Active Listening Skill Analysis

The first role play in class went much better than I expected. I was extremely anxious going into the role play, not because public speaking scares me but, because I was nervous to share my stories with so many people. However, my partner, Taylor, when I was the speaker made me very comfortable. When it was my turn to be listener, I was still anxious but more prepared. I listened to Bella’s story about her conflict with her mom on why she changed majors. While listening to Bella, I had the chance to use my active listening skills. In the role play, I had both areas of strength and areas for growth. During my conversation with Bella, I showed some strengths in my active listening skills. One of my strongest points was my empathy. I was able to understand how she was feeling and be in the moment with her. Another strength I showed was following and restating what Bella had to say. She spoke for a little over a minute and I was able to summarize it all by saying, “I can see how it would
Everyone had areas of strength and areas for growth. Since this was the first role play, I expected the activity to go much worse than it did. Almost every person had successes in eye contact, body language, head nods, and minimal encouragers. The areas for growth started to appear when it came to the understanding and connecting part of active listening. Many people jumped directly to advice-giving after the speakers shared their story. In addition to advice-giving, many of my peers struggled with emotional recognition and empathy. As a class, we all either addressed frustration or no emotion at all. Very few students were able to empathize and be in the moment with their partners. Another thing I noticed was that many listeners interrupted their partners. Since this was a listening activity, I found this very frustrating. While the interruptions were probably on accident, this is something everyone in the class could work