this example, and again, this will either sound very familiar to you or you'd think, no, not so much. I had a student last semester who came up to me after class one day and said something I haven't heard too often from students. He said, Can I talk to you for a second? And I said, Yeah, sure, what's up? And he, we went off into my office, which is right here, and he said, Could you do something about the noise in the classroom? Now, the reason that was so strange is that class he was in was one of the quietest classes I have ever had in my life. You could hear a pin drop, and that's on the carpet, so that's really quiet.

everybody just sat there, and I thought, what noise. I'm trying to get people to talk more, and here's what he said. He said, Well, I'm trying to listen to you. I'm trying to concentrate, but the person over here is chewing gum, the person over here is clicking their pen, this person's chair is squeaking, and they're giving me a catalog of every sound going on in the room. I never heard any of those. Some other people sitting near them might not have heard them, but some people are so hypersensitive, they're so easily distracted by anything that it just takes the smallest thing to completely have them lose focus. Other people are really good at tuning everything out and focusing and barely notice anything around them. Well, if you're the type of person who is really easily distracted, going to talk about some things over here about how to overcome that a little, but that's the second one, and again out of these two, probably one of them sounds a little more

common to you than the other, but the third one is a major problem for at least some people, and this has two meanings too, including one that I don't mean. So I want to make sure I've got this, and that's critical listening. Okay, there is a type of critical listening that's actually good. That's when you listen to something like a sales pitch, and you don't automatically believe it, but you analyze it critically. That's a good thing, but that's not this. What I mean by this, and this might help you to remember it, is this. And that is to write another word that comes from the same one, which is the word criticize. So what that means is you are thinking something about the person talking to you, whether it's in a conversation or a class, and it's not something that just distracts you. It's something that bothers you a lot, and as a result, you end up spending all your time focusing on that instead of listening.

to what the person is saying. Two examples of this for you so you understand it. The first one is this: I had a student a few semesters ago who came to me with a really odd story. I hear strange stories, but this is one of the all-time best. He came to me and he said, You know, I've got a major problem in one of my classes and I don't know what to do about it. Can you help me? I said, Well, I'll try. And he said, Well, it's my political science class. And he said, Every time I go to that and then leave, I have no memory of anything that went on in there. And I said, Well, you have to remember some things. He said, I remember nothing. It's like a giant eraser on my brain. I said, That's really odd. When was the last time you were in the class? He said, I just got out about 20 minutes ago. I said, Okay, let's try an experiment. And I had him sit down and I said, Close your eyes. So he closed his eyes.

then i said picture yourself in the classroom and tell me all that you can remember. And seriously, this guy sat there for probably 20-30 seconds. It seemed like 20 or 30 minutes, and he was like this. And I was looking at him thinking, Oh my gosh. And then he opened his eyes and he said, See. And I thought, Man, this is like amnesia. I mean, this is unbelievable. And I started to teach him what I'm about to teach you. And then all of a sudden, his eyes lit up and he said, Wait a minute, wait a minute, I remember something. I said, That's good. You were worrying me. What do you remember? And I thought he was going to tell me something he learned in class that day. No, instead, here's what he said. Seriously, he said this. He said, I remember clearly. I said, Yeah, yeah, that guy talking about the teacher wore the same shirt that he's worn probably the last four or five times we've.

had class and i said that's what you remember oh. he said oh yeah. he said when he's talking i don't really remember what he's saying but i'm looking carefully and i'm thinking is it the same shirt or does he have a bunch of the same shirt just so stupid but once you get bothered by something you understand it just takes over your mind and you can't listen. he said when he writes on the board he starts writing i don't really know what's up there i'm looking right here and i'm thinking it's the same one it's the same exact one as last time. well if you allow something that's really stupid or something really extra kind of bad to bother you you have no hope of listening the way you need to. some of you have had teachers before who did something like this they expressed a really strong opinion about religion about politics about something that wasn't even really

