For our journalism students, listening is the key to getting good interviews. And, interviews are the key to getting good articles, and good articles are the key to strong publications.
I’ve often focused on teaching my students about interviewing techniques, but I haven’t been explicit about teaching listening. Not only will learning how to listen change their journalism practice, but I hope it will impact how they show up for others.
In this conversation at SXSW 2024, Trevor Noah wants Esther Perel to teach him how to be a better listener. When Perel asks him why he wants to learn from her, he differentiates between the act of hearing and listening. Later in the talk, it clicks that in his personal relationship, he would often fall into hearing and not listening.
“I think that there are few tools that are more important in our society than learning how to listen — not learning how to hear. I think we all hear, but we don’t know how to listen,” Noah said. He goes on to explain that he wants to learn from her because of her experience and success as a therapist.
Esther Perel and Trevor Noah (21:36 – 28:00)
Notable Quotes by Esther Perel
“You don’t just listen with your ears. You listen with your voice. You listen with your eyes. You listen with your smile. You listen with your hands. The whole body listens. And the more you listen like that, the quality of your listening will shape what the speaker will tell, how much, how open, how deep. Meaning, listening is not just the passive recipient, listening shapes the speaker.”
“Listening is a certain kind of engagement with the unknown. It is curiosity. It is being completely available to what the person is telling you.”
“Today many people in their interactions experience ambiguous loss. I am talking to you about something super important and you are just like ticking away and it makes me feel like anything I am telling you has no value, no importance.”
Key Concept
Ambiguous Loss: The sensation that you are with someone who is there but not present. They are physically present but psychologically or emotionally gone.
Lesson Ideas
- Introduce the concept of “Ambiguous Loss.” Have students take a few minutes to write about a moment when they have been the person who is on the receiving end of it. Then, have them write about a moment when they have been on the acting part of it. Have students share in pairs or small groups. Then, come together for group sharing and discussion.
- Watch the video. Have students write down some moments, words, or ideas that they remember. Share some of these with the class.
- Using the video and experiences, come up with a list of qualities that demonstrate listening.
- Get into pairs, and interview each other. Each interview should be at least five minutes long, but it would ideally be ten. There has to be enough time for students to practice listening and to also be on the receiving end of listening so they can get to a place where they can experience how the act of listening can shape the speaker.
Written By: Tracy Anderson