25 Active Listening: From Horror Show to Empathy
“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The
best way to understand people is to listen to them.” —- Ralph Nichols
I first encountered this activity at an orientation camp for Canada World Youth with participants from across Canada and Indonesia. This is an engaging way to poke fun at all of us when we are lousy listeners. I have used this activity with many different groups of people around the world in both face-to-face and online settings. I continue to find it an effective way to kickstart exploration of verbal and non-verbal communication and the power of active listening. In addition, participants are usually entertained and fully engaged when they see their normally calm facilitator acting like a total jerk!
Purpose
This activity introduces participants to the power of active listening. It explores the behaviors and impacts of both ineffective and effective communication skills
Learning Objectives
Participants will:
- Observe negative and positive listening skills.
- Describe verbal and non-verbal communication behaviors that both hinder and help build understanding and connection.
- Practice reflecting content and feelings they have heard.
- Experiment with questions that help the speaker open up and explore their situation and emotions.
- Observe a listener and give specific feedback on their listening skills.
Activity Directions
Set-Up: Arrange chairs in a semi-circle with two chairs facing each other at the front. Ask for a volunteer from the class to sit in one of the chairs and the facilitator sits in the other.
- Observe: Tell the class that they are going to observe two scenarios. Their task is to watch the facilitator and take notes about the body language, tone of voice and words that hinder or help with building understanding and connection.
- Demonstration Listening Dyad: Ask the volunteer to think of a situation that has bothered them and that they might want to talk to a friend or colleague about. Start the conversation by asking the volunteer how they are doing. Then demonstrate two different ways of responding:
Scenario One: Volunteer starts talking and the facilitator plays the role of a horrible listener. They yawn, look at their phone, interrupt, give advice, tap their feet and continually turn the conversation to talking about themselves. They are dismissive of the persons concerns and tell them to “get over it!” After 5 minutes say, “Stop.”
Scenario Two: When the volunteer starts talking about their concern, the facilitator uses effective empathic listening skills. They offer their full attention, paraphrase feelings and content, ask questions to deepen the conversation, summarize concerns and show care and understanding through words and body language.
3. Summarize: After 10 – 15 minutes of empathic, supportive conversation, you, as the good listener, summarize the main content and feelings you heard.
4. Group Discussion: Turn to the group and ask them what they observed:
Debriefing Questions:
- In the first scenario, what were some of the behaviors that you noticed?
- What words did the facilitator use?
- What non-verbal behaviors did you observe?
- How do you think the speaker felt?
- When the speaker was not listened to, what did you notice in their reactions?
- This was an exaggerated demonstration of poor listening skills, but we probably all have times when we have been pre-occupied and not listened with care and attention to someone. Could you recognize yourself in any of the behaviors in the first scenario? Are there other things you do that sabotage positive connections?
- What are some of the barriers that get in the way of being an effective and compassionate listener? (i.e. group might come up with some of the following barriers: health issues, cultural differences, language misunderstandings, gender, age, exhaustion, power differentials, stress etc.)
- What was different in the second scenario?
- What were some of the non-verbal communication behaviors you noticed (body language, eye contact, tone of voice, facial expressions.)
- What were the verbal skills the listener used to build connection? Give examples of the words used by the facilitator when they were being an effective listener (restating content and feelings, asking questions, seeking clarification, summarizing.)
- How do you think the speaker felt in the second scenario? (Turn to the speaker and ask for their experience in the two different scenarios.)
- Any other observations of these two different approaches to relationships?
- Why do you think deep listening is challenging?
- Why do some psychologists say that listening deeply to another person is one of the greatest gifts we can give?
