Listening skills training game

Ask each group to brainstorm and come up with a list of things that can stop us from listening and write the list on the A1 sheet of paper. If it helps them, ask participants to think of a time when they were not listened to or when they realized they were not listening to someone.

Why did they think that happened? After 5 minutes, ask the groups to share their answer with the rest of the class and start a discussion, which should last about 10 minutes. During or after the discussion, show the bullet points on the list shown on the Active Listening PPT PowerPoint slide below, to compare them with the answers that participants gave and to comment.

There are many distractions that can stop us from listening , including checking our phones while we talk with someone or internal distractions such as being hungry, tired or worried about something. Sometimes we think we know what somebody will say even before they have said it, so we do not listen properly because we think we know what they are going to say. This can lead to making wrong assumptions and to us not listening to anything that does NOT fit with those assumptions.

If we are in a hurry, we cannot focus on what is being said. So, it is better to set time aside if we need to speak to somebody about something important. Sometimes, our main priority is to prove we are right. We can switch between tasks fairly quickly, but this reduces the efficiency with which we are able to focus. Sometimes, especially during arguments or when we are under stress, we are more worried about what we are going to say next than about what the person in front of us is saying. Active listening helps you focus on a person and find out things about them that you would have not known otherwise.

The more you listen, the deeper your relationships will be. Also, the other person will open up to you more and they will be more likely to trust you and be your friends, rather than just acquaintances. Use this free training game as a fun way of demonstrating that we could all benefit from improved listening skills. This training game is of course really useful during a training session on communication skills or other related topics. This one page instruction sheet for a listening skills training game can be downloaded by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page or you can follow the instructions below.

Ask one person to leave the room while the rest of the participants come up with a well known phrase, slogan or rhyme. Each participant must take one word from the phrase. Of course the listener will find this very hard to do. They may ask for it to be repeated twice and after that they must guess. Subscribe to the Trainer Bubble mailing list to receive updates on new products, special offers and all the latest industry news sent right to your inbox.