Speaking and Listening Skills Activity

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Using Geography Skills

Active Listening Learning the Skill When you speak, you expect people to listen-not look away, study their fingernails, yawn, or interrupt. Other speakers expect the same of you. Listening requires active participation. Barriers to listening block our ability to hear what another person is really saying. Use the following tips to help you become an active listener: • Be prepared for a presentation by reading background infor mation on the topic. Know the speaker's purpose in delivering the presentation. • Take notes, but do not write down everything the speaker says, and do not write in complete sentences. • Make a note about something you do not understand. Plan to ask questions later, but do not begin "rehearsing" your question until the speaker has finished. • Ignore external distractions, like noise from another classroom or a fly buzzing around the room. • Focus on the speaker rather than on your after-school plans or worrying about studying for a test. Remind yourself that you can think about these things later. • Do not "tune out" because you disagree with or do not like the speaker, or you are having trouble understanding the information. Stay open-minded. • Maintain eye contact with the speaker. Stay attentive to his or her nonverbal cues, like changes in voice tone or gestures.

fI Practicing the Skill Directions: Read this speaker's presentation about the discovery of the world's oldest observatory. Then answer the questions that follow. An airplane pilpt first spotted the strange, Archaeologists call the ancient site Goseck shadowy circle in a wheat field in eastern Ger Circle, after the German city in which it is many in 1991. Later, archaeologists digging located. They also refer to it as the "German in the area discovered a series of rings that Stonehenge" because it resembles the ancient turned out to be an ancient monument-and site of Stonehenge in Britain, which also has the remains of the world's oldest astronomi rings made of huge rocks. cal observatory. By analyzing arrowheads Scientists have always debated the purpose and animal bones found inside the structure, of Stonehenge. In contrast, the main purpose archaeologists estimate the site to be about of Goseck Circle is clear: to study the solar 7,000 years old! 43 Name ______Date _____ Class _____

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system. The ancient farmers who built it- at ter and summer solstices. A person standing least 2,000 years before Stonehenge- used in the center of the circles on the winter sol wooden stakes instead of rocks, however. stice would see the sun rise and set through Although the stakes have not survived, the these gates. The farmers' observations of the marks they made in the ground remain. solar system and the changing seasons helped them in planning the sowing and harvesting Goseck Circle originally consisted of four of their crops. concentric circles. One circle was a mound, one was a ditch, and the other two were made of One of the gates in Goseck Circle may the wooden stakes, called palisades, that were have nothing to do with astronomy. Archae about the height of a person. People could enter ologists excavating the site found human and Goseck Circle through three different gates. As animal bones that may indicate the site was you walked toward the center ring, the gates used to offer sacrifices as part of religious and rings narrowed. This may have meant ceremonies. This was not unusual. Ancient that only a few people could enter the inner peoples often used their observatories as most ring. centers for both religious and social life. Archaeologists state that the farmers who Some archaeologists believe Goseck Circle built Goseck Circle constructed it so they is one of the most important discoveries ever could follow the movements of the sun, moon, made. It shows that people began studying and stars, as well as keep track of time. For astronomy much earlier than scientists had example, two of the gates in the circle mark ever imagined. the sun's position at the beginning of the win-

1. Making Decisions What could you ..... have done to prepare in advance for this speaker's presentation?

2. Listing Write down three things from this presentation that most interest you. Do not use complete sentences.

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3. Formulating Questions What two questions would you have liked to ask the speaker after this presentation?

(I Applying the Skill Assessment Checklist Directions: Take turns reading the Assess your ability to listen using the passage about Goseck Circle aloud checklist below: with a partner. While your partner is D Took notes about facts that were reading, be aware of your own bar interesting riers to listening. Write brief notes D Took notes about things I did not about external distractions that inter understand fered with your listening. Take notes about any facts that interested you. If D Planned to ask questions but did not rehearse them any information confused you, make a quick note with a question mark D Avoided personal thoughts and next to it, and come back to it later. kept focus on speaker After the reading, write down what D Avoided external distractions you did to keep your focus on the D Did not tune out speaker and presentation. D Maintained eye contact D Focused on changes in voice tone and gestures