Chapter 3

Listening Ability
Without a doubt, perhaps, the most important communication skill. It is the first step
toward learning any language. It can work wonders especially for interpersonal relations, be
it at home or work.
Are hearing and listening synonyms? Are they interchangeable?
On the surface of it, it would appear so. However, hearing is a physical act, that is, a process
of receiving sounds whereas listening is hearing with a purpose. It is the process of
receiving, constructing meaning from and responding to spoken and/or non-verbal
messages.
Much of what you listen, depends on the attitude, mindset, and the degree of attention that
you are willing to pay to any interaction/conversation.
Process of Listening
This involves the following steps:

 The receiver receives the sound.

 He/she recognises them.
 The receiver tries to understand them.
 This is followed by interpretation in the proper/appropriate context.
 The receiver derives the meaning and then responds to the message.
Types of Listening
On the basis of purpose, listening can be mainly divided into five types:
1 Discriminative Listening (Listening to Understand)
This is all about distinguishing between sounds and individual words. Understanding of any
language starts with the discrimination of sounds.
However, discrimination also includes the understanding of the change in non-verbal cues.
This is helpful in a situation where one does not understand the language that is being
spoken.
For instance, a non-native speaker of English who is not familiar with foreign accents will
have to make extra efforts to understand English spoken by a native speaker.
2 Comprehensive Listening (Listening to Learn)
This could be understood as the second stage of listening. The principal purpose of this
listening is to understand the message of the sender.
For higher levels of listening to be successful, it is necessary to have successful
comprehensive listening. For instance, when listening to instructions, reports, presentations,
meetings, and guidelines et cetera, comprehensive listening is required.
Important factors for successful comprehensive listening include good vocabulary,
understanding of grammar and syntax as well as body language of speaker and
concentration.
3 Empathetic Listening (Listening to Feel and Empathize)
Empathy means to go beyond sympathy. In other words, it is to feel what the speaker has
gone through and is sharing. The purpose of this listening is to help the speaker get healed,
learn and develop.
This also requires the understanding of non-verbal signs like tone, pitch, eye contact et
cetera. The listener, while engaged in empathetic listening, should encourage the speaker to
share.
A person can have empathetic listening provided he/she has a wider experience or at least
has gone through similar experiences as that of the speaker in his/her life.
This type of listening is curative in nature. Here the role of a listener is to allow the speaker
to open up his/her heart. It is also useful in building good relations and is alternatively
known as therapeutic listening.
Example: HR managers listening to the problems of employees and guiding them
4 Critical Listening
Critical Listening includes evaluation of the message by forming opinion and judging. The
listener is expected to reply critically while giving feedback. It is absolutely essential for
decision-making. Therefore, it is needed in both personal as well as professional life.
Examples: recruiters during interviews, judges and lawyers during hearing of a case.
Critical listening does not necessarily mean a fault-finding exercise or pointless nit-picking. It
is about processing information and formulating your judgement about something.
According to Aristotle, there are three important things for an effective critical listening.
They are ethos, logos, and pathos.
Ethos
This includes reliability, sincerity, and trustworthiness of a speaker. The speaker’s credibility
is contingent upon two things: expertise and trustworthiness.
Logos
Logical arguments of thought are known as logos. A critical listener expects logically
organised thoughts and well-constructed arguments from the speaker. One has to keep two
things in mind here:

 The possibility of things to be true

 Validity of the inferences drawn on the basis of the data provided
Pathos
  The speaker would try to appeal to the psychology of the listener.
 The speaker may target either spirit of adventure, need for safety, feeling of guilt,
desire for power, quality of being generous, or ability for creativity of the listener
and other such needs or values.
 The listener needs to verify if the speaker is persuading/manipulating and
particularly his/her intention.
 This is also known as interpretative, judgemental or evaluative listening.
5 Appreciative Listening (Listening for Fun/Recreation)
Here the primary objective is to enjoy whatever one is listening. Someone is watching a play
or a movie or a TV show and is enjoying the process, he/she is doing appreciative listening.
Barriers to Effective Listening
Many factors contribute to this. The causes of these could be mainly divided into three
categories:

 Barriers caused by the speaker

 Barriers caused by the listener
 Barriers caused by the environment
Barriers caused by the speaker

 The message is not so interesting/relevant

 The speaker could be dull/boring
 Inchoate or unorganised speech
 Incomprehensible/unintelligible message
 Monotonous delivery
Barriers caused by the listener

 Believing/being more knowledgeable than the speaker

 Being preoccupied with something else other than the speech
 Not having necessary vocabulary
 Having selective listening, that is, hearing what you want to hear and not paying
attention to the message as a whole
 Thinking of other things while listening to someone consciously/unconsciously
 Formulating reply while listening
 Paying more attention to the speaker than the speech
 Playing with your pen, arranging your hair, reading/sending messages from your
mobile
 Experiencing physical discomfort like hunger, thirst, need to use lavatory et cetera
 ‘Mr Know All’ attitude
 Listening with closed/prejudiced/biased mind and/or preconceived ideas
 Listening without understanding/appreciating/respecting cultural diversity and
differences
  Excessive feeling of love or hatred, excitement or anxiousness, stress or happiness,
anger or resentment
 Keeping the television on, multitasking, focusing on other things like things
happening outside the window, appearance of the speaker and people sitting
around you
Barriers caused by the environment

 Noise of vehicles, marriage procession passing by, etc

 Buzz among the audience
 Effect of season (summer, winter, monsoon)
 Uncomfortable and/or inappropriate seating arrangements
Points to be kept in mind
It is possible for a listener to be involved in more than one type of listening at a time.
For instance, while listening to a salesman talking about the new product, the
focus/emphasis would be on critical listening if you wish to buy the product but at the same
time it would be a comprehensive listening too as you are also learning about a new
product.
Often listening is an active exercise. If it is passive listening, the listener has become a victim
of barrier/s.
Qualities/Traits of a Good Listener
Some of the noteworthy qualities of a good listener are as follows:
A good listener

 Looks for the ideas being presented

 Listens with mind and is not overcome by emotions
 Notes down the points, he/she disagrees with the speaker and queries later on
 Concentrates on what the speaker says
 Understands and accepts the speaker’s point of view
 Reflects on the content of the speaker and summarises the main points
 Listens with receptive mind
 Supports speaker with interruptions like, ‘I also think the same’ or ‘it is a good idea’
or ‘I agree with you’
 Uses non-verbal words such as ‘hmmm…’, ‘uh huh’ et cetera
 While listening to an elderly person repeating stories, doing pseudo-listening
 Gives constructive feedback
 General (positive) non-verbal indicators of effective listening
Looking comfortably at the speaker
Giving vocalised cues like ‘uh huh’, ‘I see’ or ‘yes’
If the relation permits, a gentle touch