Active Listening Tools: Mirroring and Summarizing

The basic facilitation tools reflecting active listening are mirroring and summarizing. With those
tools you hold up a mirror to the group – helping them gain greater clarity and perspective on their
communication and collaboration as a group.

Here are short definitions of the tools:

Mirroring: repeating back to an individual in the group what he or she said.
Summarizing: summarizing a number of key points in a conversation, and tying them together into
a more coherent whole.

Read more on
a) When to use mirroring and summarizing
b) Summaries and group process
c) Ending a session with summary

WHEN TO USE MIRRORING AND SUMMARIZING

Ensuring Understanding: Mirroring is generally used to ensure understanding. If someone says

something and you aren’t positive that you or the group understood them, you can say “What I
think I’m hearing you say is … is that right?”

Show active listening & make people feel heard: It can useful to mirror or summarize when people
are restating their points again and again and the conversation is going in circles. Often when this
happens it is because people do not feel that they are being heard or understood. Mirroring back
one person’s point or summarizing the points made by a number of people can be very effective
in making people feel that their point has been acknowledged, which can enable the conversation
to move forward.
It can also be helpful to do a process observation at this point (Click here to read more on
observations) by pointing out that the conversation is going in circles and people may feel that
they are not being heard or understood. By providing this awareness to the group, facilitators make
it possible for group-members to try to adjust their behavior themselves.

When there is a conversation overload: It can also be useful to summarize when there is
“conversation overload” – when there are multiple conversations going on simultaneously and no
one seems to be listening to anyone else. At that point you can step in and provide a summary of
the various points being made, and the various threads of conversations. As above, it can also be
helpful to do a process observation by pointing out that people seem to be having a number of
conversations and talking past one another. Again, this makes it possible for the group members
themselves to adjust their behavior.

Returning to key points: Summarizing can also be useful when the group is jumping around a lot,
and may have moved on from an important topic without fully exploring it. At this point a
facilitator can highlight the various points that were made, acknowledge that a particular point was
skipped, and return the group to that point.
Turning the “heat” up or down: Finally, summarizing can be useful in turning the “heat” in the
conversation up or down. In selecting the points to highlight, a facilitator can draw attention to
either consensus or conflict. A facilitator can use reframing (CLICK here to go read more about
reframing unless the word ‘reframing’ can be made clickable) to highlight points of commonality,
for example saying” ““So, although Abed and Karen disagree about this issue, I’m hearing a
commonality in the underlying values they espouse.” This can help the group move away from
conflict towards consensus.
On the other hand, if a group seems to be agreeing all of the time, a facilitator can summarize the
points and draw attention to differences in opinions or assumptions. It can be challenging for a
facilitator to determine how “hot” a conversation should be. This is related to our assumptions
about when and how learning happens. Learning happens when we feel SAFE and
UNCOMFORTABLE. If we feel basically unsafe, then it’s really hard for us to take in new
information. But if we feel too comfortable, if nothing challenges us, then there is no motivation
for us to learn and we probably won’t. Summarizing (and reframing) can be useful tools in pushing
the group out of or back into their comfort zone.

SUMMARIES AND GROUP PROCESS

Summaries also have an important role in Soliya sessions more generally, not only during specific
conversations. They are also useful tools to help the group process move forward.

Ending a session or an activity: It is important to summarize at the end of a session or when

transitioning from one conversation/activity to the next. Providing a brief summary of the various
points made and linking the discussion back to the initial question that was asked can make people
feel that there was real learning and progress. Reframing at these points by connecting what is
said to other conversations or to larger themes can also be very helpful in promoting
learning. Summaries when transitioning from one section of session to another also help to tie the
different sections together, making the transitions from one to another smooth – and helping the
sessions to feel like a coherent whole.

Start summaries: Summarize a previous conversation or topic, or a session, to link it to the activity,
discussion or session just starting. This will help the sessions and discussions feel as a continuum,
rather than disjointed and separate.

Process summaries: Sometimes it is useful to do summaries that capture the progress made in
discussion, activity or session – these summaries don’t’ focus on the content of discussions as such
but on the progress the group made together, or the learning achieved as a group. (These summaries
are very similar to process observations that are covered later in this document.)