related to the class, and it really was not only 
the opposite of what you believe, but it bothered   you, kind of offended you, and people who do that 
they spend the rest of the class meeting like this, and they completely lose the ability to just put 
it away and to concentrate. I hope you're the type   of person who doesn't automatically get really 
critical of people about everything, but it's human   nature, and it's not that hard to do. So the trick 
is being able with all three of these to figure   out how to eliminate them, or at least minimize 
them, okay? So again, you want to try to settle on   one of these three that you think is your biggest 
struggle, and then once you do that, that's part of   the solution, okay? So we're going to talk about 
the six solutions. There are more than that, but   these are the ones we're going to focus on for the 
rest of the workshop. The first one is really easy,   but it has great power to it. This doesn't seem 
like a big deal to a lot of people, but it really

really helps and that's the word awareness. Okay, and what I mean by that is now that you know these three problems and you're aware of what they look like in action, the next time you start doing one of those, you should be able to recognize right away, Oops, I'm doing that. And then as soon as you recognize it, what are you able to do? Yeah, stop it. Okay, um, you're talking to somebody and you're looking at them and you're thinking, Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, and then suddenly you think, I'm pseudo-listening. Then you stop. Okay, so being sensitive, it's like I always described it like this way. I don't know, uh, don't raise your hand. I don't know if anybody in here bites their nails. It's a bad habit that a lot of people have been doing for years. If you bite your nails and I walk up to you on campus, I never would do this, but I walk up to you and say, Uh, you're, uh, biting your.

nails, and you're just chewing away. You know what, you'd probably say, you'd probably say, Yeah, yeah, and then you'd look, I think, How did that get in there? But if you can get to the point where you do this, and then you realize, I'm about to bite my nails, it's over. It kind of breaks the cycle, okay? So, this is very simple, but it can work really well, okay? Now, the second one that I'm going to give you is something that kind of is a long thing to write. I'm going to abbreviate it, and this is a common sense thing, but most people are not so good at it, and that is two parts. And that is be physically and mentally prepared to listen, okay? So, I'm going to ask you a couple questions. Feel free to just call out the answer. What do you need to do physically, physically, in order to be ready to listen really well in a classroom? Yeah, get enough sleep, not during class, but the night before, right? What else do you need to do?

yeah eat not during the class but before, okay. Everybody in here, and this is probably a bad thing for me to say because it's 12:15. If there and if there's anybody in here who is really hungry right now, good luck trying to concentrate on me. If you're really tired, good luck trying to concentrate. If you're tired and you're hungry, I'm not even sure why you're here, but it's tough, okay. And everybody here has had the experience before of sitting in a class and five minutes after it starts, your eyes are starting to close already because you hardly got any sleep the night before. And most college classes are an hour and 15 minutes to three hours or whatever. It's exhausting to sit there and try to concentrate for a long period of time when things are perfect, but when you're tired or you're hungry, it's almost impossible. So as much as is within you, you go ahead and take care of this ahead of time. I've had students say that

when they got really hungry. And again, I don't know what you're like, but you'd be the weirdest human being I've ever met if this wasn't true. Usually, when you get hungry and time passes, what happens? You get hungrier. I don't think people get less hungry. And so, I've had people say that they were looking at the teacher, listening, and taking notes. And then, as the time went on, after a while, they were getting little hallucinations. They were looking at the teacher, and their face was turning into a pizza or a hamburger or a taco. And they were just starting to fantasize about what they were going to eat. Well, it's all over at that point, okay? And so, this is the physical part. And by the way, think about one thing for me. And that is, and again, not to shout out to me if you have one class this semester that is the hardest for you to be interested in or to stay awake in. And for example, that class meets on Tuesday.

