In fact, my result is 13 ‘correct answers out of 20. Undoubtedly, any test is a set of subjective assessments, methods, and rules, and only a highly qualified specialist can give an accurate and reliable description of a person’s competencies. Anyway, ‘How Good Are Your Listening Skills?’ is a clear, relevant, and fair test. Comments on my result are given in a detailed form, which demonstrates my knowledge and skills regarding ‘listening to interlocutors.’
In addition, they also provide valuable tips and solutions on how to communicate productively, and how to avoid embarrassments and misunderstandings in interacting with people. Despite the inaccuracy and subjectivity of the ‘tool’, I agree with the test results. Each piece of information is deeply disclosed and has its meaning, and every detail is carefully thought out and marked.
Consequently, I will agree that communicating with people is the key to success in all areas of life. This is not only an essential component of a successful career but also of a happy personal life. So, listening is the way to effective communication, the competent transmission of information, and the interpretation of received messages. Many successful leaders and entrepreneurs attribute their success to the ability to listen. Moreover, good listening skills increase the number of friends, self-esteem, and confidence, improving health and overall well-being. Good listeners think more broadly because they hear and understand more facts and points of view.
Such people can look at the problem fresh and combine what they have learned in the most unusual ways. Therefore, the test helped me realize my further path to excellence in communication, personal growth, and new ideas and opportunities.
In this situation, to develop my ability to listen to people more effectively and respectfully, I should observe the following ways. Firstly, it is crucial to learn to ‘listen’ to the interlocutor, not just to ‘hear.’ Listening is an understanding of another person, and then how I am understood as a listener (Leading Effectively Staff, 2020). This is one of the most critical indicators of a person’s culture and the manifestation of his tolerance, respect, and condescension in conversation.
It is much more pleasant to communicate with someone who knows how to listen and not just talk. Everyone wants to see a friendly and attentive listener in their interlocutor who will be happy to support the conversation. In addition, ‘listening’ depends on how much a person wants to understand his partner and imbue him with feelings, emotions, and thoughts. When the partner has the opportunity to clearly express his thoughts, there is a chance to get important and helpful information about this interlocutor. Besides, one can see what mistakes he or she makes in communication not repeat them. Also, in listening, one can track the reactions to human behavior and see oneself from the outside.
Secondly, no one likes those who focus only on their interests and do not notice what is happening around them, forgetting about everything and everyone. I should be an active listener and not just perceive information but also show comprehension. At first glance, this is not an easy task since it requires a person to analyze and interpret the words spoken. An effective listener shows more effort, attention, and empathy, and uses unique techniques. For example, he or she looks into the eyes, asks relevant questions, and uses verbal and non-verbal gestures (Navigus, 2019). Indeed, preoccupation with oneself prevents hearing and a better understanding of the interlocutor.
Sometimes people look at the same facts, interpreting their meaning through the prism of personal experience, and usually start advising without fulfilling the simple request to listen to ‘fellow.’ A good interlocutor will refrain from harsh judgments about his ‘friend’ and never interrupt, thereby allowing the speaker to complete the thought and not lose the thread of the narrative. Active listening helps to achieve specific successful results in communication and to establish mutual understanding with the speaker. Moreover, it is assumed that two parties are involved in the conversation, and therefore it is essential to be able to smoothly move from listening to the conversation and apply feedback.
Therefore, one should periodically not only sit and be silent but also ask counter questions, share opinions and advice, and maintain the topic of conversation. An interlocutor can tell about the experience and share an idea caused by a comment made earlier. A ‘companion’ should never be shy to ask about anything on any ambiguous and unclear problem. This is how to get an idea of the extent to which a friendly relationship has arisen. (Leading Effectively Staff, 2020).
Good listeners are not like ‘sponges’ that ‘absorb’ energy and ideas, but rather ‘trampolines’ that repel and reflect thoughts (Zenger, J. & Folkman, 2016). They make the interlocutors feel mutual understanding, confidence, and support. In addition, openness and sincerity help to increase self-esteem and form a positive outlook on the world. No one forbids laughing and being sad, crying and angry. Indeed, people are not always ready to understand someone and accept certain ‘shortcomings.’ However, it is more likely that one can find like-minded people in this way. The fear of speaking out and appearing ridiculous always repels others. On the contrary, people with adequate self-esteem who know their strengths and values attract others to themselves.
To sum up, the test results opened my eyes to something I had not noticed before. It will be a long and thorough way of working on myself and my mistakes. Of course, perfection is an ideal concept, and there is nothing ideal in the world, but it is definitely worth striving for it. Therefore, I should learn to listen to people and support the conversation with leading questions, and share my opinions about a particular issue.
