Effective listening and speaking strategies

The strategies for active listening is what caught my attention the most. It made me think back to an entry-level psychology class I took. The professor was an old hippie and would often relate parts of psychology to yoga and meditation. The professor made us try active listening exercises, these fell under mindfulness and remaining present. He had the whole class try and just focus on our breathing while he lectured for about ten to twenty minutes. We were not allowed to take notes, we were not expected to engage in any sort of discussion with him, we didn’t ask any questions. We just focused on our breathing, we were also expected to not let our mind wander, our breathing was supposed to keep us in the moment. This professor said focusing on our breathing would keep us more mindful of the moment we were currently in and make us better listeners.    

This actually really worked for me and I was able to completely absorb what he was saying, and it kept my mind from wandering. Which is something that I’m sure we have all done in long lecture classes. I feel that trying to engage students in this practice of mindfulness might also help them with their active listening skills. When you are focusing on your own breathing you aren’t thinking about what you want to say next in the conversation. You become more focused on what is being said to you as you try to just think about your breathing. I feel like it might also be hard to get students to actually try and engage in mindfulness breathing. It is also impossible to gauge whether a student is actually being mindful or not. However, I feel this practice of just breathing and trying to remain in the moment could benefit a lot of students in the future. I even use this technique still when I find my mind wandering off in a conversation or a lecture. It allows me to check myself and to make sure that I’m retaining information. This is something I’m sure we could all use now and then.