Scout Leadership Course Session Activity Notes

Session activity

Speaking and Listening: Kim's Game

Time to allocate for this activity

15 minutes

Resources required

A list of objects in the room.

Activity Notes

This short activity is designed to encourage Scouts to listen carefully to what they hear. It uses an ability to recall facts and explores the relationship between hearing and seeing.

Introduction (2 mins)

How do we hear? What affects our hearing? Talk briefly about this and encourage comments such as age, understanding, interest, attention span, environment, etc. and their affect on hearing.

Why is listening important for a leader? Again, briefly encourage comments from the group which include understanding tasks, listening to others and showing interest.

The task (10 mins)

The presenter will read a list of objects that are scattered around the training room. The list should contain around 10 - 15 items. Now get the Scouts, individually, to write down the list of items in under 2 minutes.

Discuss why they found it hard/easy.

Repeat the exercise as time allows in these different ways:

- Same list of items, but read slower or faster.
- Different list, do the writing as a Patrol - each contributing what they recall.
- Different list, point to each item as it is read out.
- Different list, read out three times.

Discuss the difference in these approaches in terms of what was heard.

Conclusion (3 minutes)

Invite comments from the course about why they feel listening is an important skill. Conclude with the statement from BP:
"If you make listening and observation your occupation you will gain much more than you can by talk."