...average of 70% of their time engaged in some sort of communication, of this an average of 45% is spent listening compared to 30% speaking, 16% reading and 9% writing.” (Adler, R. et al. 2001). Based on the research of: Adler, R., Rosenfeld, L. and Proctor, R. (2001). Interplay: the process of interpersonal communicating (8th edn), Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt. In this fast paced, technology-based world where the need to communicate is more important than ever, we all seem to be in so much of a hurry, that we do not really take the time to listen to what people are saying. Listening can help improve accuracy, solve problems, resolve conflict, and build relationships. As simple as good listening seems, through poor listening, we can misinterpret and misunderstand, which can cause confusion, frustration, and even conflict in both our professional and personal relationships. In a study of over 8,000 people employed in businesses, hospitals, universities, the military and government agencies, results showed that most people responding felt that they communicate as effectively or more effectively than their co-workers. However, research shows that the average person listens at only about 25% efficiency. Interestingly, while most people tend to agree that effective listening is an important skill, they do not feel the need to improve the level of their listening skills. (Haney, W. V. 1979). Despite the date of this study, it reflects an important statistic, one...
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...Listening: An Essential Part of Communication Skills I. Introduction: Communication comes from the Latin word communis, meaning commonness. It is a process wherein knowledge, ideas, information, attitudes, and feelings are transmitted (Padilla et al, 2003 p. 3). Communication is a two-way process by which information is changed between or among individuals through a common system of symbols, sign and behaviour (Martinez, p1). It is an essential function of civilization. Basically it consists of writing, reading, speaking and listening. Listening is a skill that has to be practiced and learned. Among the four skills of communication, listening is the most ignored, yet it takes up the greatest amount of time in the study of these four skills (Igoy, 2004 p 85). Listening like any other skill, has to be practiced because we listen everyday and we think we know how to do it. Yet, like any other skill, we can learn to do it better and continue to improve our listening skills throughout our lives (Diaz, 2005, p. 28). At the end of the communication line is an indispensable element – the listener, the active participation of whom either makes or unmakes communication. How good at listening this element is, spells a big difference in the communication process. At this point, it part, comes though a constant awareness and study of how listeners respond. This is especially so if we consider the axiom that meaning is altogether in the mind of the listener. II. 1. What is the...
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...ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION – EMPATHY & ACTIVE LISTENING WEEK 8 1 EMPATHY - CONFLICT RESOLUTION 2 EMPATHY “Feeling into”, seeing how it is through another's eyes Experiencing the feelings of another without losing ones own identity 3 EMPATHY The emphatic person senses the other person’s bewilderment, anger, fear or love “as if” it were his own feeling, but he does not lose the “as if” nature of his own involvement. ~ Robert Bolton, People Skills, 1987 4 EMPATHY Some of the things that help you to feel empathy towards another person: Trust Attentiveness Appropriate Responses Shared Experiences Respect Support 5 EMPATHY Some of the things that make it difficult to feel empathy towards another person: Inattentiveness Lack of interest Lack of respect 6 EMPATHY Key elements of using empathy: Separate our responses from those of the person we are empathizing; Retain objectivity and distance; Be alert to cues about feelings offered to us by the other person; & Communicate to people our feeling for them and our understanding of their situations 7 EMPATHY Some things a person can do to help in the communication process: Stop talking! Remember if you are talking, you are not listening Ask questions Using “mms” and “ahs” to encourage them Maintain good eye contact Display attentive and welcoming body language 8 EMPATHY Some things...
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...Speaking Active Listening Show Transcript In order to listen well, you must concentrate. You might say, "yea, yea, I know. . ." but then you are falling into the trap that was just demonstrated in the video above. We all make choices about what we will and will not truly listen to. When you are required to listen to information that is necessary for your studies, your work, or the safety of others, you need to listen critically, carefully choosing what to remember. In order to do this well, you should take notes on what the key ideas are. Not quite sure how to do that? Read on! Objectives * Identify the main idea of short presentations. * Identify characteristics of active listening. Remember, listening is an active, rather than a passive, skill. It has certain physical and mental characteristics. Consider carefully each of the following questions in order to evaluate your listening skills. If you are unsure about how to answer some of them, ask your family, your friends, or your teacher to help. They may be more aware of your listening problems than you are. * Do you daydream when others are talking? * Do you take notes when someone is giving you information that you may need later? If not, do you always remember this information? * Do you tend to shut out people or ideas that you do not like? * Do you ask questions when someone says something you don't understand? * Have you ever missed part of an assignment because you were not listening? * Do...