Besides promoting learning, these type of summaries are an important part of enabling the group
process by helping the group to see the progress they have made; by giving the sense of
achievement to the group; and by helping the group to understand what has, and what has not been
achieved or covered yet – and what then could be the goal for the next session.
ENDING A SESSION WITH SUMMARY

End summaries can provide a sense of closure and achievement, and make explicit the learning
and progress made in the dialogue session. There is a danger though of ending the session or
discussion on facilitators’ terms, and with your words rather than of the participants. It is
impossible to convey everything that was said: the complicated thoughts and feelings and
perspectives shared. One way to mitigate the risk is to ensure you make your substantial end
summary with enough time for the participants to potentially react to your summary and then share
the main take-aways from the conversation for them.

With main points made in the conversation, an end summary can also highlight the learning
achieved during the discussion, what wasn’t said and how the discussion was that day. At the end
of the session you can also reflect on the group process, and show WHY it was important to have
this discussion as a part of the group’s dialogue process.

Practicing Summarizing
Think about your daily life and come up with potential situations when it would be helpful to use
summaries. Examples of good moments could be around the dinner table with your family, or
having a coffee with a group of friends when you are talking about something where you have
different opinions. Or you could practice summarizing at the university or workplace in a meeting.
Think of situations that would be both helpful and challenging for you!
Be prepared to try out summaries when you are in a situation that you have identified beforehand
and see how it affects the discussion, and the participants involved.
When you summarize, try to be subtle and time your summaries well. Aim at
ensuring understanding and that those in the discussion feel heard.

Take note of the following:

 Did the summaries change the quality of the discussion? Did they help mutual
understanding?
 Did those in the discussion feel like they were being heard?
 Was it difficult to summarize? Why?
 Did those in the discussion notice that you were summarizing?
 What did you learn about using summaries in this experiment?
 What was most difficult for you in summarizing that you want to keep on practicing?

If you are doing this activity as a part of training, make sure you are ready to share the results of
this activity in your training group.

Good luck everyone!

Asking Good Questions
WHY QUESTIONS MATTER

In addition to active listening, asking questions is the most fundamental facilitation tool.
Dialogue is about helping participants to explore the values, assumptions, beliefs and experiences
that form their opinions – to help understand why people think as they do. But getting there isn’t
easy, and it often requires active facilitation – and especially a lot of good questions – to uncover
where those opinions come from.
The ability to ask good questions is essential to effective facilitation also to ensure understanding
and equal participation, and to help participants feel truly heard and acknowledged in dialogue.

TYPES OF QUESTIONS

There are at least four distinctly different kinds of questions:

Yes/No questions: “Do you think the UN has done a good job?
Cross-examination: “Don’t you think that…?” “When you said … didn’t you mean?”
Points of clarification: “What do you mean when you say…?”
Open-ended questions: “Tell me more about your view…” “What lead you to that…”

Generally as a facilitator you try to avoid asking questions 1 and 2, and focus on asking questions
3 and 4, as the first two types tend to close down the conversation, and the second two to open
things up for dialogue.
Asking clarifying questions can be particularly important in online medium, as it is often less
immediately apparent that a participant has not been understood. When someone says something
in a physical room that others don’t understand it is usually immediately visible in their body
language or expressions. In this medium it is harder to read people. Thus if you as a facilitator
don’t understand what someone has said, and it seems to be an important point, you should
generally ask for clarification.

QUESTION OBJECTIVES

As a facilitator, you want to try to ask questions that push the conversation to a deeper level. We
all know the feeling of being in a conversation when people are talking about things that REALLY
matter to them – there is a particular richness, a particular flow. Ideally your questions will help
the group move into this flow.

The most significant things that we usually try to achieve when asking questions are:
1) To provoke discussion and bring out participants’ interests.
2) To push the conversation to the personal – to get people to think not only about WHAT they
believe, but WHY they hold that belief, how they feel about it, and how that relates to their identity.
3) To help people recognize the assumptions they are making. In almost any conversation, there
are assumptions being made about what words mean, that certain things are good or bad etc. For
example, a group can easily have an entire conversation about terrorism, without defining what
terrorism means. We try to ask questions that push a group to recognize their assumptions and
confront them face-on.
4) To help people connect the conversation with larger themes or values. For example, a
conversation that happened is one in which students argued about whether the US should leave
Iraq. This type of conversation can end up being a really detailed conversation that goes in
circles. The key as a facilitator is help people to recognize what the larger themes and values are
that are bound up in the conversation, for example “What role should the US play globally? In the
Middle East?” “What values should countries strive to follow in their foreign policy? Did the US
follow these values in Iraq? Did other Arab Nations? (vis-à-vis Iraq) Why or why not?” “Is
intervention or invasion ever justified? When? Who should decide?”