Thursday at whatever time. Then what are you 
supposed to do on Monday and Wednesday night? Yeah, go to bed at a decent hour so that when you 
walk in there, you're at least rested. Because if 
the class is sort of boring to you and you walk 
in and the teacher's taking role and one eye 
is already closed, it's going to be a long, long 
class meeting. So you're just doing what you can. 
Now for the mental part, all I'll say about this 
is that this could mean many things, but it mostly 
has to do with problems. Okay, if you have no 
problems whatsoever that you're dealing with, 
that's nice. Okay, I've had a few people say, I don't 
have problems at all. I said, Well, I'll talk to you 
tomorrow. There must be one then. Problems are 
common. Okay, the question is, how often during 
the class meeting when you're sitting there trying 
to listen, does your mind float away to something 
you're worried about, to some problem? And that 
is natural and normal if it happens a little.

but if you spend 20-30 minutes of every class meeting just sitting there staring off into space and thinking about a problem, you're missing a huge amount of the lecture. So what do you do to solve that? Well, one is don't have any problems. That's about the worst advice I could ever give you, you know that. But the other one is this, be aware of it. I always tell people this, it's a stupid sounding thing but it can work. I used to walk up to a classroom when I was in college and I had problems like you, and I would imagine leaving them outside the door, kind of like I'm leaving an umbrella out there. And then when I walked in, I would look at all four walls and I just say, for the next hour or however long this is, the world, this is all that exists is in here, nothing else exists. And I would sit there and listen, and then when all those problems start coming

i'd say oh no no no that doesn't exist. I try to push them out, and sometimes it was like ping pong back and forth, but again you're just trying to do the best you can rather than than letting that just sort of take over you. Okay, so that's the idea of being physically and mentally prepared to listen. The third one, which is a pretty simple idea too, but most students I find have the wrong approach here, is to set a goal. All right, so I'm going to ask you this: every time you walk into a college classroom and you sit down and you get ready to listen to the teacher, what is your goal supposed to be related to the topic of the day? Understanding is good, but how about with this, how carefully are you supposed to listen? Um, you know what, some people say. I say, what percent of all the time that you're in class are you supposed to listen to the teacher like a laser beam, and I've had people say, well, maybe 51 or 52 percent if they're good that day.

what's the answer supposed to be? What percent? Yeah, people are saying 90. Like, aren't you impressed with that? No, that's not it. It's 100. Are you ever going to be able to do that? No, okay, but the idea is this, and again, think about the way you live your life. Okay, almost everybody, since we live in an entertainment age, when you sit down to be entertained by watching TV, for example, and you wait, you turn to a program, and you're excited about it. If it's not good at all, it's boring you. What do you do? Yeah, you either change the channel or you turn it off, right? [Music] Some people look at teachers like entertainers, like they're coming to a comedy club or watching something on TV. I hope he's good today. I hope that she's interesting today. And so they just sit back. Okay, let's see, entertain me. And if after 5, 10, 20 minutes, you're thinking, Boy, this is just not doing it for me, then you can't do this.

okay, um, that would be nice, huh? Everybody turn to the teacher like that, and then they have to leave, and another teacher come in. That's never going to happen. You have to stick it out. And again, I've had people just say, Well, I couldn't pay attention today. Why? It just didn't interest me. So your whole point is, I'm going to go in there, and I don't care what I have to do. I'm going to pay attention perfectly 100% of the time. And if you end up aiming for this and you fall a little short, which you will, and you end up paying attention 80 or 90%, that's better than almost everybody else in the class. If your whole thing is, Well, it depends on them. It's all up to the teacher, then you're going to be all over the place. So it's your personal responsibility to go in and do what you can to get interested, even if the lecture is not. Okay, I know that sounds hard sometimes, and I know

it is okay. I'm gonna go ahead now while I'm getting into the next couple, and I'm gonna give you one of these. Can you pass one, two, or three rows back? Um, front half and back half. Okay, so when this gets to you, I want you to keep listening. To me, this is a listening workshop, but with one eye and one ear. I want you to go ahead and fill that out and pass it on to the next person. Okay, the fourth one of these solutions is this. Um, it's more than one word, but here's the question: Where is the best place to sit in a classroom to have the best chance to pay really good attention? The front and often times I get somebody in the back of the room. Front, front, yeah, front. Okay, so all the people in the back are experts. Yep, there it is. There's the best place right up there. Some people almost look like, well, I'd sit in the front, but I can't.