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...Harvey (2006:160) Listening is the first communication skill we practice as infants, and from listening to other people around us, we learn how to speak. We listen far more than we speak, read or write; possibly up to 75% of the time, yet it is a communication skill we are not formally taught. We can close our eyes and mouth and can leave the keyboard or pen alone, but our ears are constantly open. We are frequently told to ‘listen up’, that we ‘weren’t listening ‘, that we ‘never listen’, but we are seldom taught how to listen effectively. What make an effective manager? To be an effective manager, you have to be a good listener. Manager must possess three listening components: Hearing, Understanding and Retaining. Hearing is the ability to receive sounds. Understanding is the ability to make sense of what we hear. While retaining is the ability to remember what has been heard. Listening to an individual is the most important attribute of an effective manager. Manager who listen, earn employees respect and loyalty. They discover important things about how the business is going. Manager can show effective listening when employees or customers are communicating with them by their body language, facial expression and through eye contact. A manager who doesn’t listen is not a good communicator. As a manager you need to listen, to benefit from your employees thoughts then direct his or her thought to the mission, vision or goal. If the employee feels the manager hears theirs...
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...EFFECTIVE LISTENING What Effective Listening Is ? Effective listening is actively absorbing the information given to you by a speaker, showing that you are listening and interested, and providing feedback to the speaker so that he or she knows the message was received. Delivering verbal communication, like writing a newsletter, involves trying to choose the right words and nonverbal cues to convey a message that will be interpreted in the way that you intend. Effective listeners show speakers that they have been heard and understood. "We were given two ears but only one mouth, because listening is twice as hard as talking." Sources of Difficulty by the Speaker • Voice volume too low to be heard. • Making the message too complex, either by including too many unnecessary details or too many issues. • Getting lost, forgetting your point or the purpose of the interaction. • Body language or nonverbal elements contradicting or interfering with the verbal message, such as smiling when anger or hurt is being expressed. • Paying too much attention to how the other person is taking the message, or how the person might react. Sources of Difficulty by the Listener • Being preoccupied and not listening. • Being so interested in what you have to say that you listen mainly to find an opening to get the floor. • Formulating and listening to your own rebuttal to what the speaker is saying. • Listening to your own personal beliefs...
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... 1 Listening Audience! Brandon Picone COM425 Kristine Clancy Nov 8, 2014 FINAL PAPER 2 Listening Audience! At the root of effective listening is appreciating the difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is merely a physiological process; whereas, listening is an interpretive process (Schnell, Jim 1995).We can always learn something from listening to someone. Humans are special in that way, and as listeners, we cannot have that attitude like we know everything. Someone will always have a difference of opinion, it just matters how you will use the information. Some people may think that listening is a waste of time, but in actuality, listening is never a waste of time. The more we pay attention and push ourselves to be active listeners, the better the communication will be with our peers, leaders, employees and customers. It is very important that we understand both how we listen, as well as who is speaking to us in order to become more efficient listeners. There are many different types of listening skills these days. We have to understand how listening works, in order to improve our listening skills and to be a more effective listener. We must be actively engaged when listening, so that we can understand what is being said. We have to make sure that we listen to verbal and non-verbal communication, in order to get the full spectrum of what is being communicated to us. Here are some common listening types: active, inactive...
