listening skills

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UNIT 10 LISTENING SKILLS I

Structure

10.0 Object~vc\

10.1 Introduction

10.2 What is Listening?

10.3 The Process of Listening and Good Listening Habits

10.4 Benefits of Listening

20.5 Poor Listening Habits

10.6 Active Listening I

10.7 Types of Listening

10.8 Barriers of Effective Listening

10.9 Let Us Sum Up I

10.10 Key Words

10.1 1 Terminal Questions

10.12 Further Readings

10.13 Exercise f

10.0 OBJECTIVES I

I After studying this unit, you should be able to:

explain the process and benefits of listening; I I

describe various types of listening;

discuss the good listening habits; and I

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explain barriers of effective listening. I I

1 0 . INTRODUCTION i According to John Marshall "Lisrening is as powerful a means of communication and % I I

influence as to talk well.," We were given two ears but only ofie mouth. This is ' 1 because God knew that listening was twice as hard as talking. People need to practice 1 and acquire skills to be good listeners, because a speaker. cannot throw you i information in the same manner that a dart player tosses a'dart at a passive dartboard. I

I Information is an intangible substance that must be sent by the speaker and received I

by an active listener. I

Many people are familiar with the scene of the child standing in front of dad, just bursting to tell him what happened in school that day. Unfortunately, dad has the paper in front of his face and even when he drops the paper downchalf-way, it is visibly apparent that he is not really listening. I

A student solved the problem of getting dad to listen from behind his protective paper wall. Her solution was to say, "Move your face, dad, when I'm talking to.you." This

. simple solution will force even the poorest listener to adopt effective listening skills because it captures the essence of good listening. I

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According to a recent survey conducted in a top blue chip company in India on how Listening Skills

members spent their time communicating, 63% of their time was spent in listening to one another, while reading took 4%, writing I I%, and speaking 22% of their time. Listening is an important aid to communication. Undoubtedly, if people are bad listeners, they will also make bad communicators. Listening is not the end result of the exercise. As Charles Gragg, Professor at Harvard, states, 'It can be said flatly the mere act of listening to wise statements and sound advice does little for anyone'. In this unit, you will learn about the meaning of listening, its process and benefits. You will further learn about poor listening habits, active listening, type of listening, and bamers of effective listening.

10.2 WHAT IS LISTENING?

Listening is the process of receiving messages from oral, verbal and non verbal communication and interpreting the same. It is necessary here to differentiate hearing and listening. Hearing is receiving the sounds through ears without evaluation and

I interpretation. Listening is a very broad concept. Hearing is just a part of listening. We listen through ears, eyes, mind and heart (empathy). Listening task not only the current input and also the matter that is already existing in the memory. Listening takes the total environment into consideration. Listening in a classroom is different to that of listening the same from the same teacher privately.

People feel listening is .very hard and in many instances people avoid to listen or try to break a listening process. Culturally listening is considered as an inferior status and sender a superior status. Therefore, every one try to be a sender most of the time. When some body is communicating a message, people try to obstruct and try to communicate something from their side. Infact, when you are listening you will gain many things. You can understand the other person totally and also you will find time to respond effectively. Therefore, one has to practice listening. Good listening skills are essential to become a good communicator.

10.3 THE PROCESS OF LISTENING AND GOOD LISTENING HABITS

Real listening is an active process that has three basic steps.

1. Hearing: Hearing just means listening enough to catch what the speaker is

t saying. For example, say you were listening to a report on zebras, and the speaker mentioned that no two are alike. If you can repeat the fact, then you

L have heard what has been said.

t 2. Understanding: The next part of listening happens when you take what you have heard and understand it in your own way. Let's go back to that report on zebras. When you hear that no two are alike, think about what that might mean.

b You might think, "May.be this means that the pattern of stripes is different for each zebra."

3. Judging: After you are sure you understand what the speaker has said, think about whether it makes sense. Do you believe what you have heard? You might think, "How could the stripes to be different for every zebra? But then again, the fingerprints are different for every person. I think this seems believable."

In the process of listening some of the tips for being a good listener are:

1. [* File contains invalid data I In-1ine.JPG *]Give your full attention on the person who is speaking. Don't look out the window or at what else is going on in the room.