afford the really good tickets so i'm in the back. You can sit in the front, okay. The idea is to sit in the front and center so I'm going to ask you a really quick question first before I explain why. What's the main reason why people who don't sit up here don't sit up here? It could be lazy but there's something else. Well yeah text yeah yeah that all that's true but I'm not hearing the main one. Yeah they don't want to get picked on, right? And so people think man if I'm right here the teacher can all the way through the classroom right. Well you know what that's possible but you know who tends to get picked on the most? Yeah, people in the back. And I want to show you something, see if I can demonstrate this. When I'm looking around for somebody to answer a question a lot of times the people near the front are you know raising a hand or whatever but I see

as I'm kind of walking around and I'm looking, I 
see sometimes a person in the back row doing this, like that, and what are they doing? Yeah, they're they're trying to stay behind the 
person in front of them, so they're doing this, little dance in their chair. If I see that, who 
am I going for? Man, I'm going to run up to them and pick on them, so it's kind of a lame excuse to 
say, I don't sit in the front because I don't want to get picked on, because again, it's usually the 
opposite. What are some of the good reasons for sitting in the front? Well, first of all, let me ask 
a quick question: how many of you have at least one class this semester that's in a room that's bigger 
than this one? Okay, I'm assuming some of you do. If you don't, you will sometimes big theater seating. 
If you're in the front, usually you can hear better.

especially if the teacher is kind of quiet you can see better. That's pretty obvious. I love when teachers do this. I write everything in capital letters so it's pretty easy to see. And even if you're in the back, you're not that far from me. But if you were twice as far back and I said, Okay, do not forget that word, and everybody's like, What? You can't even see it. Okay, so that's important. But also, here's another thing. Um, people in the back, let me ask this, uh, how nosy are you? Okay, if some people say very much so, thank you. Uh, if you're nosy, where should you sit? Here. Okay, here's why. Students have told me, I sat in the back and I tried to listen to you, and I just couldn't. And I said, Why? And they said, There are so many people to look at in front of me. And these are nosy people. So they're looking at me, and they're listening, and then they're like this.

that's a nice jacket. I'll have to find out where she got this. Oh, I wouldn't have worn that with. I don't know what she was thinking. Just nosy, just in everybody's business, except where you're supposed to be focused. I've had students before say they sat in the middle to the back part of the room, and they said once class started, they didn't even notice anything around them. It's like everything went black, except for the teacher, and they concentrated great. So if that's you, you could sit wherever, but if you're the type of person again who's distracted really easily and it's just one little movement, I've had people say that somebody, all they had to do was adjust their glasses, and they looked at them, and they were just look over place. This is where you should sit. And also, here's the last thing about sitting front and center, then we're going to get to our kind of our.

our big solution that hopefully i'll have a little bit of fun with. We're going to do an activity in a minute. Um, how many of you've ever had a class before where participation was part of the grade? Okay, i'm assuming quite a few. Okay, if you're an outgoing person, no problem. But if you're really shy or nervous at all about like speaking in class, that's terrifying. Well, you have two choices. If you're really shy and you never like speaking in front of the class or answering a question or anything else, you can either say, Well, i'll just get a zero on all those points and try to do well on the rest, which is not so good, or you have to figure out a way to get some courage going. Best way i know to get courage, sit in the front. What is the person who is sitting in the back and who starts to talk and is being brave, what are they most afraid of? People. Yeah, people turning around and looking at them.

well, I've had people in my class say, okay, 
first time they've ever raised their hand, in like 12 weeks, and I'm so excited, and 
they say, yes, and they say, um, the answer is, and then they look around and everybody's doing 
this, and never mind, and then they practically go into a shell. When you're sitting right here 
and the teacher asks a question, you can kind of pretend like it's just the two of you. Now, if 
the teacher is really scary, that doesn't help at all, but if the teacher's okay, and I know you hear 
everybody coughing and breathing behind you, but if you can't see them, it tends to build courage. 
And so in a class like that, it really tends to help to move up for that reason. Okay, and again, 
harder to fall asleep when you're in the front row. I've had a few people prove me wrong on 
that. I'm talking and they're right there like that, but usually it's harder, okay, and you 
feel kind of more like you have to pay attention.

