Answers: ‘5 ways to listen better’ – Julian Treasure TED talk

Comprehension questions:

Using the notes you have taken, answer the following questions:

1. According to the speaker, how much of our communication time do

we spend listening, and how much of what we hear do we retain?

60%; 25%

We spend roughly 60 percent of our communication time listening, but we're

not very good at it. We retain just 25 percent of what we hear.

2. What are THREE reasons we are losing our listening skills, according
to the speaker?

We are losing our listening because of the following:

• We invented ways of recording – careful listening is no longer as

important as in the past;
• The world is very noisy – it’s difficult and tiring to listen;
• People wear headphones to escape the overwhelming noisiness of
the world;
• We are impatient – we want information to be short and direct;
• Conversation is being replaced by ‘personal broadcasting’ (talking
without listening or receiving feedback);
• We are becoming desensitised to information- headlines are
sensationalised, so we no longer pay attention to subtle
information.

I said at the beginning, we're losing our listening. Why did I say that? Well,
there are a lot of reasons for this. First of all, we invented ways of recording --
first writing, then audio recording and now video recording as well. The
premium on accurate and careful listening has simply disappeared. Secondly,
the world is now so noisy, with this cacophony going on visually and
auditorily, it's just hard to listen; it's tiring to listen. Many people take refuge in
headphones, but they turn big, public spaces like this, shared
soundscapes, into millions of tiny, little personal sound bubbles. In this
scenario, nobody's listening to anybody.

We're becoming impatient. We don't want oratory anymore; we want sound

bites. And the art of conversation is being replaced -- dangerously, I think --
by personal broadcasting. I don't know how much listening there is in this
conversation, which is sadly very common, especially in the UK. We're
becoming desensitized. Our media have to scream at us with these kinds of

  1  
headlines in order to get our attention. And that means it's harder for us to
pay attention to the quiet, the subtle, the understated.

3. According to the speaker, why is the loss of our listening skills such a
serious problem?

The loss of our listening skills is a serious problem because without

listening, we cannot understand one another – this makes the world a
scarier place.

This is a serious problem that we're losing our listening. This is not
trivial, because listening is our access to understanding. Conscious listening
always creates understanding, and only without conscious listening can these
things happen. A world where we don't listen to each other at all is a very
scary place indeed.

4. The speaker suggested five techniques to help people improve their

listening skills. Name THREE of these and describe what they involve.

• SILENCE: spending three minutes a day in absolute silence in order to

recalibrate the mind.
• THE MIXER: paying attention to the different sounds you can hear in
any situation.
• SAVOURING: enjoying mundane sounds, such as the tumble dryer.
• LISTENING POSITIONS: consciously listening through different
‘filters’.
• RASA (see answer to question 5)

5. What does the acronym RASA stand for?

Receive

Appreciate

Summarise

Ask

The acronym is RASA, which is the Sanskrit word for "juice" or

"essence."And RASA stands for "Receive," which means pay attention to the
person;"Appreciate," making little noises like "hmm," "oh,"
"OK"; "Summarize" -- the word "so" is very important in communication; and
"Ask," ask questions afterwards.

6. What does the speaker hope for the future?

  2  
 Julian Treasure hopes for a world where people listen to one another
consciously. For this to be achieved, he thinks that listening needs to be
taught in schools.

I believe that every human being needs to listen consciously in order to live
fully -- connected in space and in time to the physical world around
us, connected in understanding to each other, not to mention spiritually
connected, because every spiritual path I know of has listening and
contemplation at its heart.

That's why we need to teach listening in our schools as a skill. Why is it not
taught? It's crazy. And if we can teach listening in our schools, we can take
our listening off that slippery slope to that dangerous, scary world that I talked
about, and move it to a place where everybody is consciously listening all the
time, or at least capable of doing it.

Sentence completion

1. Julian Treasure defines listening as making meaning from sound.

2. Patterns help us to distinguish noise from signal.
3. Most people are (entirely) unconscious of the filters that create their
reality.
4. Julian Treasure promised to listen to his wife every day as if it were the
first time, but he falls short of this on a daily basis.
5. Listening is the main way we experience the flow of time.
6. Accurate and careful listening is not as important as it was in the
past.
7. It’s not as easy for us to pay attention to subtle and understated
things.
8. The sound of a tumble dryer is an example of a mundane sound that
can be enjoyable to hear.
9. 'Rasa' means “juice” or “essence” in Sanscrit.
10. Julian Treasure thinks the world would be better is everyone were able
to listen consciously.

  3