LISTENING - PROCESS OF LISTENING - BARRIERS OF EFFECTIVE LISTENING - TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE LISTENING

 

LISTENING

Listening is the receiver’s activity in oral communication. As the speaker has the responsibility to make effort to be understood, so the listener has the responsibility to be attentive and to make effort to understand the meaning of the speaker. Listening is to take notice of and act on what someone says/ make an effort to hear something; be alert and ready to hear something.

 

STEPS OF LISTENING

The listening process involves five stages: receiving, understanding, evaluating, remembering, and responding.

 

THE RECEIVING STAGE

The first stage of the listening process is the receiving stage, which includes hearing and attending in. Hearing is the physiological course of enrolling sound waves as they hit the eardrum. As clear as it might appear, to really accumulate data through listening, we should initially have the option to actually hear what we're paying attention to.

 

THE UNDERSTANDING STAGE

The understanding stage is the stage during which the audience decides the unique context and meanings of the words that are heard through an interaction called decoding. Comprehension happens when the audience's determination of the context and meanings of the words matches the speaker's message. One strategy for better comprehension a speaker's meaning is to ask inquiries to fill in any openings you might have in the psychological remaking of the speaker's message.

 

THE EVALUATING STAGE

This phase of the listening process is the one during which the audience evaluates the data they got, both subjectively and quantitatively. Assessing permits the listener to size up what they heard and, if necessary, to start developing a response.

 

THE REMEMBERING STAGE

In the listening process, the remembering stage occurs as the listener categorizes and retains the information he or she has gathered from the speaker for future access. If the listener has been attending, understanding, and evaluating, chances are the result will be stored memory allowing the listener to record information about people, objects, and events for later recall. This happens both during and after the speaker’s delivery.

 

THE RESPONDING STAGE

The responding stage is the phase of the listening process where the listener gives verbal or potentially nonverbal responses in view of short-or long term memory.

 

BARRIERS OF EFFECTIVE LISTENING

* Distraction in your mind: If a person allows his mind to go on a joy-ride, thinking of the next vacation or the last week-end’s party, there will be no listening.

 

* Wandering attention: The listener’s mind goes off on various expeditions, returning now and then to check up on the speaker’s progress; if the hare gets quite lost or falls asleep, the tortoise will get too far ahead for the hare to catch up.

 

* Planning a Reply: The listener’s mind is busy planning what to say when the speaker stops. If the speaker makes a controversial statement which conflicts with your views you may get much excited and engage in mental argument. The speaker may even raise the point of objection and answer it, but the mentally busy listener does not hear it.

 

* Lack of interest: Not being interested in the concept can cause faulty listening. It might make you reject the speaker or the subject as dull or boring. A responsible listener must make an effort to be interested in the communication.

 

* Tendency to criticize: Criticizing the speaker’s appearance, manner, voice and so on, is another cause of poor listening, No doubt, style adds to the effectiveness of speech; but the content is always more important that the appearance or the style of the speaker.

 

* Excessive Note- taking: Trying to take down extensive notes is a sure way to disturb your listening and to miss some points. No matter how fast you write, you cannot write as fast as the words are spoken.

 

* Impatience: Lack of patience to listen is the commonest barrier to listening. We often have no patience to wait until another has finished speaking.

 

* Poor Health: Poor state of health reduces listening efficiency. No doubt, any physical pain demands all your attention in coping with it, and you cannot be expected to pay attention to work; it is better not to attend a meeting or a conference if you have a headache or some other physical pain.

 

*External noise and disturbance: If there is noise in the environment, it makes hearing difficult and distracts attention. If noise cannot be avoided, seek the speaker’s co-operation in overcoming this problem.

 

 

TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE LISTENING SKILLS

·        Maintain eye contact with speaker

·        Visualize what the speaker is saying

·        Limit judgments

·        Don’t interrupt

·        Wait for a pause to ask questions

·        Ask clarifying questions

·        Empathize with the speaker

·        Pay attention to nonverbal cues

·        Provide the speaker with feedback

·        Practice listening