5. Full Group Discussion: Discuss the following statement about “neural entrainment.” It is becoming clear that when two people are fully listening to each other, their physiologies begin to match one another. When we fully attune with another human, we are shifting into a shared field of awareness:
Nerdy information about the neuroscience of communication: ” Neural Entrainment”
“So when we really connect with someone in conversation, when we are sort of on what you might refer to as the same wavelength, what’s interesting is it’s reflected in our bodies and our brains. So right now, we’re having a conversation even though we’re separated by hundreds of miles. And yet if we could measure this, what we would see is that your eye pupils and my eye pupils are starting to dilate at the same rate. Our breath patterns are starting to match each other. Our heart rates are starting to match each other. And even more importantly, if we could see inside our brains, what we would see is that my brainwaves are starting to look like your brainwaves and vice versa.
Within psychology and neurology, this is known as neural entrainment, and it’s at the core of how we communicate with each other. And what it tells us is that communication is connection. When you and I are really communicating with each other, our bodies and our brains become connected in a way that allows us to understand and hear each other much more clearly.”
6. Dyad Listening Practice: Divide the class into pairs. Ask them to designate one of them to be the listener and one to be the speaker. Assign a fairly neutral topic, like “Why did you decide to take this workshop?” or “What is something you do to maintain your physical and emotional well-being?” Ask the listener to use their natural helping style to listen carefully to their partner. After ten minutes ask the partners to switch.
7. Full Group Debrief: What were some of the things your partner did that made you feel listened to and understood? How did it feel to have your partner’s full attention? What was it like to be the listener? Why can listening sometimes be challenging? Read the following quotation and check with the group if they had this experience in their listening dyads.
Dialogue is a method of communication that involves two-way conversations where people not only speak to each other, but also really listen with the goal of leaving the conversation with a better understanding of the topic and the different perspectives that make up a community. In dialogue, participants must suspend their judgements and assumptions (Yankelovich, 1999) and do not presuppose to know the whole truth but remain open to the possibilities inherent in others’ views (Gadamer, 1960/2013)
Online Adaptation
All aspects of this activity work well online. The debriefing could include some of the issues that are particular to on-line communication skills. For instance, poor network quality or participants not being able to turn on their cameras could impact understanding and create a need for even more focus on reflective listening and clarification to make sure that messages have been understood.
For the practice session on-line, put two people in each of the break-out rooms on Zoom or Teams and the facilitator can join the virtual rooms and observe the participants as they listen to each other.
Case Study with female Hazari Afghan students
When the Taliban ended education for women in 2021, a dedicated group of Afghan students who were living outside of Afghanistan created Kaaj, an organization that provides online opportunities for young women to access education:
“Kaaj is a non-profit organization dedicated to transforming the lives of young girls in Afghanistan by equipping them with the education, skills, and resources to thrive in international colleges and universities. Through language and digital literacy training, holistic mentorship, and financial support, we are paving the way for Afghan girls to become powerful agents of change in their communities and the world. At Kaaj, we break through barriers, enabling girls to pursue their dreams with unwavering confidence.”
Read more about the tragedies that female Hazari students faced in Afghanistan and the ways they are moving forward with resilience: kaajeducation.org/
As part of this program, I have been providing online resilience skills session for the young women to help them manage stress, learn about emotional intelligence and prepare for living internationally to continue their education.
In a session about communication skills, Abdullah Nazari, one of the KAAJ founders, was my role-play partner as I demonstrated first horrible and then effective listening skills. Abdullah started a heartfelt description of an interpersonal conflict he was experiencing. In the first scenario I yawned and fiddled with my phone, told him that he was too sensitive and continually interrupted him and told him about my problems. As this was going on the screen was filled with laughter emojis.
In the second scenario I did my best to be fully present with Abdullaah. I listened carefully, checked for understanding, asked questions to help him go deeper and demonstrated through non-verbal cues that I was fully with him.
The discussion after this role-play was filled with stories of how supportive listening from friends and family had helped these bright Afghan students cope with their very difficult circumstances.
Additional Resource
The Soliya Institute has valuable resources for teaching communication and conflict resolution skills. The video embedded in this article could be used to reinforce the concepts covered in this Active Listening Introduction:
soliya.net/transforming-daily-communication-through-active-listening