BIAS IN QUESTIONS

As a facilitator, it is also important to try to avoid asking questions that reveal bias, and to also
ensure that there is balance in your various “biased” questions that makes you multi-
partial, providing everyone in the room a space to fully express their opinions and ideas. If you
consistently reveal bias in one direction, it will be difficult for certain group members to feel safe
and fully express themselves in the environment that you create.
It is not always important that questions be un-biased. Sometimes, in order to provoke a good
discussion (particularly in a “politically correct” group) asking controversial questions will be
essential. The key is to notice that you are asking biased questions, so that you can then follow up
with other questions that are biased in a different direction.
That is – ask some questions that are really challenging to some people in the group, and other
questions that are really challenging to other people in the group. Keep track of your questions and
ensure that they are pushing all sides of the group equally. It is also important to be aware of your
own possible biases and how they might affect the questions you formulate.
Remember that your goal is to make everyone in the group think and share – whatever his or her
perspective. Sometimes in these cases it is also helpful to tell the group that you are asking
controversial question, so they know that you are doing this on purpose.
It is not possible for facilitators to be completely neutral – we are all human after all. The best that
we can do is be aware of our biases so that we can do our best to make sure that we don’t let our
bias affect the tone of the conversation or jeopardize the safety of the space for participants.

GENERAL TIPS ON ASKING GOOD QUESTIONS

Formulating questions in advance: In advance of a dialogue session, it’s a good idea to formulate
not only opening questions but also a variety of follow-up questions. While the Online Curriculum
will provide long lists of possible questions for each week, it will be useful for you and your co-
facilitator to think about the kinds of questions that are likely to be most interesting to and
challenging for your group, and to have them ready in advance.

Breadth of a question: As a facilitator, it is often a challenge to figure out how broad and/or how
narrow to make your questions. One way to test a question, to see if it is too narrow or too broad
is to simply try to answer it yourself. See if you feel boxed in, or find it difficult to focus your
answer or to provide an interesting, thought-provoking answer. Does it take a long time for you to
think of the answer? In our experience it’s generally better to err on the side of making your
question too broad, as opposed to too narrow, because you can always ask follow-up questions if
you find that the answers are all over the place. For example, if you ask “why is the US in Iraq?”
You can follow up by saying “I’m hearing that there is some disagreement about whether the US
is promoting democracy in Iraq, what do you think: is the US in Iraq to build democracy?” If you
start with “Is the US in Iraq to build democracy” you will box people in, and make it harder for
them to express all that they think, you’ll also make the group think that you have an agenda.

Question length: Ideally, facilitator interventions will be quite short, and will not interrupt the flow
of conversation. It is important to try to make questions as concise and to the point as possible.
Writing questions: We highly recommend writing ALL questions up in the text box in the middle
of the screen. This helps the group keep track of the conversation. It will also force you to make
your questions more concise.

Providing alternatives: It is often tempting to not only ask a question, but to offer a menu of
possible responses. “Why is this happening, is it x? Is it y? Is it z?” In general we find that it is
much better to simply ask the question, and to allow the group to define the scope of the answer.
If you put out a range of possible options, it often makes it seem as if you are offering your own
opinion, and it can lessen the creativity of the answers provided.

Timing: Think about when you would ask your question. Timing is important in relation to both
group process & session flow.
Group Process – You will need to think about at what point during a group’s dialogue process
would you ask the question and when it would be most effective. For example, does it require
some familiarity between the group members to be explored thoroughly, in which case it should
be asked at the later stages of the process? You don’t want to ask too provocative or probing
questions too early in the group process to jeopardize the safe space of dialogue.
Session Flow – Think also about the when in the session you want to ask the question. Is it to kick-
start the conversation, or help the discussion to get deeper? Or perhaps there is a quiet moment
when no one is sure what to say next, and your intervention is needed. If the discussion is focused
and flowing well, perhaps you there is no need for your question right at that moment. Also ensure
you have adequately covered the question before moving on to the next one.
Empower: Facilitator asking great questions from the group will improve the dialogue greatly. But
if you can empower the group to ask those good questions to each other you’ll also empower them
to take ownership of the dialogue. Model the good questions they should be asking, and constantly
encourage them to be curious about each other and show that with questions and you should get
there as the group gets more confident in dialogue.