in the front, which is a good thing. Okay, so here's the big one for the day. Okay, um, one thing I want you to get out of all of this today is that even though you've been hearing all your life, listening is not the same. It's a skill just like playing an instrument or playing a sport or anything else. And if it's a skill, then that means you can get better at it. Okay, how do you get better at anything in life? What do you have to do? You have to practice, right? Now, if you don't know the right way to do something, you can practice ten hours a day, you'll never get any better. But if you learn the right way and you practice, you're almost guaranteed to get better. Well, this is the big one, and that is practice. I want you to practice listening, and I've had people look at me and say, Practice listening? How do you do that? You go up to somebody and say, Go.

and then like practice. Like how do you practice? Well, we're going to do a little activity now, and I want you to treat this as a real challenge. I want you to have fun with this, but I want you to see if you can do it. It's not easy at all. I want you. Let's see, for the sake of time today, I want you to go ahead and number on your paper from one to four, just from one to four. And I'm going to do a little exercise with you. And if anybody can do this whole thing perfectly, I'll be very impressed. Okay, what this is called is something that most of you maybe have never done or even heard of before. It's called dictation. And what that means is I'm going to read a sentence to you, and I want you to have your pen or your pencil ready. Okay, but one rule during this exercise is you're not allowed to write anything while I'm speaking. That's cheating. Okay, so I want you to

listen to me read the sentence, and then as soon 
as I finish saying it, I want you to write it on your paper. Okay, but here's the other rule: you have 
to write it exactly word for word the way I say it, not your own version of it or anything else. 
It has to be 100% perfect, and so that puts a little pressure on you. The first sentence I 
read to you is actually going to be very easy. Every other one after that is going 
to get harder. How does it get harder? Yeah, longer. Okay, so it's like I'm taking 
your brain, and I'm trying to stretch it like a rubber band, okay? Having you hold the words in 
there long enough to be able to then write them down perfectly. Okay, and I want to again just 
ask for total silence during this because it requires concentration. So here we go, and I'm 
going to only read it once. I can't repeat anything because it's a listening exercise. So listen 
first and then try to write it fairly quickly. But

exactly, okay, here's number one. Everyone at the game wore a red shirt. Okay, now that should have been pretty easy. This next one is a little bit longer, requires a little more concentration, still shouldn't be too bad, but we'll see. Number two, the power went out due to a big storm last Monday morning. Okay, number three, still a little bit longer, so again, concentrate and do the best you can at being perfect with this. Here's number three. He usually eats two soft tacos and a burrito whenever he goes to Taco Bell. Okay, before we get to number four, I'm actually gonna tell you two things. One, I want you to go ahead and add a number five. I know you don't want to, but I'm gonna have you add a number five. I'm gonna really give you a workout here. And then the other thing, I'm gonna ask a really, really big favor on number four and five. Those are the longest sentences, so they require a lot of energy.

effort. I want everybody to do this, and that is to be totally silent, okay? And the reason for that is when I've done this with classes before, I get to the fourth or fifth one, and somebody listens, and they start writing, and their brain dies, and they sit there, Oh, get oh, and then everybody looks at them, and everybody forgets, okay? So if you blank out, just sit there like this, but just be quiet, okay? Just out of courtesy for everybody so that they can do the best they can, okay? So again, you're trying to be perfect with this. Not easy, but we'll go for it. Number four: The four children spent the whole afternoon playing on the swings and slides at the local park. Okay, you did a good job of being quiet on that one. That's good. One more. This is the longest one, and if you're already saying, That's it, I'm out, thank you. Have a good attitude toward this. Try to do the best you can. Here's number five: After running four

miles on the beach. The young woman walked another mile in order to cool down and then went home, okay. Before we go back over these so you can see how you did, I wanted to just tell you one thing. I love watching you do this. It. I used to do things like this on your end. It's much more fun up here. And one of the things that I usually notice, and I'm going to exaggerate a little, sometimes by number five, here's what a student does. They listen to me say it. It's a long sentence, and they start writing. And then they do this. And they just start creative writing. They're writing this wonderful story. It's not what I said, but they're just kind of writing. Creative writing is good, except not on this. And I'm going to tell you why in a couple minutes. So I'm going to go back and read the sentences again. I want you to look carefully at what you wrote. You have to be a hard grader on yourself, okay?