The world of people presupposes communication. It is emphasized due to several reasons. One of them is technological and scientific progress along with the innovative devices and approaches, which can help in making communication easier. On the other hand, the perpetual increase of population in the world gives all points to provide a thought of further communication development. Productive communication leads nowadays to solutions in social, business, economic, and other affairs. It is presupposed with the extent of post-industrial society with information as the main product. In this respect it is necessary to admit that good listening skills are so important for people today. There are too many conflicts appearing every now and then due to a lack of listening. People for some reasons are trying to use some difficult measures for making current problems, local or global, broken down forgetting about the errors in the very beginning. I mean active listening in this respect. One wise man once said: God gave a man two ears and one mouth, in order to point out that a man should twice as more listen than talk. An overarching goal of living in the society which is preserved by most of human beings does not have glimpses on the effective skills of interpersonal communication. In this case people lose their energy, passion, and desire to do something for this world. In return this provides total decline of morality, activity, and productivity of human beings.
Enlarging the Conversation
According to John Stewart (1995) people are more intended to build walls in communication than bridges. This prospect is taken for granted by many people due to the mere cruelty in the social relations between individuals. One well-known Latin proverb is deeply grounded in the consciousness of many human beings, which fairly states ‘homo homini lupus est’, or, simply put, ‘dog eat dog’. Many people are trying to miss this truth thinking that the good beginning in others will make them perfect listeners and will turn them to the rational solutions under conflict circumstances. People are in despair when confronting with unfair attitudes of others and feeling inequality in judgments of others who form the majority in the society. Nonetheless, it is not a strict reason to esteem that goodness lost its power in the world. In fact, by having a mission and destination in this world a man can omit obstacles of life.
Due to having clear goals one is intended to point out his/her pathway. In this respect the need for distinctive and correctly evaluated talents and advantages on the whole should be pointed out by an individual. As far as I am concerned, one of the first habits or advantages for everyone should be a capacity to communicate. Furthermore, when interpersonal communication is related also to the sphere of spirituality and direct approach to God, then conversation gains a bit different coloring on the whole. Being a believer and having a wide scope of outlook which is provided by the Holy Bible on different situations in life and different phenomena of it, a person can generate the Universal wisdom about how to make his/her life well-structured pointing on harmony. Moreover, it is considered in the Scriptures that the more a man nurtures himself/herself with the word of God, the more God may talk in a man’s soul. This is why managing communication skills and approaches and looking for the best solutions when making conversation with people one should point out the need, first to build “bridges” and appropriate desire for it, second, people should have a mere desire to listen and skills of how to listen effectively. If there is none of them, surely, the Bible is the best helper in this issue. Furthermore, it is the best instruction for life and listening, in particular.
The definition of this meaning provides me with a rather illuminated approach of how the conversation should be supported. In this respect it is fair to note that an effective conversation should include at least two elements: talking and listening. Another two are writing and reading. Turning to the first two aspects one should highlight an excluding role of listening. Why? It is so, because if one wants to be heard another one should be able to listen. In the Bible such approach is seen throughout the book. People of God always tried to please Him and to maintain and further provide fruitful conversation by starting it with the words “Hear us God” and then God spoke to people by means of His prophets with the words “Hear therefore, O Israel!” (Carroll & Prickett,1998, p. 234).
Conversation should not be one-sided. People tend to think that only words can make difference in communication. They create different patterned words and word forms, so that to make a conversation interesting and original. As for me, in this prospect it is vital to enlarge conversation with inner intentions, first of all. Your motivation leads you to possible outcomes afterwards. Ronald C. Arnett (2005) while commenting the book by John Stewart provides a reader with the correct understanding of a metaphor “bridges” as an “ethical common center other than the self” (208). In accordance with that statement I should state that the conversation may be enlarged also with the help of extra-linguistic features, such as intonation, mimic, gestures etc. Moreover, a man may have a great possibility to enlarge conversation with a positive look on it from the very beginning. An optimistic approach is a great stimulator for provision of substantial communication between individuals. One who possesses such quality in life wins in omitting of the obstacles happening every now and then.
“Bridging of relationships” leads to the positive result (Stewart, 2009). When some chains are broken, there is no opportunity to speak about a constructive conversation and points on understanding or proper evaluation of a definite situation within individuals. Enlarging the horizons of communication intends people to believe that there are no borders in making peaceful realization of their initiatives. Peace is really important not to promote aggression and destruction, as a result. Conversation should definitely be with peaceful intentions. Thus, enlarging the conversation, as I see, means to provide proper efforts in making the communication with people colored positively by means of verbal and non-verbal approaches for the purpose of further good relationships.