QUESTION CHECKLIST

As a facilitator, you should ask questions that…

 Are open-ended
 Bring out people’s interests
 Don’t direct people too much or lead to a certain answer = neutral questions
 Provoke discussion
 Lead people to share personal information
 Lead people to recognize underlying assumptions
 Lead people to discuss the values and beliefs driving the conversation.

As a facilitator, you should avoid…

 Bias
 Leading questions
 Yes/no questions
 Cross-examination
 Asking too many questions
 Not taking into account participants’ questions
Next, go and read on how to construct good questions or go and do one of the activities to
practice the important art of asking good questions!

Practicing Asking Good Questions

With this challenge, you’ll get to practice asking good questions and try out what effect they can
have on discussion.

ONE: Think about your daily life and try to come up with instances when it would be helpful to
be able to ask good questions. It could be in the context of school, work, hobbies or being with
family and friends.

TWO: Then choose a conversation with someone during which you ask questions that:
 Help the person to share more
 Help the person to clarify what they mean and
 Help the person feel listened to

Think beforehand what those questions could look like. Often the simple why and how –
questions are the best!

THREE: During the discussion take a note of the following:

 What was the effect of those questions? Did something in the discussion change when
you asked them? What, and how?
 How did the person you were talking to feel when you asked your questions? How did
they respond?
 How did you feel about the discussion?

If you are doing this activity as a part of training be prepared to share your experience of asking
good questions with your group.

Preparing for Solo Practices

PREPARING FOR SOLO FACILITATION PRACTICE

In this training, everyone will have a chance to facilitate the group for 15 minutes. Before going
into the practice, think about how the practice will go:

START – when you start facilitating you should say hello to the group, give them a short
introduction what is going to happen in the practice session, and then kick-start the discussion with
your question.
MIDDLE - Facilitate the dialogue that follows your opening question! Try to demonstrate the use
of whatever facilitation tools are relevant or those that are given to you as the practice challenge.
In addition to this, your trainer will let you know a specific focus that they'd like you to emphasize
in your practice. Usually, this focus is what your group has most recently learned.
END – you should leave enough time for everyone to share their final, concluding comments. Then
it is your turn to close the discussion by doing an end-summary of the main things that were said
in the conversation (it can be brief!), and what the group achieved by the discussion. And lastly,
you should always remember to thank the participants for taking part in the conversation! You
should keep careful track of time, noting when you are about to finish to leave enough time for
closing, and then promptly finish after the allocated time.

GIVING FEEDBACK

We don’t only learn by facilitating ourselves. We can also learn by observing others facilitate, and
sharing those observations with the group. That's why we expect the whole group to share
feedback with each other after every practice.

In every practice where you are a participant you should take a note of:
1) General thoughts: what the facilitator did well and what they can improve on
2) Feedback on the tools or skills being practiced (like summaries, questions) and practice
challenges

Try to note down details on what where the facilitator interventions that did work well, and why
did they improve the discussion or group experience – and vice versa. The more details you can
notice the better you become in assessing dialogue and what makes it good or what prevents
dialogue from progressing.

The group’s feedback will be really, really important and useful for everyone to learn so let’s
ensure we provide each other the best feedback we can!

WHAT CAN I DO TO PREPARE?

You may select a topic for your practice. The topic should be directly related to either one of
the two Connect Program clusters: The relationship between Western and predominantly Muslim
societies or Global and social challenges.
Then come up with 3 questions: an opening question & two (possible) follow-up questions.

NOTE. You should select a topic that is both hot (provocative and likely to elicit some conflict)
and accessible (something on which everyone in the group is likely to have a position).
Please do not use introduction/ice-breaker questions, ex. tell us about your family or tell us about
your culture. Pretend the group already knows each other and are well past the first weeks of the
semester. Design the questions for a group already well along the group process and one that is
ready for heated, honest dialogue.

SHARING YOUR PRACTICE QUESTIONS

Please send these questions to your trainer - or to the whole group - two days before your next
session via email. You will then receive feedback so that your questions are ready to be used in
your practice. You can also give feedback on questions sent by your group members!