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...TRAINING SCENARIOS “Active Listening” | SCENARIO DESCRIPTION | |Learners will participate in a listening exercise to practice the skill of active listening. | | | |Instructions: | |Present the handout “Active Listening” to the class. Review techniques listed. | |Begin with a discussion about what active listening is and what active listening is not. (Active listening is being non-judgmental, with the | |emphasis on listening and not solving the issue or problem. It is being attentive and respectful to the person talking. It involves | |listening closely, paraphrasing back to the speaker what you hear, clarifying what you think you hear, etc. Active Listening is not planning | |your response to what the person is saying. It is not day dreaming while they are talking. It is not solving their problems or giving advice.)| |Divide the class into groups of three and have each group decide who will be the active listener, who will role-play the scenario, and who...
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...Public Speaking 210-50 Informative Speech September 7, 2011 Chapter 5: Listening to Speeches Listening is an important part of the communication process. It is stated as being the active processing of the information we receive. How well you listen has a major impact on the quality of your relationships with others. Listening is a skill which everyone can benefit from improvement. A great deal of our communication process is devoted to listening. Chapter five focuses on improving your listening skills with suggestions and principles and also identifies barriers that keep people from listening at peak efficiency. In this essay, we will go over all key points and terms that will help you become an effective listener. To become an effective listener we first need to develop certain skills that can be used in stages to guide us through the process. Effective listening involves selecting, attending to, understanding, and remembering the meaning behind the message. The goal as a public speaker is to develop and deliver a speech that audience members will listen and respond to. (62) Although it seems easy, there are barriers that can hinder a speech from being received by the listener. These barriers are referred to as listening barriers. Listening barriers are created when we fail to select, attend to, or understand a message or remember what was said. (62) There are many listening barriers that can vary depending on the individual; however, the book has narrowed...
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...Effective Listening Strategies Paper LaDonna Landry BSHS 385 Audra Stinson June 15, 2015 Effective Listening Strategies Paper Thinking and acting in ways that connect you to a person that is speaking is attentive listening. The benefits of listening are codependent and synergistic not many people are attentive listeners but if they can possess the skill of listening there are many benefits. Some benefits are respect, airtime, information, increased likability, better relationship and clarity. When you are giving you full listening attention you are showing respect and in turn gain the respect of the speaker. If you listen first to the speaker usually the speaker will return the favor. I say usually because it depends upon the individual and what may be going on with them such as self-absorption, stress or other reason that they might not lend their ear as the listener has done. Attentive listening helps to get information so that you can learn more about the person. The more you know about the individual the more you can do to assist them. People like to be listened to the more you listen to people the more you like them and the more you listen to the person talking the more they began to like you just for the fact that you listened. Listening creates a feeling of goodwill in relationships. If you are to listen to others problems non-judgmentally this gives the individual a chance to hear themselves and possibly find their own solution to their problem. Listening...
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...Type I, reflex listening A very basic kind of listening involving little more than hearing and a recognition that some noise has come to you. Reflex listening is very common in social settings, classrooms, public settings, and in concerts. Reflex listening involves primarily “guidance” noises where you can move out of danger, approach and engage prospective pleasant experiences, but stay tuned to hear other important messages should they occur. Type II, content listening This type of listening is the one most frequently referred to when teachers and managers (leaders) criticize “poor” listening. Learning in school, receiving instructions on the job, getting information about what to do and how to run your life, are all involved in the content level. You listen to learn and to understand and to somehow retain information. An important dimension of content–type listening is an ability to detect which messages are accurate, useful, sound, truthful, reliable, and relevant. Type III, relational listening Listening is important not only in relation to getting the content of the message called “deliberative listening” but also in another dimension called “empathic listening.” This empathic dimension to listening includes active listening. Active listening reflects a whole orientation to life and to people–one which implies that to listen is to have the creative power to imagine how it would make sense to say what the other person is saying. It says that the other person (the...
