LAB ACTIVITY 6

LISTENING SKILLS

Having effective listening skills means being able to display interest in the topic discussed
and understand the information provided. In today’s society, the ability to communicate
effectively is becoming increasingly important. Although the ability to speak effectively is a
highly sought-after skill, developing effective listening skills is often not regarded in the
same respect.
In fact, listening is just as important as speaking. Being a good listener helps solve problems,
resolve conflicts, and improve relationships. In the workplace, effective listening contributes
to fewer errors, less wasted time, and improved accuracy. Effective listening helps build
friendships and careers.

THEORETICAL ASPECTS:

Do:
 Maintain eye contact
 Limit your talking
 Focus on the speaker
 Ask questions
 Manage your emotions
 Listen with your eyes and ears
 Listen for ideas and opportunities
 Remain open to the conversation
 Confirm understanding, paraphrase
 Give nonverbal messages that you are listening (nod, smiles)
 Ignore distractions

Don’t:
 Interrupt
 Show signs of impatience
 Judge or argue mentally
 Multitask during a conversation
 Project your ideas
  Think about what to say next
 Have expectations or preconceived ideas
 Become defensive or assume you are being attacked
 Use condescending, aggressive, or closed body language
 Listen with biases or closed to new ideas
 Jump to conclusions or finish someone’s sentences

PRACTICAL ASPECTS:

10 Tips to be a good listener

 Try to be still as you are listening.

 Try to ignore distractions.
 Make eye contact with the speaker.
 Try to pinpoint the point of view of the speaker.
 Try not to daydream. Refocus when you catch yourself thinking about
something else.
 Try not to think about what you are going to say next when another person is
talking. Concentrate on the speaker.
 Observe body language (including your own).
 Learn how to paraphrase what you have heard.
 Learn how to ask for clarification if you don’t understand. Don’t pretend to
understand.
 Avoid interrupting (unless you are practising how to interrupt politely). Take
notes if it is not distracting to the speaker.

For the Lab activity, I listened to this short audio and answered the questions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6aYx_KKM7A

1. What is React?

 React is a front-end JavaScript library developed by Facebook in 2011.

 It follows the component based approach which helps in building reusable UI
components.
 It is used for developing complex and interactive web and mobile UI.
 Even though it was open-sourced only in 2015, it has one of the largest
communities supporting it.

2. List some of the major advantages of React.

 Some of the major advantages of React are:

  It increases the application’s performance
 It can be conveniently used on the client as well as server side
 Because of JSX, code’s readability increases
 React is easy to integrate with other frameworks like Meteor, Angular, etc
 Using React, writing UI test cases become extremely easy

3. What is JSX?

JSX is a shorthand for JavaScript XML. This is a type of file used by React which
utilizes the expressiveness of JavaScript along with HTML like template syntax. This
makes the HTML file really easy to understand. This file makes applications robust
and boosts its performance.

LEARNING OUTCOME:

The session was interesting and very helpful for me in learning various aspects
of a Listening Skills.