Effective Communication Skills 2

Lecture 2
Active Listening
 Lecture Overview

1. Understanding the term ‘listening’ and its importance

2. Stages of listening
3. Importance of listening
4. Types of listening
5. Barriers to active listening
6. How to improve listening
What is LISTENING?
• Hearing is merely physical
stimuli entering your ears.

• To listen, you need:

- to pay attention to the stimuli

- to understand the stimuli

- to retain the information

• The stimuli can be both verbal

and non-verbal

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How do we LISTEN?

Joseph DeVito (2000)

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How do we LISTEN?
The Five stages of listening:
•Receiving - this process begins when sound waves enter the brain
(Hearing/Attending)
•Understanding - the listener assigns meaning to the message
(Learning/Deciphering meaning)
•Remembering- the listener retains this information (Recalling/Retaining)
•Evaluating- judgments are made (Judging/Criticizing)
•Responding- the listener then responds by offering feedback immediately
or later.(Answering/Giving feedback)

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 How do we LISTEN?
Sun Sea Holiday sand

Breeze swimming slippers boats

Sunbathing surf coconuts bikini

Laughter hot cocktails tan

Lounge Chairs Towels sunglasses

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Importance of LISTENING as a
skill Effective listening increases:
• Your ability to help others

• Your social acceptance an

popularity.

• Your knowledge of others

• Your power and influence

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 We Listen HALF,
Understand QUARTER,
Think ZERO
and React DOUBLE

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 Types of Listening
There are several types of listening. Let us briefly look at the traits of FIVE
types of listening:
i.e. active, passive, non-listening, marginal/selective listening and
evaluative/critical listening.
•Active Listening:
Active listeners involve themselves actively in the communication
process by keenly listening not only to the message but also the way it has
been delivered.
This means that they will take note of the verbal content along with its
nonverbal subtexts.
They will not hesitate to seek clarifications, ask questions, show their
approval by nodding, and summarize to clearly indicate that they follow
what the speaker is saying.
Active listening is two-way communication between parties.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
i3ku5nx4tMU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=U43MQP4bIic
 Types of Listening
• Passive Listening:
 Passive listeners superficially hear the words of the message but are not
paying attention to the nuances, inner meanings, nonverbal subtexts
involved in communication. As a result, they do not understand in depth
what is being said.
 They allow someone to speak, without interrupting or seeking
clarifications. They do not make notes, nod their head in approval, nor
maintain eye contact. Instead, they keep themselves idle and do not get
much involved in the communication activity.
 Since passive listeners keep their minds closed and are not really listening,
communication with them can be a challenge.
 Types of Listening
• Non-Listening:
 The non-listeners do not listen at all because they are genuinely disinterested
in the subject.
 These people pretend to follow the speaker while they are actually
preoccupied with something else. So, they will fake attention, but they could
easily be recognized by their blank stare, impatience and nervous mannerisms.
 They might be suffering from rigidity of thinking and egotism. Their complete
insensitivity makes them incapable of understanding others.
 In fact, they do not even make an effort to hear what the other person is
saying.
 Types of Listening
• Marginal /Selective Listening:
 Marginal/selective listeners may be impatient to listen to the main ideas. These
listeners don’t want the whole story; they just want to know the pertinent facts.
They want the information to be clear and to the point.
 They are time-oriented listeners and concerned with efficiency. They will not have
the patience to sit through complex technical presentations and may jump to
conclusions.
 Sometimes these listeners may hear only what they want to hear, typically
misinterpreting what the other person says based on the stereotypes and biases that
they have.
 It is risky to communicate with marginal/selective listeners because they may
misunderstand the message.
 Types of Listening
• Evaluative or Critical Listening:
 Evaluative listeners literally assess the verbal content based on words,
rather than paralinguistic or non-verbal cues.
 Generally, they use logic to understand the content, hence, they
distance themselves emotionally from the subject. As a result, they do
show little empathy or sensitivity to the speaker.
 They evaluate the content from different perspectives and angles and
want to know the facts and supporting evidence. They prefer credible
sources.
The Most Effective Listener
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Source: Wall Street Journal, Jan 2015
Source: Wall Street Journal, Jan 2015
 Source: Wall Street Journal, Jan 2015
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Barriers to Effective LISTENING