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...Andrea Beachum Effective Listening Strategies Paper BSHS 385 October 12, 2015 Audra Stinson Effective Listening Strategies Paper The understanding of what effective listening is and what it means is a vital part of the role of human service provider. Effective listening means more than just hearing what your client is saying to you when they are in a session. Effective listening means that you as the provider are able to understand their body language and other nonverbal cues. By using effective learning skills the human service provider can help the client by providing the right tools and resources to help them gain control over their situation and to help them find a way to a solution. What is effective listening? Effective listening is defined as the ability to actively understand and listen to what the client is saying and to show interest into what is being discussed. Effective listening also means that you are providing the client/individual with reflective feedback that demonstrates that you not only heard what they were saying but that you understand as well. (Effective Listening Skills, 2004-2015) Ways to demonstrate attentive/effective listening skills There are many different ways to show your client and others around you that you are actively listening to what they are saying. Some of these skills come naturally while others tend to need some practice. Listed below are some of the skills that are important when communicating...
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...Benefits of Effective Listening Benefits of Effective Listening Maryann Rieger Brandman University COMU-410 April 21, 2012 Benefits of Effective Listening Effective listening is one of the most important parts in communication. As noted by Elizabeth Rice (1998), “[Listening] involves caring, hearing, interpreting, evaluating, and responding to oral messages to gain a shared understanding” (Rice, 1998) There is always something to be learned when listening. As listeners, we cannot have an "I know everything" attitude. There is always a different opinion, or a new piece of information that can come to light. Listening is never a waste of time. We must pay attention and be active and total listeners when communicating with our peers, supervisors, employees and customers It is important to understand both how we listen as well as who is communicating to us in order to become more effective listeners. Listening Types There are many listening types and we need to understand how we are listening in order to improve and become more effective listeners. We need to be engaged when we listen to hear and understand what is being said. We need to listen to verbal and non-verbal communication to get the full effect of what is being communicated to us. Common listening types are active, inactive, total and partial. Of these, active and total are the most successful. Active listening “Listening in a way that demonstrates interest and encourages continued speaking....
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...ATTENTION CDA TRAINERS: Use this monthly training tool to help you plan group training sessions for your CDA candidates. These sessions can be counted as seminar training hours. Training Module* Listening Comprehension PURPOSE To explore the meaning and importance of listening comprehension as it relates to young children ages two to five. DEFINITION Before we begin, let’s take a minute to discuss the term listening comprehension. This skill can be observed when you read to the children. Listening comprehension can be defined as “the ability to recall and understand information which is presented orally.” This information might be presented through a book, filmstrip, video, or felt board set. EXAMPLES Mr. Fields, the preschool teacher, is reading the book Goldilocks and the Three Bears to the children. After he finishes reading, Mr. Fields asks the children, “How many bears lived in the house?” Rosie shrugs her shoulders and looks confused, but Jeremy exclaims, “Three!” Mr. Fields says, “That’s right, Jeremy. There were three bears in the story. Let’s count them together.” Mr. Fields turns the pages of the book until he comes to an illustration that contains the three bears. The children and Mr. Fields count the bears together. Mr. Fields then asks, “How did the bears know that someone had been eating their porridge?” Albert responds, “Because Baby Bear’s bowl was empty.” Jeremy says, “Because someone told them.” Mr. Fields then uses the book to help the children discover...
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...skills, listening and reading, are the ways in which we receive information. It has been reported that senior officers of major North American corporations spend up to 80 percent of their working time in meetings, discussions, face-to-face conversations, or telephone conversations. Most employees spend about 60 percent of the workday listening. Since such a large percentage of one's waking time is consumed by listening activities, it is clear that we could increase our productivity through listening training. Listening consumes about half of all communication time, yet people typically listen with only about 25 percent of their attention. Ineffective listening is costly, whether it occurs in families, businesses, government, or international affairs. Most people make numerous listening mistakes every day, but the costsinancial and otherwisere seldom analyzed. Because of listening mistakes, appointments have to be rescheduled, letters retyped, and shipments rerouted. Any number of catastrophes can arise from a failed communication regardless of the type of industry. Productivity is affected and profits suffer. Research indicates that we hear only 25 percent of what is said and, after two months, remember only one-half of that. This has not always been the case. In first grade we heard 90 percent of what was said, in second grade 80 percent, in seventh grade 43 percent, and by ninth grade only 25 percent. It is imperative that we strive to improve our listening skills....
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