Chapter 3 Listening

Listening is the process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken or nonverbal messages.

Why listening is important??
Listening establishes a vital communication component and will serve both task and relationship functions. Effective listening yields a wide variety of benefits, including more effective learning, relating, influencing, playing and also helping.
(a) Listening enables us to acquire knowledge of others, the world, and ourselves, so as to avoid problems and make better-informed decisions.

(b) Attentive and supportive listening also can gain social acceptance and popularity.

(c) Listening can help us change the attitudes and behaviors of others.

(d) Listening can be enjoyable, we share pleasurable thoughts and feeling to others.

(e) Listening often is vital in efforts to assist and help others.

What is the process of listening??
Listening is a five-part process.

Stage 1: Receiving
-In this stage, we receive both the verbal and the nonverbal messages, which mean that not only the words but also gestures, facial expressions, variations in volume and rate and many more. In order to improve reception, we should focus attention on the speaker, look for feedback, avoid distractions, and maintain our role as listener.

Stage 2: Understanding

-Understanding involves learning what the means, not merely what the words mean. This understanding must take into consideration both the thoughts that are expressed and the emotional tone that accompanies them. To improve understanding, we can relate new information to what we already know. Besides, we must see the speaker’s message from the speaker’s point. In will be more perfect if we ask questions and rephrase the speaker’s ideas in our own words.

Stage 3: Remembering

Remember involves retaining the received message, a process that involves considerable reconstruction. Our memory reconstructs the messages we hear and read so it can be remembered for at least some period of time. We can identify the central ideas in a message, summarize the message in a simple ways, repeat names and key concepts and maybe ask questions when in doubt to improve our message memory.

Stage 4: Evaluating

Evaluating is a process of judging messages in some way. Evaluation process goes on without much conscious thought. We may try to evaluate the speaker’s underlying intent. In evaluation, we should try to resist evaluation until we fully understand the speaker’s point view. We should also assume that the speaker is a person of good-will, distinguish facts from inferences, and identify any biases, self-interests or prejudices.

Stage 5: Responding

That are two phases in responding stage, which is responses we make while the speaker is talking and responses we make after the speaker has stopped talking. In this stage, we give the feedback to the speaker. Responses made while the speaker is talking should be supportive and should acknowledge that we’re listening. For effective responding, we should be supportive and express support to the speaker, be honest and state our thoughts and feeling as our own.

What are the common barriers to listening??

(1)    Physical and mental barriers include hearing impairment, noisy environment that will influence us when we are listening.

(2)    Biases and prejudices against groups or individuals who are members of such groups, will invariably distort listening.

(3)    Lack of appropriate focus which mean there are many influences that can lead us astray.

(4)    Premature judgment is assuming we know what the speaker is going to say and that there is no need to really listen.

Styles of Effective Listening

There are five dimensions, which is:

(1)    Emphatic and objective listening, involves the degree to which the listener focuses on feeling what the speaker is feeling versus grasping the objective message.

(2)    Nonjudgmental and critical listening, which mean that the listener listen to the speaker first for understanding and thus evaluates what is said.

(3)    Surface and depth listening meaning that the listener has to do with the extent to which the listener focuses on literal or obvious meanings versus hidden or less obvious meanings.

(4)    Polite and impolite listening dimension refers to the presence or absence of civility and courtesy.
5)    Active-inactive dimension involves the extent to which the listener reflects back and expresses support for the speaker.

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Listening, Culture, and Gender

Listening is also influenced by a wide range of cultural factors, such as differences in language and speech, nonverbal behaviors, credibility criteria, and feedback approaches. Besides, gender also one of the factor which influence effective listening.