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 Barriers to Active Listening
• Nonetheless, there are some barriers which impede one’s efforts to become an active listener.
• Communication theorists list EIGHT fundamental barriers to active listening:

 Lack of language proficiency

 External distractions
 Disinterestedness
 Speaker distractions / Pre-judging the speaker
 Personal perspective
 Diffidence
 Over-enthusiasm/Intolerance
 Deep-rooted beliefs
 Barriers to Active Listening
Lack of language proficiency
• Sufficient language proficiency is required to fully understand the
speaker. Despite one’s best efforts to intensely participate in the
communication process (a lecture delivery, for instance), inadequate
language proficiency will act as a deterrent.
• Weak language proficiency, lack of technical vocabulary, combined
with fear and shyness, will hinder the progress of learning a new
subject.
 Barriers to Active Listening
External distractions
• Physical distractions or things in your work environment that divert
your attention away from the person with whom you’re
communicating.
• It results in partial listening where people indulge themselves in
multitasking and allow themselves to be distracted easily.
• For instance, when talking on the phone, some listeners may flip
through a book, or surf the internet due to which they fail to pay full
attention to the speaker.
• Because the mind is involved in too many things, important details
are missed in partial listening.
 Barriers to Active Listening

Disinterestedness
–Lack of interest in the subject prevents one to pay complete attention.
–Students, for instance, may remember a pop song more easily than the
name of an author.
–So, due to disinterestedness in the subject, during a conversation, the
listener may focus on other interesting subjects.
Barriers to Active Listening
Speaker distractions / Pre-judging the speaker
–Any speaker peculiarities or distinctive characteristics that get in the
way of hearing the speaker’s message.
–These may include perceptions by the listener of the speaker such as
culture, gender, age, communication style and job role.
–Even the status of the speaker, depending on whether it is high or low,
can affect the way the listener perceives the speaker.
Barriers to Active Listening
Personal perspective
–One of the major causes of poor listening is due to the listener’s
emotional, mental and psychological mindset. If there is any dislike for
the speaker and disapproval of his/her ideas, the listener may reconstruct
or distort the message.
–Priorities or personal “baggage” that people carry with them may affect
the listening process. This may include preformed solutions in the mind
of the listener which occupy their mind when the speaker talks about a
problem.
–When there is negativity, the listener may show animosity, undermine
the speaker’s capabilities, or disagree with the speaker’s viewpoints. The
listener may even go to the extent of ridiculing the speaker in public.
Barriers to Active Listening
Diffidence
–Some listeners suffer from a defeatist attitude. They underestimate
their self-capabilities and decide in advance that they cannot
understand what they are going to hear.
–Mostly, new students and participants in a conference suffer from this
kind of self-diffidence and affect the listening process.
Barriers to Active Listening
Overenthusiasm/Intolerance
–There are listeners who often become over enthusiastic and intolerant
and start supplying gaps in the speaker’s ideas.
–This generally comes out of impatience from the listener’s side who
finds the speaker slow in communicating his/her ideas.
–So the listener advances the questions or interferes the speaker
preventing him/her to finish the talk at his/her own pace. In the process,
the listener assumes the speaker’s flow of thoughts in advance and
impedes his/her own mind from active listening.
Barriers to Active Listening
Deep-rooted beliefs
–Sometimes one tends to become close-minded due to one’s own deep-rooted
beliefs and convictions.
–Socio-culturally embedded beliefs and convictions become so strong and firmly
rooted in one’s minds and act as barriers to new thoughts and fresh ideas.
–For instance, if one has a deep rooted conviction that females know more than
males about issues relating to parenting infants and child care, then the person will
not be able to openly listen to a talk on this topic delivered by a male speaker.
–Such deep-rooted beliefs lead to superficial listening and cause unsubstantiated
disagreement with the speaker’s stance and view point.
How to improve your
LISTENING?
Watch

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