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' I 2. Make sure your mind is focused, too. It can be easy to let your mind wander if

you think you know what the person is going to say next. hut you might be wrong! If you feel your mind wandering, change the pos~tion of your body and try to concentrate on the speaker's words.

3. Let the speaker finish before you begin to talk. Speakers appreciate having the chance to say everything they would like to say without being interrupted. When

i you interrupt, it looks like you aren't listening, even if you really are.

4. Let yourself finish listening before you begin to speak! You can't really listen if you are busy thinking about what you want to say next. I

5. Listen for main ideas. The main ideas are the most important points the speaker 1 wants to get across. They may be mentioned at the start or end of a talk, and repeated a number of times. Pay special attention to statements that begin with 1 phrases such as "My point is ..." or "The thing to remember is ..."

6. Ask questions. If you are not sure you understand what the speaker has said, just I

ask. It is a good idea to repeat in your own words what the speaker said so that you can be sure your understanding is correct. For example, you might say, "When you said that no two zebras are alike, did you mean that the stripes are different on each one?"

7. Give feedback. Sit up straight and look directly at the speaker. Now and then, i nod to show that you understand. At appropriate points you may also smile, frown, laugh, or be silent. These are all ways to let the speaker know that you ~ are really listening. Remember, you listen with your face as well as your ears!

Essentials to become a good listener

Maintain eye contact with the instructor. Of course you will need to look at your , I

notebook to write your notes, but eye contact keeps you focused on the job at hand and keeps you involved in the speech.

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Focus on content, not delivery. Have you ever counted the number of times a speaker clears hisher throat in a fifteen minute period? If so, you weren't focusing on 1 content.

Avoid emotional involvement. When you are too emotionally involved in listening, you tend to hear what you want to hear-not what is actually being said. Try to remain objective and open-minded.

Avoid distractions. Don't let your mind wander or be distracted by the person shuffling papers near you. If the room is too hot or too cold try to remedy that situation if you can. The solution may require that you dress more appropriately to the room

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Treat listening as a challenging mental task. Listening to a presentation of an Listening Skills

officer or a customer is not a passive act-at least it shouldn't be. You need to concentrate on what is said so that you can process the information into your notes.

Stay active by asking mental questions. Active listening keeps you on your toes. Here are some questions you can ask yourself as you listen. What key point is the speaker making? How does this fit with what I know earlier or what I experienced? How is this presentation organized?

Use the gap between the rate of speech and your rate of thought. You can think faster than the delivery of the speech. That's one reason your mind may tend to wander. All the above suggestions will help you keep your mind occupied and focused on what being said. You can actually begin to anticipate what the speaker is going to say as a way to keep your mind from straying. Your mind doe\ have the capacity to listen, think, write and ponder at the same time. .

10.4 BENEFITS OF LISTENING

Listelking is the highest compliment one human being can pay to another. Effective listening will benefit you as well as those around you. The following are some of the benefits of listening:

Listening increases accuracy: Better listening leads to a better recollection of important facts and issues, resulting in fewer miscommunications and mistakes.

Listening increases confidence: A superior, who listens subordinates well, will tend to have better self-esteem and self-image because helshe will get along better with others.

Listening can bring harmonic climate: Focusing on listening helps both the speaker and listener stay calm and helps them cool down-when dealing with a crisis or discussing an emotionally-charted topic or matter. We can understand each other more.

Listening helps in enhancing productivity: Productivity will be higher and problems will be solved more quickly if people working on solving problems are encouraged to explain problems and start working towards solutions finding before 'advice-giving' begins. It breaks up the barriers between people.

Listening minimizes the loss of potential revenues: Good listening habits of supervisors and other workers in an organization will cultivate effective environment that leads for qualitative services, which may result to get the loyalty of customer.

Listening prevents miscommunication of objectives and priorities among people: In any organization or institution miscommunication leads to improper utilization of the valuable time and scarce resources. Therefore, listening leads to failure in achieving the stated objectives. Listening can build a strong communication support to reach the goals of the organization or institution.

Listening also prevents time loss: Listening prevent the wastage of time, correct listening transmit proper information in the first time itself, so that the decision maker can take a decision in the next movement.

