Listening Skills

1. The Process of listening

Listening means receiving an oral message, decoding and understanding it and conveying our response in the form of feedback. For listening to be successful and effective, the message which the listener gets should exactly be the same as intended by the speaker.

a.    Listening and Hearing

These two terms are normally taken to be synonymous but in reality, there is a great difference between the two.

Hearing is a passive condition in which the hearer plays no role. It happens automatically and spontaneously. Whenever a sound is produced within our hearing range, the vibrations caused in the air reach our ears and are carried to the brain by the nerves. Whatever decoding is there is only incidental. The listener does not make any conscious effort to receive the sound waves or to decode and interpret them in order to understand their meaning. Most of the time, the hearer does not even react to them. It is only when these waves signal some kind of emergency that there is some reaction or response.

Listening, on the other hand, is a conscious and deliberate chain of activities on the part of the listener. The listener makes a conscious effort to receive the sound waves, to recognise them, to decode them and understand their meaning. He even uses the situational and textual context to get at the meaning, relates the message to his previous knowledge and experiences and evaluates it. There is also a reaction and response which is given as feedback to the original sender of the message. We can do nothing to improve our hearing, but it is possible to improve listening by following certain practices and by practising.

Not listening to a person who is speaking to you is an insult to the person who is speaking. It signals that either the information he is giving is not important or it is not relevant to your purpose, or perhaps he is not good at communicating the message.

b.   Process of Listening

Listening is a process which consists of the following steps:

Reception          Perception         Comprehension       Association        Evaluation             

 

                                            Response or feedback

                                                   

1. Reception - Reception is the first step in listening. We make a careful attempt to catch the sound waves and recognise them as the phonemes of the language being used. Then we use our knowledge of the phonology of the language to combine them into syllables, words and sentences. Speech is a long and continuous chain of sounds. We now try to divide it by drawing word boundaries.

2. Perception - After having received the message, we proceed to decode its meaning. We recall the meaning of the words used if they are familiar or we try to guess it from the context if they are not already known. In addition to the word meanings, we look at the arrangement of the words in sentences and try to get their syntactic meaning. Thus we arrive at the literal meaning of the message.

3. Comprehension - Next, we proceed to figure out the implied meaning. We draw inferences from what has been stated and try to get the meaning which is intended but has not been explicitly stated. We relate what we hear to the context - both textual and situational - and try to understand what meaning the utterance can convey in the given context. In different contexts, the same utterance can have different meanings. We try to ascertain whether the words are to be taken at their face value or there is some deeper meaning hidden behind them.

4. Association - At this stage, we try to interpret the message in the light of the knowledge and information that we already possess and our experiences in the past. We compare the new information we are receiving with the previous information.. The previous information may support it or contradict it. Or it may help us to see in a different light.

5. Evaluation - After having understood the information provided in its entirety, we try to evaluate it. We consider it critically and try to assess its value for us, for others, for the world at large. We examine its quality. We frame judgments. We may find it to be just routine information or excellent or admirable. We may appreciate it or condemn or oppose it. 

6. Response - After a thorough understanding of the message, we react to it and assess our response to the information we have received. Are we going to perform the action we have been told to perform? Do we agree with it do we differ with it? Do we admire it or condemn it? In some situations, we may even be called upon to convey our response, to give feedback. With the feedback, one cycle of communication is completed. If, required, another cycle can be started.

2. Barriers to Listening

Complete success in oral communication is very rare. Most of the time, it is partial. However, the degree of success may vary from very low to very high. There are many factors which prevent the listener from getting the message conveyed by the speaker in all its totality. These factors are known as barriers to listening

We can divide these barriers into two broad categories: physical and psychological

Physical Barriers:

1. Distance - Distance between the speaker and the listener is a major barrier to listening. The speaker may be located at a place far away from the speaker and thus may not be able to hear his voice at all or to hear it clearly.

Try to be as close to the speaker as possible.

1.   Noise in the Surroundings: Successful listening is possible only in a calm and peaceful atmosphere. If there is any kind of physical noise in the vicinity of the listener or even of the speaker, it interferes with our listening. We may fail to receive a part or sometimes even the whole of the message. People around the two participants in the oral communication may be talking or a dog may be barking nearby. Vehicles on the road may be making a noise. The television may be on or the phone may begin to ring. Any kind of noise around the participants can stand in the way of the successful reception of the message.

Eliminate the noise or do not pay attention to it.

2.   Distractions: There can be a whole lot of things that can take the listener's attention away from what is being said. Something falling on the ground, the entry of a person in the room or the beep of the smart phone can distract one from what is being conveyed and reduce the degree of success in listening.

Try to focus on the speaker and ignore the distracting noises.

3.     Weather Conditions: Weather conditions like excessive heat or cold which make the listener uncomfortable can also prevent him from paying complete attention to the words of the speaker.

Try to make the temperature of the place comfortable.

4.   Overcrowding and Stuffiness: If the room is overcrowded and there is not adequate ventilation, it may become hard even to breathe properly, leave aside listening with complete focus. Perfect listening is possible when the conditions at the place are congenial to listening. Any thing that makes the listener feel ill at ease upsets him and makes him unfocused.

Let there be sufficient space for the listeners.

5.     Physical State of the Listener: The physical condition of the speaker also can become a barrier to listening. If the listener has been working hard and is fatigued or is running fever or feeling sleepy because he has not been able to have full sleep out the previous night, these physical conditions will not allow him to listen with complete attention.

