Susan, I had to substitute in classrooms where the teacher used a strike system....the kids wouldn't get serious until they had two strikes! But you know how they treated subs!

Rachel, a fun listening exercise that works for all ages AND IS GOOD FOR MUSIC TEACHING ALSO...

Get the students prepared with pencil in hand and paper in front of them. Then give verbal instructions such as 1) draw a circle in the top right hand corner of your paper 2) put an X in the lower left hand corner 3) turn the paper over 4) put your initials in the middle of the page etc. etc. Give the directions ONLY ONCE at about 10 second intervals. By the 10th instruction or so, they are listening like crazy and getting extrememly frustrated because you won't repeat.

Also, there are some exercises for verbal communication which require people to draw something with only verbal cues, nothing visual.

I think we would all be better people if we learned to listen more.

Mary (active music listener who LOVES Paltalk even if she can't understand all those accents)