Listening Skills

1
Listening Skills

• Acquiring
• Attending
• Understanding
• Responding

2
Acquiring Physical Process of Hearing

• Can be affected by
• Hearing Ability
• Noise or Barriers to Hearing
• Verbal/Nonverbal Disagreement in Messages
• Voice Distractions

3
Attending- Choosing to focus -consciously or
subconsciously- on the message being sent.

• Process
• Evaluate the situation (what is important)
• Adjust your attitude (expect interest)
• Turn off other thoughts and focus on
• Determine what you have to gain
• Ignore outside distractions (dont wander)
• Stay focused and maintain concentration

4
Understanding- decoding and interpreting the
message

• Strategies
• Build the base of words you use in speaking and
  the words you understand when listening to make
  decoding easier. (crossword puzzles)
• Use perception checks to clarify a senders use
  of words and their nonverbal cues.
• It is your responsibility to understand, not the
  other persons responsibility to make you
  understand. Dont expect the other person to
  adjust messages to fit your needs.

5
Responding- your verbal nonverbal reaction to a
message

• Process
• Emotional Response- Feelings
• Intellectual Response- Thoughts
• Analysis and Evaluation of your Response
• Encoding Choices relating your Response
• Delivering this Response- Feedback to Sender

6
Try this what do you remember when listening

1. On a sheet of paper write three separate lists of
   ten items each. Make the objects as unrelated as
   possible.
2. Read the first list slowly to your partner. (no
   repeating)
3. When finished, have your partner repeat as many
   items as they can.

7
Next Try This

1. Read your second list.
2. Now have them repeat as many items off the first
   list as they can. How many are remembered?
3. Finally, read the third list. This time have
   your partner repeat the item three times before
   moving to the next word.
4. After reading, have your partner repeat every
   word he or she can remember.

8
How was your listening your memory?

• Pretty tough exerciseYou might not have gotten
  the message for these reasons-
• You cannot or did not hear the words
• You did not understand the words
• You interpreted the words as uninteresting or
  irrelevant.
• Your attitude, knowledge, feelings, or culture
  may have encouraged misunderstanding.
• Your personality, bias, or past experience
  colored your reaction to the words.
• You have a short memory.

9
Characteristics of Listening

• You listen in three subconscious ways
• Actively- participating fully in the conversation
  providing feedback and remembering messages
• Passively- not participating fully in the
  conversation by not contributing feedback or
  remembering messages
• Impatiently- short bursts of active listening
  interrupted by noise and other distractions.
  Examples include anticipatory, defensive,
  combative, distracted

10
Kinds of Listening- Goals for Conversation

• Critical- comprehend ideas to achieve a goal
• Deliberative- comprehend to make a decision
• Empathic- comprehend to participate in a
  relationship
• Appreciative- comprehend to enjoy the message