Listening Process

Are you listening:

All of us spend most of our time listening to others. If we listen to others

carefully and respond appropriately, there may not be as many problems as we have now.
Perhaps we don’t listen to others carefully more often and this failure results in
appropriate responses and resultant problems. It is very important to be good listener to
be successful in life.

Hearing and Listening – two different acts:

Hearing and listening are two different distinct acts. Hearing is an act which
happens unconsciously. When there is a loud noise, you tend to hear without any effort,
whereas listening requires conscious efforts of the listener. When we celebrate our
national days such as the Republic Day and Independence Day, we may hear several
things broadcast over the radio but when the announcement is made ‘Please standby for
an important announcement’, someone around you goes round and alerts everyone else to
maintain silence to listen intently to the President’s Speech, for instance. Hearing is
unconscious effort and an involuntary act. But listening is a conscious attentive act.

The process of listening:

When we listen to someone, we listen to the speech sounds and try to make sense of
them. We recognize and understand the sound patterns and the phonological differences
in the human utterances. Then we interpret the messages and respond to the messages.
When we decode the message, we are expected to decode the message the way the
speaker wanted us to understand the message when he encoded the message.

Types of Listening:

We listen to others for a number of reasons ranging from listening to classroom

lectures to listening to good music. Let us list the types of listening:

Appreciative listening:

The very act is oriented to provide a little relaxation, pleasure and enjoyment. We
listen to the recorded music, jokes, anecdotes, stories, etc.

Empathetic listening:

When we listen to our friends who may want to find a vent to their feelings and
emotions, we provide moral support listening to them evincing a keen interest towards
finding solutions to their problems.
 1
.

.
Critical listening or Evaluative listening:

We listen to messages of any kind. But when we listen critically to accept or

reject the message, we keep evaluating the message as we continue to listen to the
message. We evaluate the message critically and then decide to accept or reject the
message. When we listen to the politician or a salesperson, we critically listen and
evaluate the message and respond appropriately.

Attentive listening:

We need to be attentive when listening to classroom lectures, participate in group

discussions, conduct interviews and meetings. The listener cannot afford to miss any of
the details. For instance, when we seek assistance to be guided to a place, we listen to
attentively lest we should miss some important details.

Attentive listening results in productive interaction. When we listen the

instructions of our boss, or his suggestions we engage ourselves in attentive listening.

Characteristics of a good listener

• A good listener at once gets interested in listening to the speaker and

concentrates listening to him.
• A good listener does not get distracted by any other thing.
• A good listener never allows his mind to wander.
• A good listener is not only receptive but makes the speaker feel at ease.
• A good listener does not have a predetermined notion about the speaker.
• A good listener does not judge the speaker by his earlier record.
• A good listener is willing to receive and he is receptive all the time.
• A good listener is never impatient.
• A good listener always empathizes with the speaker.
• A good listener is always smiling and never gets impatient and angry.
• A good listener always takes down notes except during informal discussion
session.
• A good listener takes note of the body language of the speaker and responds
non-verbally.
• A good listener is always dynamic and contributes to the active listening
process.
Listening and Note-taking:

Anyone needs to master the skill of note-taking. Only practice makes us perfect.
When we listen to lectures, we cannot take down everything, we hear. We have to listen
carefully and filter the facts we receive. Usually, we follow a simple five step
procedure while taking down notes.

Listen
- Listen to the verbal message following the characteristic traits of a good listener.
- Identify the modes/styles of presentation namely, a conversational style, a reading style,
a formal style, an informal style and so on.
- Find out the meanings of words from the context.
- Identify the key expressions of the topic of the lecture.
- Follow closely the rhythmic part of stress and intonation.
- Identify the non-verbal cues/elements.

Filter

- Take down only key words/phrases.

- Avoid redundancy/repetition.
- Follow signposts to identify the main points and trace the organizational structure.
- Identify the relationship among various parts of the lecture.
- Note down only key-words and phrases.

Remember

Remembering what we hear is the third activity involved in listening.

Unfortunately, we retain little of what we hear. We remember many of the comments we
hear in casual conversation for only a short time-perhaps for only a few minutes or hours.
Some we forget almost as we hear them, According to authorities, we even quickly forget
most of the message in formal oral communication, remembering only a fourth after two
days.

