Listening Well

Resources you will need:

Enough chairs
A handful of Pens
A selection of Paper

Aim

To support young people in learning about and practising active listening skills with peers.

Overview

Having introduced the idea of listening, this activity will allow your group to learn about specific active listening skills, both those that they already know about (e.g. good body language) and those that they may not have heard of before (e.g. empathy, open questioning) They will also have the chance to practise using some of these, and find out how it feels to have someone listening actively to you.

If you would like to brush up on your own active listening skills before facilitating a workshop around them for young people, you can find out more here at the Samaritans website.

Instructions

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  1. Ask the group to create 2 lists: 1) a list of skills or traits they think a ‘good listener’ has; and 2) a list of skills or traits they think a ‘bad listener’ has.

  2. Discuss these ideas and consider why people have included certain skills or traits on the different lists

  3. Create a ‘hot seat’ set up where the facilitator sits in the centre of a half circle. They enter the space as someone who is really anxious and it is the group’s job to make him/her feel he/she is being listened to.

  4. Explain to the group that as soon as someone sits in the chair they become a character but as soon as he or she leave the chair the scene stops.

  5. Ask a group member to sit in the chair and repeat the above activity using different scenarios for each member.

  6. Give the group member a secret scenario. Use a scenario that the group can be interested in. For example, my girlfriend doesn’t treat me right. Then it is the group’s responsibility to listen to the group member talk about what is troubling them and feel comfortable in doing so.

  7. Once the group member leaves the chair, ask them and the group to reflect on their experience, what techniques offered by the group made them feel like they could open up? What didn’t?

  8. This activity also works well in pairs.

Brighter Futures