Listening Step 4

Listening: The receiving, retaining and processing of information or ideas.

Step 4: I listen to others and can tell why they are communicating with me

Outcomes

To achieve Step 4, learners need to understand the main reasons why others may want to communicate with them and to be able to identify when each is being used.

Learners have focused on the tools of effective listening, now they will be able to start identifying what the purpose is behind what they are hearing.

Learners need to be able to:

Understand key reasons why people communicate
See why it is valuable to understand why someone is communicating with you
Identify the signs for each of those approaches

Introduction

There are a lot of different reasons people might talk to us. They might want to give us some instructions, explain something to us, ask questions or motivate us. Can you think of any others?
Write up and discuss ideas learners may have.

Skill Starter

Team Talk

Show learners a clip of a team talk taken from a team sports match (e.g. Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola from All or Nothing).
Listen to the clip and then talk through the following questions:
- Why is the manager talking to their team?
- What are they trying to achieve with this communication?
- What do you think would happen as a result of this chat?
- Has anyone ever spoken to you like this and if so why?

10 mins

Group activity

Discussion

Teach & Apply

Focus on exploring features of the 3 purposes of speech: ‘giving instructions’, ‘asking questions’ and ‘providing motivation’. Share the features with the group and model examples of each one.
- Giving instructions: connectives (next, after, then), using time order (firstly, finally) and imperative or ‘bossy’ verbs (stop, turn left, put it down)
- Questions: normally start with ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘why’ or ‘how’ and need an answer - refer to step 2 tasks
- Motivational statements: positive, bossy verbs said with enthusiasm, includes praise and references to past or future success

Understanding the purpose behind someone’s communication with us helps us to be as prepared as possible for knowing what is going on and responding appropriately.
If we misunderstand then we might not be ready to take any actions that are needed.

Optional Activity

Robot Penalties

The aim is to give clear instructions to a robot so it can score a penalty.

The coach will act as the robot. One at a time, learners should give the robot step-by-step instructions to help it score a penalty. They will find that their initial instructions are too vague for the robot so will have to adapt them. For example, “pick up the ball” may need to be changed to:

1. Take two steps forward

2. Bend you knees

3. Place both hands on the football

4. Squeeze your hands together

5. Stand upright etc.

After the robot has successfully scored a penalty, learners will split into pairs and decide who is the robot and who is the director, before having a go at the activity themselves.

20 mins

Paired activity

Active

Reflection & Assessment

Embed these strategies across your teaching and coaching to help learners apply what they’ve learnt.

After you have been talking, ask learners: “What type of communication was I using just then? How can you tell?”

Use these ideas for ways of assessing this skill step to help you check learners’ understanding and confidence.

Challenge learners to give a sports-related example of when each type of communication would be useful.
Ask these reflective questions:
- Why do people communicate with one another?
- What could happen if you misunderstood the purpose of their communication?
- What are the ways of telling why someone is communicating with you?