10.5 POOR LISTENING HABITS 1

Poor Listening Habits are not considered to be a static one. Because people are saying that when they have interest in that subject matter or they feel it is important to 127

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them, they generally pay attention. But here we are taking about in some conditions you have to pay attention to listen others even though you don't have interest or

i consider as priority. In that case we observe some poor listening habits.

The following list of observations made by the researchers is based on the study of human psychology.

Listening but not Hearing: Sometimes a person hears only to facts or details I

or to the .way they presented, and misses the real meaning. In general, hearing means an approach of causal attention towards the matter. For example hearing of radio news.

rn Re-hearing: It means that some people have intuition to say something on any I 4 matter of issue, so that they will listen until they get the opportunity to talk.

Interrupting: It is general habit we can observe in some of the people, these people do not wait for the complete meaning to determine, but interrupts so forcefully that the speaker stops in mid-sentence.

Felling Protective: This is a perception of a listener that helshe knows what the intention of the speaker or why something was said or for various reasons, they expect to be attacked and react protectively.

a Listening for a point of disagreement: Some listeners look to wait for getting a point to attack on the speaker. They just show interest on that dimension only.

a Lack of Positive opinion on subject matter or speaker: Some listeners start listening with lack of positive opinion on subject matter or speaker. They may feel at the end either they came across a dull topic by an efficient speaker or bright topic by an inefficient speaker. And also may criticize the deliver or appearance of the speaker.

10.6 ACTIVE LISTENING I

There are three types of active listening. They are discussed as below.

1. Paraphrasing: To paraphrase, one simply rewords what another individual has I

. said. For example, the speaker might say, "She was foolish to quit her job." The listener might respond, "I hear you saying that you believe she shouldn't have quit." What has occurred is paraphrasing where the listener has clarified what '1

the speaker has said. ,

Example: Speaker: It just wasn't the right thing for him to do. ,

Listener: You believe he shouldn't have done that.

2. Open questions: An open question explores a person's statement without I

requiring a simple "yes7' or "no" answer. The basic difference between an open question and a closed question is what they provide the person being asked. When you are asked an open question it helps you think more about an issue. A closed question will not do that. It may force you to answer before you are ready, or require a "yes" or "no" answer that doesn't allow more thinking about the issue. Closed questions close the door on further thought, while open questions 1 ; open the door. For example, the speaker might say, "I don't like my job." The i

listener might respond, "What is your job and why don't you like?' or, 'Tell me more about your feelings regarding your job."

Example: Speaker: I didn't like that show. 1

128 Listener: What didn't you like about it?

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3. Feeling Reflection: Feeling reflection is a response in which you express a Listening Skills

feeling or emotion you have experienced in reference to a particular statement. For example, the speaker might say, "I get sick of working so much overtime!" The listener might respond, "I hear you are angry aid resentful at being asked to work so much overtime." Feeling reflections are perhaps the most difficult active listening responses to make. Not only do you actively listen to what is being said

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but also you actively listen for what is being felt. When you make a feeling reflection, you are reflecting back what you hear of another's feelings. It is similar to paraphrasing; however, you repeat what you heard them feeling instead of what you heard them saying. To understand what individuals are feeling, you must listen to their words, to their tone of voice, and watch their body signals. By observing all three you can begin to guess their feelings.

Example: Speaker: I can't stand to be kept waiting!

Listener: You're pacing the floor and your tone of voice tells me that you feel this abuse of your time.

10.7 TYPES OF LISTENING Based on listening skills of the audience, listening can be classified into five types. They are discussed below:

1. Informative Listening : Informative listening or listening to understand is found in all areas of our lives. Informative listening refers to the situation where the listener's primary concern is to understand the message. Listeners are successful in so far as the meaning they assign to message is as close as possible to the meaning that the sender intended. For example a student listens to lectures or instructions from teachers - and what he/she learns depends on how well helshe listens. Three key variables related to informative listening are vocabulary, concentration and memory.

The precise relationship between vocabulary and listening has never been determined, but it is clear that increasing your vocabulary will increase your potential for better understanding.