if you made one mistake, if you put uh instead 
of the, is wrong. It's got to be exactly right. Okay, so number one, everyone at the 
game wore a red shirt. Number two, the power went out due to a 
big storm last Monday morning. Number three, he usually eats two soft tacos 
and a burrito whenever he goes to Taco Bell. Okay, now, how many are still 
perfect, no mistakes whatsoever? Okay, we'll knock almost all of you 
out right here. Everybody else, just 
look at your creative writing, see how you 
do, okay? Number four, the four young children. 
You're not supposed to say anything yet. The 
four young children spent the whole afternoon 
playing on the swings and slides at the local 
park. Okay, anybody still perfect? We got, uh, almost 
everybody out. Okay, now, number five, let's see how 
how you do on this one. Okay, after running four 
miles on the beach, the young woman walked another 
mile in order to cool down, and then went home.

okay, um, now I'm going to ask you a couple of questions about this. First of all, when you are in a college class and you're trying to listen and take notes, are you normally supposed to wait for the teacher to finish saying something and then start writing it? No, if you do that, you're going to fall so far behind you'll never catch up. But here's the problem: if the teacher is talking like this and you can't write like this, you're always behind, which means that you're not writing what they just said, you're writing what they said 10 or 15 seconds ago, and you're trying to hold that in your brain long enough to write it. And what else are you doing at the same time? Trying to listen so you can write that next. It's like juggling, it's hard to do both. Okay, the reason I wanted you to wait and then write was so that you would see what I think all of you see now, and that is it's a lot.

harder than it seems to do that. I've had people say I got that sentence totally right, and then I read it and they had half of it wrong. Your mind kind of plays tricks on you. Also, when you're taking notes in classes, are you normally supposed to write word for word what the teacher says? No, every once in a while they'll say write this down word for word, but usually you write it your own way. But accuracy is important, and here's why. Here's my favorite little illustration. One of these five sentences is very famous, and it's going to be famous for you now. I have a lot of different lists of five sentences that are kind of the same length as those, but a few years ago I read the same exact sentences that I just did with you, the same five, and at the end of the class everybody left except one guy who came marching up to me with his notebook, looking really angry, steam coming out of his ears. Never fun to see somebody

approaching you looking like that, and he said something you don't really want to ever say. He walked up to me, and he said, I said yes, and he said you lied. And I said, excuse me, and he said when we did that dictation exercise today, one of those sentences you said it one way when we wrote it, and then when we corrected it, you changed it all around. And I said, no, I'm really careful to be exact because that's the hope. He's well, you did, and he wanted to prove me wrong. So he said, can I see your sentences? And I said, wait a minute before you look at mine, can you tell me which sentence it is and show me what you wrote? He said, I'd be happy to because it's what you said. And so I said, which one? And he said, number three. Now, I want you to look back at sentence number three, whether you got it right or not. Um, and I don't want you looking at me while I say this, I want you to look at the sentence because

it'll help you appreciate it more when he 
wrote down number three. This is what he wrote: I swear to you, he usually eats a Big Mac 
and fries whenever he goes to McDonald's. That's what he wrote, and he said that's what you 
said. And I said, No, I didn't say that. And he said, 
Yes. And for the rest of the semester, he sat there 
every time we had class, like you and I. Like he 
wouldn't let it go. Okay, I didn't say that. I said 
the same thing I did to you. Why did he write that? 
Yes, because he just came from McDonald's. He was 
going to McDonald's after class. He had McDonald's 
on the brain, so he heard this, and then by the 
time it came out, it wasn't even close. Now, one 
of the biggest frustrations you could have as 
a student is to sit there trying desperately 
to keep up with the teacher and you write down 
what they just said or what you thought they did.

