Active Listening

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Active Listening
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ListeningA Neglected Art

• 50-80 of our lives
• communicating
• Half of that time listening
• Rarely, if ever taught how
• to listen

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Benefits for an Active Listener

• Promotes success
• Appreciates others
• Gains insights into people
• Learns more
• Clarifies misunderstandings
• Improves communication

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Self Assessment

• Think about your listening Skills
• Rate yourself as a listener
• Scale 0 - 100

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Assessment by Others

• Think of your friends,
• your boss, and your
• family members.
• How would they rate
• your listening skills?
• Scale of 0 - 100

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Results
The average self-rating for most individuals is
55. Only a very small percent of people rate
themselves in the 80-90 range. Many
individuals feel that their best friends would
give them the highest rating, and that their
boss would give them the second highest rating.
Ratings from family members cover a wide range
of scores, while the ratings that marriage
partners gave each other varied with the number
of years that they had been married The longer
the couple had been married, the lower the score
they assigned to their partner. What do these
scores tell us about our listening skills?
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Barriers to Listening

• Cultural differences and customs
• Communication skills
• Fear of others reactions
• Incorrect assumptions
• Invalid predictions of failure
• Misinterpretations

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Guidelines for Active Listening

• Set a purpose for listening
• Eliminate internal and external distractions
• Think of questions
• Listen for transitions
• Pay attention to verbal signposts such as
  repeated words and phrases
• Be alert for verbal and nonverbal cues

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Verbal listening skills

• Give feedback to verify communication
• Be aware of intentions behind words
• Use the differential rate between thought and
  speech

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Nonverbal listening skills

• Silence when listening
• Maintain eye contact
• Communicate openness/Suspend judgment
• Listen without response
• Acknowledgments conveyed

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Exercise in Active Listening

• Part I
• In this exercise you will use active listening
  skills
• to analyze a speech.
• Click the Sound button and listen to the speech
• by Chief Tecumseh
• Listen to the speech as you normally would
• listen.
• Then answer the following questions
  
  
• 1. What is the main point, theme, or
• message of the speech?
• 2. Summarize the words for the major
  parts
• of the speech.
• 3. What key phrases do you remember?
• 4. What questions would you ask the
  speech
• writer about the meaning of the
  speech?
• Post your responses to the Discussion Board in
  the area indicated.
• Click for next slide

Chief Tecumseh
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Exercise in Active Listening

• Part 2
• Now listen to the speech a second time and apply
  the active listening skills youve learned from
  this module
• Set a purpose for listening. Clear your mind
  of internal and external distractions. Suspend
  the natural tendency to judge what you hear. Pay
  attention to verbal signposts. Pay attention to
  words that are repeated often. Formulate
  questions in your mind, and search for the
  answers.
• 2. Answer the questions again. Did you respond
  differently to the words and message the second
  time? Did you hear more of the speech or
  understand more of the speech writers message
  the second time?

Chief Tecumseh