Give no more than three directions at a time; for very young children, give one at a time. Make sure you have the students' attention before giving the directions. Use quiet signals, such as a chime, flickering the lights or simply saying, "May I have your attention, please," to focus their attention. Be careful of phrases that can be misinterpreted, such as, "Put your eyes on me." Once you are sure you have the students' attention, give directions clearly in simple steps.
Explain to the students that listening is something they must actively work at to do well. Students hear lots of things all day long but tune out a lot of them. If people gave their full attention to things such as lawn mowers, fan sounds or heaters kicking on and off, they soon would become overloaded with details. Help very young children get ready to listen by letting them pantomime "putting their listening ears on." Once the ears are "on," every eye in the room should be focused on you. Break information down into manageable bits. If you flood your students with too much detail, they will get lost and tune you out. Teach older children how to take notes. Start with writing important parts on a large notepad, marker or chalk board or on an electronic board. Encourage students to keep a notebook of important information to which they can refer later.
Classroom emergency signals are not the same as schoolwide alarms. A classroom emergency signal is a sound or action designed to bring a class back into focus when it becomes clear that the students' attention has drifted away from the primary objective. An experienced kindergarten teacher says, "Class, class, class!" when she wants her students' immediate attention. They respond by saying, "Yes, yes, yes!" By speaking in unison, they refocus their attention upon her. A band teacher might use clapping back. He will clap a specific rhythm, and the students clap back the same rhythm. They must be trained to clap back only the rhythm the teacher just clapped. Note: This technique can get out of hand if not properly supervised. Chimes, a soft train whistle or flicking the lights on and off are ways to regain student attention with emergency signals.
Reading aloud to students is an excellent way to train their ears to listen for content as well as to encourage a love of books. A skilled reader can make stories come alive for the class. Sometimes, however, the teacher may be tired or the students are just having an off-task day. This is an opportunity for teaching listening manners. Remind the students that a teacher is not a television; she will not just keep on talking while they are doing other things. Tell them that polite listeners make eye-contact with the speaker, do not whisper to their neighbor and leave personal books or activities quietly set aside. Using this lesson in listening behavior, it will take only a brief refresher to make sure students are prepared to listen politely.