then you take that home, and you make a flash card out of it, and you memorize it, and you got it. You go to the test, there's the question, yes, mark it wrong because what you wrote was the wrong thing. Tests are hard enough as it is without writing the wrong information down. So the more you can hold words in your head long enough to write them down accurately, the better your notes are when you study them later. And so one last little part of this, and then we're going to get to our final one, is that I've actually had students do something that I never asked them to do before, but it's a great testimony to this, and that is they did really badly. They were out by number two or three, and by number five, they weren't even close. So they went home. I didn't ask them to do this, and they grabbed a magazine or a newspaper or a novel, anything with writing on it, even a textbook, and they went up to someone they lived with and said, Could you do me a favor? Could

you find three sentences in this one short one, medium, and one long. Not even five, just three, and could you read them to me and then wait while I write them down. So same thing we just did except just a shorter version. It takes like two minutes. Well, the person said okay and they read them. They tried to copy them exactly. They checked just as bad as they were in the classroom. And then they tried it again. And then a few days later, they tried it a few more times. It's almost like exercising every couple days. And after several weeks, they notice these are all easy. I'm able to do long sentences like number five with no problem at all. So they actually notice that that part of their brain is getting stronger. And it's a weird idea that you can actually improve your ability to concentrate. But this is one of the best ways to do it. So not a specific suggestion but if you didn't do so well on this, it helps to try that okay. And then

the last one that we're going to talk about just for a couple minutes. And I see the did anybody miss the sign-in sheets in this. Okay, so go ahead and take this and I want to take a quick look. I don't know why I'm looking trick and trick or trigger. Okay, so I will uh email later. I want to have you write down one more and I'm going to sort of demonstrate this to you. And then we'll be all set. This is an odd idea but it definitely works. And that is pretend to be fascinated if you have to pretend to be fascinated if you have to. Um, what does that mean? Well, I'm going to demonstrate something here. What is fake listening called again? Yeah, pseudo listening. And we said that's a problem. People say well wait is it a problem or is it a solution? It kind of sounds like the same thing. It's not the same thing at all. Remember, pseudo listening is where everything on the outside looks good.

and you're not listening to one word, okay? Pretend to be fascinated. All right, I want to have you look up here for a second. Let me get all the way. Okay, I want to demonstrate something. If you're sitting in a classroom and you are listening to the teacher and you are like this, okay, what message is your body sending to your brain? Yeah, this is pathetic. When is this going to be over? This is the worst thing ever, right? When you are like this, what message is your body sending to your brain? Yeah, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life, and this is so fantastic. I can't believe it. Um, those are opposite, right? Well, if you ever find yourself in a class and you're in the position like that, and you're thinking, well, let's see, we got an hour left. Oh boy, and you're looking around, you have two choices. One is just to go to sleep and give up, which doesn't

do you any good, and it's rude to the teacher. But there's another thing you can do. What is that? Yeah, fake it. Okay, sit up, lean forward, get eye contact going with the teacher, and act like what they're saying is the greatest thing you've ever heard in your life. Now, one reason you do that is because it's respectful to the teacher. Okay, teachers know that not everything they teach is going to be interesting to everybody. I mean, you know, it's just realistic. If I ever see a student in one of my classes who's starting to lose eye contact, drool coming down, whatever, and they're just kind of losing it, and I see them do this, that's the most I could ever ask of anybody, because it means they're trying, right? But also, um, your body can fake out or trick your brain. When you're like this, all signals are fall asleep, right? When you're like this, all signals are this is great, and the war begins. You're like this.

