Good Listening

Speech and language therapy

﻿Hello everybody, my name's Emma. I'm really looking forward to today's session and I hope you are too. But before we get started, just a quick reminder. We here at Oak are trying to support any approaches you might already be using and any work that you might have already been set. We know this lesson is going out to so many different children and families. So if you're not sure or have questions, then please contact your usual speech and language therapy team or your child's school. In today's lesson, we'll be talking all about why listening is important. We're also going to be thinking especially hard about the parts of our bodies that we use when we listen. Our activity today is that we're going to make a listening poster. So before we begin, you'll need to gather up a few things. You'll need some pictures. These could be pictures of you or they could be from a magazine or from the internet. You'll need some scissors and some glue and a pencil and some colouring equipment. Adults, you'll need the downloadable resource that's available on the Oak website with this lesson. So before we begin, find a quiet place so you can do your best listening through this activity. Turn off any distractions and make sure there are no notifications or conversations running on the device that you're using for this lesson. When you're seated comfortably, let's begin. Okay, let's start by first doing some talking and thinking about how we listen. Attention and listening are two of the building blocks for language. We need to be able to listen in order to learn new words and new information. Often we ask children to listen, but adults never really explain how to listen or what children need to do to listen. Adults can really help children in the development of their listening, by teaching them about parts of the bodies that we use when we're listening. So that's what we're going to do today. Pause the video to get yourself ready. We're going to do a quick activity to help us think about parts of the body that we use to listen. When you're ready to begin, press play. I'm going to do some actions and you need to have a think with your communication partner, whether I'm doing good listening or not. Okay, here's the first one. Was I doing good listening? Pause the video to take a moment to talk about it with your adult. Adults, point out to the child what I was doing with my fingers and where they were. Okay, let's try the next thing. Am I doing good listening? Why might that not be great for listening? Adults, pause the video here and take a moment to talk it through with the child. Lastly, let's see if I'm doing good listening now. My body was moving all over the place then and I wasn't staying in one place. I wonder how that would change my listening. Pause the video here to have a chat with your adult. Adults, prompt the children to have a think about why staying in one place and having a still body might be helpful for listening. So let's recap. We use our ears for listening to what's been said, we use our eyes for looking, it helps if our body is staying in one place when we're listening so that we hear all the information. It also helps if our hands and feet are still. Our head's for the thinking about what we're hearing. So they're also really important too. Now it's time to use what we know and make a listening poster to show everyone how to be a good listener. This is where you'll need the scissors, glue and colouring pencils. Adults, you could use the downloadable resource to help you with this activity. Or you could choose to draw a face and a body or even find pictures or parts of the body from magazines or pictures that you've got at home to help show what we use for listening. When you finish your poster, come back to the video and press play and we'll finish up the lesson. We can continue to work on listening by having five to ten minutes of listening activities at home. When we're doing these listening activities, it would be great if you could have your good listening poster available to remind yourself of what your body needs to be doing to show the best listening. So before we go, we're just going to have a quick song. You and your adult are going to sing 'Head, shoulders, knees and toes', this is a great song for helping us to remember the different parts of the body. It also links really nicely to the parts of the body that we use for listening. It will provide us with another opportunity to repeat and recap the words so that we really understand what we use when we're listening. When you've had a couple of turns singing 'Head, shoulders, knees, and toes', come back to the video and we'll finish the lesson. Don't forget to continue to use the downloadable resource to help you plan more listening activities at home. Adults, you can use the resources in the pack to record and reflect on how your child listens and responds to sounds around them. Well, that brings us to the end of today's lesson, a really big well done on all the fantastic listening you've done today and that brilliant poster that you made. If you're able to, please take a picture of your listening poster and record this in your diary in the downloadable resources attached. Ask a parent or carer to share a copy of your poster with your teacher so they can see the fantastic progress and hard work that you're putting into developing your listening and attention. If you'd like, you could also ask your parent or carer to take a picture of your listening poster and send it to @OakNational on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, so I can see your hard work too. So all that's left for me to say now is thank you, but take care and enjoy the rest of your learning today. Bye-bye.

Good Listening

Good Listening

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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