Active Listening
Brief:Learning to listen actively to check-in on peers mental health
Equipment: N/A
Step by Step
- Put the group into pairs and ask them to label themselves “A” and “B”.
- Ask “B” to speak about something they are passionate about with A doing everything they can to ignore B
- The follow up question to the group is, “How did they exercise feel?”
- Now ask the pairs to swap roles, this time B is going to listen to what A tells them like it’s the most wonderful, amazing thing they’ve ever heard
- The follow up question to the group is, “How did they exercise feel?”
- Now explore with the group how we know when someone is listening to us?
Write a list of behaviours that show active listening:
- Eye contact
- Tone of voice
- Facial expression
- Acknowledging and encouraging sounds
- Open body language
- Mirroring body language
- Smiling
- Being on the same level as the other person
- Looking at them
Things to Consider
N/A
Explainer
Practicing active listening is the only way to get better at it, this can be a practice that you bring into sessions following this initial explanation. In pairs, for 3 minutes practice talking about their day so far (or yesterday) or a small problem that they or their friends have had.
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