and your body is saying, Look at me, this is the greatest thing ever. Your brain is saying, No, no, I don't think so. I think this is boring. No, look, it's really fascinating. And this battle goes on. Guess who wins sometimes? The body. And you can actually start getting more interested in paying more attention just by physically changing your posture. Leaning forward, not like this, but leaning forward, and eye contact, and facial expressions. What happens to people's facial expressions when they get bored? Yeah, that's what happens, right? So get something going, and even if you have to fake it, okay? And it's amazing what that can do. And I'm going to tell you one last thing that's a warning, okay? I never used to say this, but somebody almost gave me a heart attack last semester by telling me something. So I'm going to tell you this. This is what we'll leave with. One of my students said, I always get bored in one of my classes, and so I tried what you said, and I

leaned forward, and I did all the things you said, and I said, Well, that's good, and I did it. Help. Oh, no, I got in really big trouble, and I said, How can you get in trouble doing that? That's a good thing. Well, he went too far, okay, and this is what he said. And don't ever do this, okay? I don't know where he got this idea. Instead of this to this, which is what I said, he did that far, and then he also did this every time the teacher finished saying something. He did this, all right, okay, and teachers know when you're putting them on. That's not a very respectful thing, and I always tell people, teachers know how to throw things, okay? They take a class in marker 101, and they can hit you right in the head, so don't make fun of them. Just make subtle changes, okay? Don't slap anybody next to you if they're falling asleep. Don't pinch yourself too hard, but whatever you can do, again, you're just saying.

i don't care if they're not interesting. I need 
to know this, and it's my responsibility to pay attention. And again, sometimes I know that's 
hard to do, but that's the goal. Okay, all right, so we're all set now with this. Okay, thanks for coming 
today. And again, I'll be here every Wednesday for the rest of the semester. You're always 
welcome to come, go out, and listen. Well, okay. [Music]

How To Improve Your LISTENING SKILLS | LBCC Study Skills

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Improving Your Listening Skills Workshop: The Importance of Concentration and Active Listening

Concentrating during lectures is a common struggle for many students, impacting their ability to take effective notes.

Pseudo-listening, where people fake attention, mental vacations, and a lack of active listening are the three main problems addressed in the workshop.

The workshop aims to help students strengthen their concentration skills and provides solutions to improve their listening abilities during lectures.

The Challenges of Listening in a Classroom Setting

Students often experience drifting away and struggling to concentrate during class, leading to occasional problems with selective listening and being easily distracted by minor noises or actions.

Some students also face difficulties with critical listening, where they become so bothered or fixated on trivial things that it hinders their ability to focus on the speaker's message, similar to the student who couldn't concentrate in class due to being preoccupied with the teacher's attire.

Being critical of others' opinions can hinder concentration in class.

The key is to eliminate or minimize this behavior to improve focus.

Physical and mental preparation, including getting enough sleep and managing hunger, is crucial for staying attentive during class.

Recognizing and addressing personal problems and worries is also important for maintaining concentration.

Improving Classroom Focus: Tips for Better Learning

It's important to be mentally prepared to listen in class, which can be achieved by consciously leaving outside problems and setting a goal to listen attentively.

Setting a goal to listen 100% of the time, sitting in the front and center of the classroom, and taking personal responsibility for staying engaged can significantly improve attention and learning in class.

The Importance of Sitting in the Front Row in Class

Sitting in the front row helps with better hearing and visibility, especially in large classrooms or theaters.

It is also beneficial for those who are easily distracted and for students who need to improve their participation and courage.

Sitting in the front row can help students practice better listening, which is a valuable skill that can be developed through practice.

The exercise involves listening to sentences and writing them down exactly as spoken.

The sentences progressively get longer, requiring more concentration.

The goal is to write the sentences 100% accurately, without any mistakes.

Taking notes in class can be challenging as it's hard to keep up with the teacher's speech while trying to write.

It's important to write accurately to avoid memorizing the wrong information, which can lead to mistakes in tests.

Practicing note-taking and accuracy can help improve the ability to concentrate and retain information.

The Importance of Active Listening in the Classroom

Pseudo listening can be a problem, but pretending to be fascinated can help improve engagement.

Physically changing posture, maintaining eye contact, and using facial expressions can trick the brain into paying more attention.

However, it's important to make subtle changes and show respect, rather than making fun of or disrespecting the teacher.