C There are many reasons why people do not concentrate when listening. Sometimes listeners try to divide their attention between two competing stimuli. At other times, listeners are preoccupied with something other than the speaker

t of the moment. Sometimes listeners are too concerned with their own needs to concentrate on the message being delivered. Concentration requires discipline, motivation, and acceptance of responsibility.

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More specifically memory helps your informative listening to recall experiences and information necessary to function in the world around you.

2. Attentive Listening

Scholars have identitied communication into three listening skill clusters and the accompanying behaviour that are used by attentive listeners. When people listen attentively means that their goal is to understatid and remember what they are hearing. The two skills in the attentive listening are attention skills and following skills. Let us l e a them.

Attention Skills are a posture of involvement inclining one's body towards the speaker, facing the speaker squarely, maintaining an open body position, using facial expressions to reflect emotions back to the speaker, eye-contact and to eliminate distracting noises, movements etc.

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Retail Management Following Skills are keeping silent, giving another person time to decide Perspectives and Communication whether to talk and attending to show interest.

3. Relationship Listening: The purpose of relationship listening is either to help an individual or to improve the relationship between people. Therapeutic listening is special type of relationship listening. Therapeutic listening brings to mind situations where counsellors, medical personnel, or other professionals allow a trouble person to talk through a problem. It can also be used when you listen to a friend or an acquaintance and allow himiher to 'getting off the chest'. Although relationship listening requires you to listen for ipformation, the emphasis is on understanding the other person. Three attitudes are key to effective relationship: listening, attending, supporting, and empathizing.

In relationship listening, attending behaviour indicates that the listener is focusing on the speaker. Non-verbal cues are crucial in relationship listening; that is, your non-verbal behaviour indicates either that you are attending to the speaker or not. Eye contact is one of the niost important attending behaviour.

Many responses have a negative o r non-suppokive effect; for example, interrupting the speaker, changing the subject, turning the conversation towards oneself, and demonstrating a lack of concern for the other person. Wise relationship listeners know when to talk and when to just listen and they generally listen more than they talk.

Empathy is feeling and thinking with another person. The empathic listener is able to go into the world of another to see as the other sees, hear a s the other hears, and feel as the other feels.

4. Appreciative Listening: Appreciative listening includes listening for enjoyment. You will enjoy the speech because you like the style of the spaker.

The quality of appreciative listening depends upon three factors such as presentation, perception, and previous experience. Let us learn them.

Presentation: Presentation encompasses many factors - the medium, the setting, the style, and the personality of the presenter, to name just a few. Sometimes it is our perception of the presentation, rather than the actual presentation, that most influences our listening pleasure or displeasure.

Perception: Expectations play a large role in perception. Perceptions - and the expectations that drive them - have their basis in attitudes. Our attitudes determine how we react to, and interact with, the world around us. Perceptions influence all areas of our lives. Certainly, they are crucial determinants as to whether or not we enjoy or appreciate the things we hear. Obviously, perceptions also determine what we listen to in the fust place.

Previous Experience: Previous experience influences whether we enjoy listening to something. In some cases, we enjoy listening to things because we are experts in the area. Previous experience plays a large role in appreciative listening. For example, many people enjoy listening to their culture specific music ' as they have previous experience. The people from other cultures may not appreciate the music.

5. Discriminative Listening: By being sensitive to the changes in the speaker's rate, volume, force, pitch, and emphasis, the informative listener can detect even

" the slightest shift in nuances.

There are three things to consider to about this type of lidng those are hearing

30 ability, awareness of sound structure and integration of non-verbal cues. I

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People who lack the ability to hear well will have a greater difficulty in discriminating among sounds. Often this problem is more acute for some frequencies, or pitches, than others.

Native speakers become quite proficient at recognizing vowel and consonant sounds that mean like of awareness of sound that do or do not appear at the beginning, middle, or end of words. For example, a listener might hear 'this sandal' when what the speaker said was 'this handle'; but since English words do not bigin with 'sb', one would not mistake 'this be?' for 'this sbean'. Attention to the sound structure of the language will lead to more proficient discriminatory listening.

