Sample Daily Fika™: Learning to Listen

Primary competency: Listening. Supporting competencies: Relationships, Conversation and Reflection. Primary skill: Active Listening.

Suggested format: Daily Fika, about 12–15 minutes. A Quick Fika version can be shortened to the prompt, one listening practice and a brief reflection.

What helps a person know that someone is listening carefully?

Students practice listening for meaning and asking a follow-up question connected to what another person said. The goal is understanding, not performing a particular body position or amount of eye contact.

Arrange students in a comfortable classroom configuration. If useful, prepare a simple chart titled “Great Listeners…” Food and beverages are optional. Make participation choices visible before beginning.

Students may answer personally, generally or hypothetically; use speaking, writing, drawing, AAC or another communication method; share with a partner; take additional processing time; reflect privately; or pass. No private disclosure is required.

Use your own experience or a fictional/general example: What helps a person know that someone is listening carefully?

In pairs or another accessible format, one student shares a low-risk idea or general example. The listener practices waiting, listening for meaning and asking one or two follow-up questions connected to what was said. Students may use written or AAC-supported exchanges instead of spoken conversation.

• Ask questions connected to what was said.
• Wait when another person is still communicating.
• Remember or refer back to an important detail.
• Ask for clarification when needed.
• Listen with curiosity.
• Use a form of attention that is comfortable, accessible and culturally appropriate.

Which listening habit would you like to practice again? Students may answer privately.

Choose one listening habit to practice during another class, activity or conversation today. This is an invitation to practice, not a requirement to report a private interaction back to the class.

Listening does not look exactly the same for everyone. Do not assess listening solely through eye contact, stillness, body position or spoken response. Movement, looking away while processing, note-taking, AAC, requesting repetition and additional processing time may all be compatible with attentive listening.

This is one public example adapted from Unit 1: Building Our Fika Community. The complete pilot curriculum contains 20 sequential Daily Fikas™ with adaptations across five developmental grade bands. The remaining curriculum, pilot instruments and complete grade-band editions are intentionally not published in this resource collection.