Paraphrase

- Listen to the lecture and try to rephrase restructure/rephrase suitably.

- Note down only main points.
- Do not write complete sentences.

Note-Taking

- Jot down important points.

- Employ appropriate reduction devices (make a clause, a phrase and a phrase, a word).
- Use numbers to clarify and arrange information in a logically presentable way.
- Develop the culture of using note-cards.
3.

Barriers to Effective Listening:

During the process of communication, there can be any number of factors, which
will act as barriers. The barriers to the listening process may be from the listener, speaker,
the medium, the message itself, the situation or the context or any number of factors.

Barrier
s to effective listening can be classified under four categories:

Physical: physical factors such as noise, physical discomfort, physical distractions,

physical disturbances and distance can affect the process of listening.

Psychological: psychological barriers can affect the process of communication.

Suppose someone is emotionally upset, the emotional disturbance can result in anger,
frustration, sadness, fear, disappointment, feelings of hatred and hostility. Consequently
a psychologically surcharged person may not be in a normal mood to receive/respond in
any context. Feelings of discomfort can become virtually a barrier.

Cultural barriers: in a cosmopolitan society and in the age of globalization, we will

have to live with people belonging to several communities who belong to different
cultures and practice different value systems. The listener must interpret the meaning
taking into account the cultural nuances, community norms and other set of values.
Otherwise, the cultural difference in perception will act as a definite barrier.

Improving your Listening ability:

Improving your listening is largely a matter of mental conditioning-of

concentrating on the activity of sensing. You have to improve it, for listening is a willful
act. If you are like most of us, you are often tempted not to listen or you just find it easier
not to listen. We human beings tend to avoid work, and listening may be work.

After you have decided that you want to listen better, you must make an effort to
pay attention. How you do this will depend on your mental makeup, for the effort
requires disciplining the mind. You must force yourself to be alert, to pay attention to the
word spoken.

In addition to working on the improvement of your sensing, you should work on

the accuracy of your filtering. To do this, you will need to think in terms of what words
mean to the speakers that use them rather than what the dictionary says they mean or
what they mean in your mind. You must try to think as the speaker thinks-judging the
speaker’s words by the speaker’s knowledge, experiences, viewpoints, and such.

4
.

Like improving your sensing, improving your filtering requires conscious effort.

Remembering what you hear also requires conscious effort. Certainly, there are
limits to what the mind can retain: but authorities agree that few of us come close to
them. By taking care to hear what is said and by working to make your filtering process
give you more accurate meanings to the words you hear, you add strength to the
messages you receive. The result should be improved retention.

The Ten Commandments of Listening:

1. Stop talking. Unfortunately, most of us prefer talking t listening. Even when we

are not talking, we are inclined to concentrate on what to say next rather than on
listening to others. So you must stop talking before you can listen.

2. Put the talker at ease. If you make the talker feel at ease, he or she will do a
better job of talking. Then you will have better input to work with.

3. Show the talker you want to listen. If you can convince the talker that you
are listening to understand rather than oppose, you will help create a climate for
information exchange. You should look and act interested. Doing things like
reading, looking at your watch, and looking away distracts the talker.

4. Remove distractions. The things you do also can distract the talker. So don’t
doodle, tap with your pencil, shuffle papers, or the like.

5. Empathize with the talker. If you place yourself in the talker’s position and
look at things from the talker’s point of view, you will help create a climate of
understanding that can result in a true exchange of information.

6. Be patient. You will need to allow the talker plenty of time. Remember that not
everyone can get to the point as quickly and clearly as you. And do not interrupt.
Interruptions are barriers to the exchange of information.
7. Hold you temper. From our knowledge of the workings of our minds, we know
That anger impedes communication. Angry people build walls between each
other. They harden their positions and block their minds to the words of others.

8. Go easy on argument and criticism. Argument and criticism tend to put the
talker on the defensive. He or she then tends to “clam up” or get angry. Thus,
even if you win the argument, you lose. Rarely does either party benefit from
argument and criticism.

9. Ask questions. By frequently asking questions, you display an open mind and
show that you are listening. And you assist the talker in developing his or her
message and in improving the correctness of meaning. 5.

10. Stop talking! The last commandment is to stop talking. It was also the first. All
the other commandments depend on it.