Lesson Plan: Listening to Others with Understanding and Empathy

OBJECTIVE: WARM-UP KEY POINTS:

● Good listening requires
SWBAT identify pausing to hear,
Have you ever felt as though you were
characteristics of being a paraphrasing what has
talking to someone who was not
listener with understanding and been heard and probing
listening? Describe the experience and
empathy for more details
how you felt

ELICIT (access prior knowledge): MATERIALS

Teacher will: Post Warm-Up Question and prompt students to respond. Call on at least 3 Presentation with
volunteers to share their experience Notes

Students will: Write response to Warm-Up in notebook and share aloud Blank Paper
ENGAGE (get students’ minds focused on the topic) Pencil
Teacher will: Based on student responses, ask students what they would have preferred to Chart Paper
happen? Ask students what a good listener is
Marker
Students will: Provide a scenario or action that could have made the experience they
shared in the warm up more positive

EXPLORE (provide students with a common experience)

Teacher will: Display the following image for all students to see. Direct them to turn and
talk about the meaning of what the image. When taking responses, prompt students to
think about what happens when we don’t listen to others - misconceptions,
misunderstanding, confusion, frustration, etc.

Students will: Turn and Talk about what they see and it’s meaning. Volunteer responses.

EXPLAIN (teach the concept)

Teacher will: Ask students: 1. What is listening? 2. What is empathy? 3. How can we
demonstrate empathetic listening for understanding?
Call on student volunteers. Direct students to take the following notes in response to the
questions:

1. Listening is taking notice of and acting on what someone says; responding to advice
or a requests
 2. Empathy is the action of understanding, being aware of and able to share the
feelings of another
3. By reflecting on someone’s expression and responding to what they say in our own
words

Students will: Volunteer responses, take notes and ask clarifying questions as needed

ELABORATE (students apply information learned in the EXPLAIN)

Teacher will: Distribute blank paper and ask students to draw a line down the middle. Tell
them to think of one person in your life who has really listened to you and really tried to
understand. Ask them to close their eyes and recall a time when they needed to talk to that
person and they really listened to what they had to say. Prompt them to think about where
they were, who was there, what they were sharing with the other person and what that
person did as they shared. Direct students to open their eyes and on the left side of their
paper write down at least 3 things the person did/said that showed hey were truly listening
(i.e. eye contact, nodded head, gave advice/feedback). On the right side of the paper, draw
or write what it was like to be listened to.

*Activity is adapted from adapted from: Johnson, B., Rutledge, M., Poppe, M., & Vermont
Consultants for Language and Learning. (2005).

Students will: Close their eyes and reflect on a memory. Draw a line on the middle of
their paper and respond to questions on the left and right side.

EVALUATE (how will you know students learned the concept?)

Teacher will: Ask students to share items from their lists and write them on chart paper.
Prompt students to identify similarities on lists and specify qualities of good listeners.
Review key points.

Students will: Identify similarities on lists and specify qualities that good listener
demonstrated

EXTEND (deepen conceptual understanding through use in new context)

Teacher will: Break students into groups of no more than 10. Based on the number of
groups, write down a message on the same number of index cards. Instruct students to
form a line. Countdown and have first student read card then whisper message to next
person. The last person in line must say the message they heard aloud.

Students will: Play telephone and attempt to deliver the correct message before the other
group. After one round, winning team reflect and discuss what went well, while others
rate their listening ability on scale of 1-5 and describe ways they could have improved their
listening and ability to understand the messenger.