Integration of non-verbal cues, as stated earlier, action, nomaction, and vocal factors are important for understanding messages. Nowhere is attention to these factors more important than in effective discriminative listening. Words do not always communicate true feelings. The way they are said, or the way the speaker acts, may be the key to understanding the true or intended meaning.

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Check Your Progress 1

1 . Explain the problems of listening to customer complaints.

Listening Skills

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Retail \t,i.r~;~rcnlent 4. Mindset Attitudes: The listener's attitude towards the content or the speaker' Persperti\r\ dnd Comrnuni~etioo may lead to misinterpretation of message.

5. Language: Unfamiliar or unknown language, is a major barrier of listening. If a worM bas different meanings, listener finds it difficult to comprehend.

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10.9 LET US SUM UP

This lesson makes it evident that effective listening is an active process and not a passive one. Effective listening and attending skills can be applied to all of our interpersonal and business relationships. We will become more effective listeners as we practice at home, in our business dealings, and in other circles. One of the greatest gifts we can give another is that of truly listening.

There are different approaches to providing assistance. One helping model involves a three-step process: 1) alfentive listening, 2) asking effective diagnostic questions, and 3) offering a prescription, or solution. Slowly, or sometimes quite abruptly, people move from listening to prescribing. It is not uncommon, under some circumstances, for a person to focus on the third of these steps: offering advice (sometimes even when none is sought). In other situations, individuals may utilize the first two steps. Pe- most uncommon is an emphasis on listening alone.

Therefore, it is,often remarked that listening is not like hearing and that a listener not only hears through the ears but also through the eyes. Good listening skills are a prerequisite for success in one's professional career.

10.10 KEY WORDS

Effective Listening: It can be de defined as the art of hearing and understanding what someone is saying.

Feeling Reflection : your perception of the speaker's feelings based on words, tone, and body language.

Interpreting : The listener is engaged in the act of decoding the message during interpretation. It is at this stage that the listener is faced with multiple barriers.

Listening Barriers : The communications process is so complex that m y variables I exert themselves whenever we try to listen. These are referred to as listening barriers.

Open Question : A question that helps a person explore their feelings (rather than forcing a "yes," "no," or other certain answer).

Paraphrase : Restating what another person has said in your own words. I ; I

10.11 TERMINAL QUESTIONS I

1. What is an effective listening. Examine the process of listening and good listening habits. I

2. Discuss the importance of listening in communication.

3. What are the benefits of Listening. Disucss the poor listening habits.

4. Discuss the types of listening.

5. Listening is an art and like any other, art, it has to be cultivated consciously. 132 Discuss

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6. What are barriers of listening? How an individual can overcome them in listening process? Discuss.

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Listening Skills

Meenakshi Raman and Prakash singh, Business Communication, Oxford University Press.

Bovee Thill Schatzman, Business Communication Today, Persons Publications

Dam S. Aspects of Non-verbal Communication The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. XI, No. 2

Dam S, Ledbury R, White I. The Importance of Eye Contact in the Classroom The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. X, No. 8

Feldman R. S.& Rime (Eds.) Fundamentals of Non-verbal Behaviour CUP

Givens D. B The Non-verbal Dictionary of Gestures, Signs and Body Language Cues http://members.aol.comlnonverbal2/diction 1 .htm

Field J. Skills and Strategies: Towards a new Methodology for Listening ELT Journal Vol. 5212

Nolasco R. & Arthur L. Conversation (Activity 37) OUP (Good source of cartoons I

for gestures)

I. Listening Skills self evaluation: How well you and your partner listen is critical to effective communication. Effective communication is the life-blood of

I all good relationships.

complete the form at this time and, if your partner is working along with you, helshe should do so as well. Take the evaluations separately; review the scoring which

I follows on a page indicated at the bottom, and then get together to discuss the results.

grow.

INSTRUCTIONS

Think about how often you do the following and write in the number that you think matches that frequency?

On a scale from 1 to 5, give yourself a score as follows: 1 = never, 2 = rarely, 3 = sometimes, 4 = often, 5 = very often

Behuviour Score

I avoid staying on any one subject with my partner

I make assumptions about my partners' feelings or thoughts.

I respond to my partner's suggestions or opinions with, "Yes, but.. ."

I bring up past issues during current disagreements. _

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