It seems like recently I keep hearing about studies and reading articles that show how modern kids' attention spans are shrinking. Let's be honest, adults struggle with this too! But all hope is not lost; today I want to explain all about 'Guided Listening' and how it can lengthen attention span, exercise critical thinking, and help students practice discussion skills.
What you'll find in this blog post:
- The sandwich method for teaching Guided Listening
- My top ten questions to use with any recording
- Key benefits of using this activity with your kids
Guided Listening: What, Why, and How
You're probably already familiar with the term reading comprehension in teaching. After students read a story or passage, they answer questions that allows the teacher to gauge understanding. I like to think about Guided Listening in a similar way. Kids are given the opportunity to hear a piece of music multiple times, and then answer related discussion questions.
I do prefer to use orchestral music (with no singing as a distraction), but to be clear it doesn't have to be classical music only. It's really important that we expose kids to a variety of musical genres from a young age. You just never know what they'll like.
The sandwich method for a Guided Listening activity goes like this:
- Listen a first time through (share initial impression)
- Pause and answer discussion questions
- Listen to the recording again
Depending on the piece we're listening to, I will sometimes keep the title and composer a mystery to the students at first. For example, if we are listening to a composition from Carnival of the Animals and I tell my kids that the title is "Aquarium," that may go ahead and put thoughts in their minds about what they will hear. An obvious question would be:
"What do you think this song is called, and what clues did you hear in the music?"
Top Ten Questions for Guided Listening
In case you're wondering how many questions to use after listening to a recording - it really depends on your unique teaching situation. Are you at home with a couple of older kids who can handle a longer discussion? Or perhaps you're teaching a large class of 6 year olds and everyone gets a turn to answer the same question. There's no magic number; you decide what will work best for your students.
Below, I'm going to share a list of ten discussion questions which could pretty much be used for any listening piece. *Notice how I like to use a mixture of questions that require either fact-based or opinion-based answers. Yes, I want to gauge my students' understanding of musical concepts, but I also want to hear their likes and dislikes about the music.
Guided Listening Questions:
- Can you identify an instrument you heard?
- If this piece had a different title, what would you call it?
- Describe the tempo (speed) of the music.
- If you heard this song as background music in a movie, what would be happening in the scene
- Which of these instruments would you most like to play, and which one would be the most difficult to play?
- What does a musician have to do to create high and low pitches on this particular instrument?
- How would you describe the mood of this music?
- Did you notice any changes in the dynamics (volume)?
- If you were to conduct this piece, what would your arm motions look like?
- If you attended a live performance of this song, where would you want to sit and why?
Here's a couple of ways you can extend the Guided Listening activity:
For younger kids – you can have them draw or paint a picture while they listen.
See what the music reminds them of.
For older kids – you can have them write a musical critique that can be a mixture of facts and opinions about the song.
Key Benefits of Guided Listening
As you make this a regular activity in your teaching repertoire, you will notice that your kids develop a better attention span. Maybe at first they could only listen to 30 seconds of a song, and over time you’ll see that get longer and longer.
You can expose your kids to a wide variety of music; they may discover a new type of music that they like which they previously didn’t even know existed. On the flip side of that, they’re not always going to love every song you play for them. You’re teaching them that it’s okay to have a negative opinion about something and still discuss it in a respectful way. And it’s perfectly fine to have a different opinion from someone else.
Guided Listening is a great method for gauging your students’ musical knowledge. And last, but not least, this activity is adaptable for all ages!
Want to learn more about Guided Listening and find out some of the recordings I like to use? Check out this YouTube video from Morning Basket Music.
Comments ()