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Listening Process
Listening Process
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.
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.
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Critical listening or Evaluative listening:
Attentive listening:
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
Remember
Paraphrase
Note-Taking
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:
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.
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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.
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.