Try to stay fresh when you have to attend a talk/lecture.

7. Bad Acoustics: Bad acoustics of the place can also impede proper listening. If the place is not echo proof and the voice of the speaker keeps resounding, the listener will not be able to hear properly.

Make sure that the acoustics of the place are good and the sound does not echo.

6.     Faulty Public Address System: Faulty Public Address System can distort the voice of the speaker or can result in unwanted noises which make it impossible for the listener to catch the speaker's words clearly.

Ensure that the P.A. system works well and does not make any unwanted noises.

7.     Speech Faults: If the speaker does not speak clearly, mumbles, speaks in a very low voice or suffers from some kind of speech defect, the listener will be put at a disadvantage as he may not get some of his words correctly.

We cannot help. Just be extra attentive and try to understand the nature of the fault.

Psychological Barriers

1. Hearing Emotional Noises: Some word used by the speaker or an idea expressed by him may arouse some kind of a strong emotion like anger, grief, excitement or disgust in the listener. If the listener allows himself to be overpowered by the emotion, his mind will lose focus and he will not be able to listen properly.

Stay calm. Do not allow any emotions to be aroused.

8.     Focusing on a Personal Agenda: If the listener keeps his mind focused on his own agenda like what question he is going to ask or how he is going to embarrass the speaker, he will be unable to listen properly.

Try not to have any personal agenda. Focus on what the speaker says and try to understand it.

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9.      Criticising: If the listener pays more attention to finding faults with what the speaker says and how he says it, he will not be able to pay due attention to his words and will not be able to get the message right.

Postpone all judgement till the speaker has finished.

1.     Speech Rate V/S Thought Rate: We can think much faster than we can speak. As a result, the listener is able to process what the speaker says in a fraction of the time that the speaker takes to say it. That leaves with some mental time. If he begins to devote that time to something other than listening, he will not be able to focus fully on what the speaker says and will miss much of the content of his speech or misunderstand what he says.

Do not let your attention wander away from the speaker if you have any spare time.

5. Lack of Interest: There are many things which can result in the listener not having interest in what the speaker is telling him. 

i. He may feel that the information being given by the speaker is not of any use to him.

ii. He may have the feeling that the he knows much more than the speaker and he cannot tell him anything new.

iii. He may have a poor opinion of the speaker and his knowledge.

iv. He may feel that he already knows everything that the speaker is going to say. 

v. He may feel that only a part of what the speaker is going to say is of interest to him. So he may be selective in his listening.

Without interest in the speaker's matter, no one can pay perfect attention to what he says.

Whatever your opinion of the speaker and of your own knowledge, always remember that even the worst of speakers may have something useful to tell you and you do not know everything in the world. Be attentive all the time because you never know when the speaker may say something precious.

2.     Emotional State of Mind: If the listener is experiencing some strong emotion like anger, grief or excitement when he comes to the talk, he will not be able to concentrate. His state of mind will not allow him to listen.

Make sure that you have a calm mind when you go to listen to a talk/lecture.

7; Mental Distractions: The listener may be mentally preoccupied with other things. He may be worried due to some problem in the family or his mind may be in some other important business. He may be with the speaker only physically and somewhere else mentally. In that case, he will not pay proper attention to what the speaker says.

Do not allow your mind to wander. Try to be present not only physically but also mentally all the time. Postpone all the other concerns for the time that you are listening to a talk.

1.     Filtering: The listener may choose to pay attention to only those things which he is interested in and ignore the remaining things. Thus he will filter out much of the information that the speaker gives.

Listen to everything. Filtering, if any, should be done after the talk is over.

2.     Perceptual Errors: Understanding is a personal matter and varies from person to person. So the listener may downplay much that the speaker thinks is important or give more emphasis to what may appear to be unimportant to the speaker. Also the listener's perception of what the speaker says may be different from that of the speaker. Consequently, the message that he gets is different from the one intended by the speaker. 

Try to get the point of view of the speaker while you are listening. Postpone your own interpretation till the speaker has finished.

3.     Not Investing Time: The listener may not give due time to get all that the speaker says. He may listen to a thing and then make his own assumptions or he may listen to only the main points and ignore the details. Such a thing can lead to misunderstanding.

Devote all your time to the listener and try to hear and understand every word that he says.

4.     Stereotyping and Generalising: The listener may, after getting to know about the class of people to which the speaker belongs, form a stereotypical image of him and assume that since all the people of that class say a certain type of things, he too will say the same things. As a result, he may choose not to pay attention to him.

Avoid stereotyping and generalising. Every individual is a different individual and may not be different from the class to which he/she belongs.

5.     Overloading: If the speaker's talk is overloaded with information, the listener may find it difficult to internalise all that he says. A lecture packed with meaning may make more demands from him than he can cope with. The overabundance of meaning can totally overwhelm him and confuse him instead of enlightening him.

The speaker should keep in mind the intellectual level of the audience and not overload his/her talk with meaning.

6.     Status Consciousness: Status consciousness can also become a hindrance to listening. Because of it, a senior may not pay proper attention to a suggestion made by a junior thinking that he knows better than the junior. Similarly, a junior may become nervous when somebody much senior to him speaks to him and as a result, he may not be able to grasp all that he says.

Forget all about the status of the speaker. Even a junior may sometimes have something valuable to say.

                        

  These and a lot more things can prevent the speaker's message from reaching the listener. The quality of one's listening will be directly proportionate to the extent to which one is able to overcome these barriers. It is therefore advisable to get over all these things to become a good listener.