Active listening skills

Nature and purpose of listening

Listening

 Listening is one of the most important skills you can have. How well you listen has a
major impact on your job effectiveness, and on the quality of your relationships with
others.
 research suggests that we only remember between 25 percent and 50 percent of what we
hear.
 By becoming a better listener, you can improve your productivity, as well as your ability to
influence, persuade and negotiate.
Active listening

 refers to a pattern of listening that keeps you engaged with your conversation partner in a
positive way. It is the process of listening attentively while someone else speaks,
paraphrasing and reflecting back what is said, and withholding judgment and advice.
 When you practice active listening, you make the other person feel heard and valued. In
this way, active listening is the foundation for any successful conversation.
 Active listening involves more than just hearing someone speak. When you practice active
listening, you are fully concentrating on what is being said. You listen with all of your
senses and give your full attention to the person speaking.
Features of active listening

 Neutral and nonjudgmental

 Patient (periods of silence are not "filled")
 Verbal and nonverbal feedback to show signs of listening (e.g., smiling, eye contact,
leaning in, mirroring)
 Asking questions
 Reflecting back what is said
 Asking for clarification
 Summarizing
Nature of Listening

 Listening is the cognitive process whereby we attach meanings to aural signals.

 It is the active intellectual process of decoding, interpreting, understanding and evaluating
messages.
 It is a mode of communication just as important as the other modes like speaking, reading,
and writing.
 We spend most of our waking hours communicating, the greatest portion of which is spent
in listening.
 However, this mode has been observed to be the most neglected area in teaching English
towards communicative competence.
The Best Kind of Listening

 According to Mcburney and Wrage, the best kind of listening has the following
characteristics:
1. Voluntary - Good listening begins with a willingness to participate completely in a
communicative situation.
2. Purposeful - You choose to listen because of some very good reason/reasons.
3. Motivated - When you have good reasons for listening, you are all keyed up for the activity and
nothing can stop you.
4. Cooperative - You keep quiet and give your wholehearted cooperation when you listen because
you hope for nothing but only the best from the speaker.
5. Critical - You follow the speaker’s ideas carefully and get things clear so that in the end, you
may be able to make intellectual judgments when you evaluate his ideas before responding.
Purposes Of Listening

 To gain new information:- Whenever you listen to learn something, you are engaged in
informational listening. There are many examples of informational listening.
 such as.. when you listen to the news, watch a documentary, in work meetings
 To quest and test evidence and assumptions - When a speaker presents a message, much
of what is said consists of facts(verifiable data) or opinions(inferences).
 Good listeners test those facts and opinions.
 To be inspired - Listening to someone in any form like speech, music or any form can be
really inspiring through which some people learn or some people get motivate.
 Someone get touched in different ways by listening something inspiring.
 Some people can move on from something they are stuck by listening to inspirational
speech/music.
Purposes Of Listening

 To improve communication
 Be a Good Listener.
 Listen for the other person's talents and interests.
 Never talk over people.
 This demonstrates a real lack of respect.
Reference list

 Active Listening Hear What People Are Really Saying. (n.d.). Mindtools. https://
www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm
 Ma. Anna Corina G. Kagaoan. (n.d.). Nature and Process of Listening. Coursehero.
https://www.coursehero.com/file/26310994/Nature-and-Process-of-Listeningppt/#:~:text=
Nature%20of%20Listening%20Listening%20is,speaking%2C%20reading%2C%20and%2
0writing
.
 Hafsa Qureshi. (2015). Purpose of listening. Slideshare. https://
www.slideshare.net/HafsaQureshi1/purposes-of-listening
 Amy Morin, LCSW. (2020, May 25). How to Practice Active Listening. Verywellmind.
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-active-listening-3024343#:~:text=Active%20listen
ing%20refers%20to%20a,and%20withholding%20judgment%20and%20advice
.