Teaching Active Listening Skills with Shweta Ramkumar
What is active listening and how can we bring it to the ESL classroom?
TESOL Pop · Laura Wilkes
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Show Notes
Communications Coach Shweta Ramkumar shares insights into teaching active listening skills to healthcare professionals. In this episode, Shweta explains what active listening is, why it's important and how we can develop this skill in the ESL classroom.
Click here to watch this episode with closed captions.
KEY TALKING POINTS
Defining Active Listening
Shweta talks about being present in the moment, holding space, and empathising as just a few characteristics that differentiate active listening from other types. Shweta shares insights into working with healthcare professionals and how active listening is crucial to their work.
Active Listening in the Classroom
Shweta reflects on why active listening is so challenging to apply in teaching and other professions due to the multiple tasks we have to manage. Pulling on her own experience, Shweta shares the negative consequences of not practising active listening in our classrooms and workplaces.
Active Listening Training
Shweta shares how she introduces active listening to her clients by getting them to reflect on what they miss in a conversation. By starting with a short warmer of sharing about herself, Shweta encourages her clients to reflect on what they can recall and what they missed as a first step.
Paraphrasing as a Tool
Shweta suggests paraphrasing in the classroom to help learners feel seen and heard. Paraphrasing can be used to replace parroting and asking each other to repeat.
ABOUT
Shweta Ramkumar is a communications coach for healthcare professionals. Her coaching sessions focus on developing her clients' language and skills so they can build stronger relationships, credibility and trust with their patients and the wider community. Shweta shares practical tips and insights on communication skills via her website, YouTube channel and social media channels where you can find her at Healthy Dynamics.
Visit Shweta's website here to learn more.
REFERENCES
- Healthy Dynamics (2023). The Do's and Don'ts of Active Listening. YouTube. Available here. Accessed on 04.06.2024
Say thanks with coffee
CREDITS
Producer Laura Wilkes
Editor Haven Tsang
Thanks to our inspiring guest, Shweta Ramkumar.
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