Draw a simple picture with people, scenery and objects that will be easy to copy. With your class, describe the picture out loud slowly and ask each student to draw exactly what you're saying as you talk. Show the original picture at the end and compare. This activity is a good preliminary activity to a lesson on listening. Students are required to stop talking and think about nothing but what the teacher says. In addition, students reproduce what they hear in real time.
Ask students to pick a role model from their family, group of friends or community. Students write up interview questions about this person's life, profession, art or other talent that they admire. Students conduct the interview and record it on a tape recorder. With the completed interview on tape, students go home, listen to the interview from beginning to end and create a faux newspaper article one would expect to find as a feature in a real newspaper. This activity requires students to ask questions, listen to the answers, reinterpret the answers and reproduce them in a holistic article. Students listen closely and interpret, two qualities of a good listener.
Students are often asked to read a book and write a report about what they've read. Instead of having students read a passage or chapter and write a response at home, read aloud in class and have them create the response directly after. Ask the question before you begin reading so that students can focus on the relevant details as you read. For example, say "Find the hidden motivation of the main character in his relationship with Sophia." Now, students will be listening closely and with intention. Have students write a short essay response directly after you read the passage.
A huge part of listening is body language. The way you sit, the amount of eye contact you make and the way you position your body toward or away from the person you're talking to all make a dramatic difference. Put students in pairs and have one partner begin telling a story. Prompt students if they can't think of anything, such as telling their most memorable moment from childhood. Watch how the other partner listens and instruct them on good body language. Have the listening partner face the other, sit upright, make appropriate but not overbearing eye-contact, nod periodically and provide meaningful feedback. This activity gets students to feel listening through their own bodies rather than simply go through the mental process.