Personal Background and Behavioral Blend
My life is quite interesting due to my constant urge to communicate and to know more. This is because I got accustomed with living in the society where conversation is an instrument for making social relations between individuals stable and reliable. Friends of mine tend to keep conversation and stay in touch with me every now and then. I can simply evaluate such situation due to my personal responsibility few years ago to attract people with positive attitudes toward people. I realized that, as Jesus taught, there should be an adequate motivation at the very beginning. Jesus once said: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Carroll & Prickett, 1998, p.124). I approved this truth as a part of my experience of communicating with people. Thus, since that time I began behaving according to what Jesus Christ said. I think it is a logical and laconic statement. However, people do not mind this elementary rule. In this respect I can state that many times I had negative attitudes to people. Terry Jones lived in a neighboring house and I tried to be his friend in the childhood. This boy rejected my suggestion and even offended me, and it was too outrageous for me. Once seeing him with other boys near me I did not hesitate and pushed him on a metal disc with several horns lying within easy reach. The result of this situation led to immediate hospitalization of him. In his childish period of time he was bareboned and weak a bit. Though, he was seriously injured with several breakups and scars on his face due to my wrong action.
After this happened I was constantly feeling guilty about that case. I remembered at that time words of my father not to do harms toward people. Unfortunately, this example from my life tends me to adhere to the memories about that terrible case. The thing is that I was not able to listen. I have only the emotional drive inside, which in most cases, unless speaking that in all, hurts a man and people being affected due to it. This story is a signal for me for the rest of my life. It provides me with the rightly colored intentions when I begin speaking with people or when I am trying to help somebody. Good deeds leave deep traces. In fact, good deeds go before a man. I realized it, first, while reading the Bible and while seeing how Jesus was appreciated within His people. He supported communication with people also by means of following deeds, such as healing, for example. Another case when I realized it was when once I helped an unfamiliar girl with money support. Her dad and brother died in accident and she was left alone and had no idea what to do then. I did not hesitate and gave her enough money from my personal savings. Few months passed since that time when I was informed to be invited on the benefit evening promoted by that girl. After deaths of her close relatives she appeared to have a huge inheritance from one forgotten distant relative. Now she is very rich. On that evening she thanked me before the audience for that case and presented me with a “weighty” gift. Actually, gift was not the main point about this story outcome, but a positive attitude and responsibility which was provided. Thus, operating with various examples from my life I constantly study how to keep conversation live and positively shaped, in order to promote positive attitude toward people. Here I try to behave on grounds of mistakes examples made by different people previously.
Potential Barriers
In the book Bridges not Walls John Stewart comments the ideas of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber about the person-to-person communication. Thereupon Arlin C. Migliazzo (2002) writes:
Buber addresses the desire to have “interhuman” relations where two people meet each other and connect in deep ways, as opposed to a mere “social relationship” that does not require any depth of person-to-person contact. Buber argues for being present, genuine, and authentic with another people, thereby fostering the interhuman (300).
Experienced people do not want to intervolve others into their relations and different affairs, so that to protect themselves. Such warnings are not uprising when looking at the current situation in most of the American cities. Crimes, violence and other negative features of the society are assumed primordially with a lack of positive conversation in lives of people committing crimes or bad deeds. Taking these facts into account many people fairly do not trust people from their surroundings. This obstacle exceeds with every case when suchlike concerns happen in peoples’ lives. What is more, people are more intended to hide their intentions and motives of bad behavior due to wrong actions of those who allegedly want to help. The reason is that those “helpers” always talk and talk without making a simple step toward listening.
My interpersonal skills were developed on multiple examples when close or unfamiliar to me people rejected to keep conversation with me due to the extent of distrust. In such cases I tried to calm down them and provide convincing arguments, so that to prove my position. It concerns actually all fields of life activities. Dealing with mistrust I tried to talk plain and in a mid tone for the purpose of making other people listening to me very carefully. Tanya Glaser (1997) provides a clear picture of how to behave, in order to understand the position of a person involved in conversation. This author outlines the works by J. Stewart and M. Thomas o that to point out the main ideological principles being helpful for the efficiency of the conversation. Thus the author provides some touches on “active or emphatic” listening as the method of placing one’s self in another’s place (Glacer, 1997). In fact, it is much easier to imagine the feelings and current states of a person while putting these states of soul through yourself. It appeared to be helpful in my life when various people just wanted me to listen to their cheerful or sad stories.
For years I tried to work out and implement this ability while keeping conversation live. I tried to listen to people even if it was not interesting for me entirely. In this case I found out the real difficulty of interpersonal relationships. They concerned the fact that people want to make their opinions heard and they are constantly looking for “unoccupied ears”. I think the ability to listen to others should not include the points on overindulgence as of paying excessive attention on somebody’s problems. Moreover, it is quite significant to explain such position to people delicately. There should not be any piece of misunderstanding. Madelyn Burley-Allen (1995) provides an outlook on listening barriers which come from several sources, namely: biased listening, emotional defenses, external distractions etc.
With regards to the United States of America the problem of listening is a global problem for the society. The US is outlined as the multicultural country. Thereupon, different layers of the society do not want to keep conversation or participate with other members of the society categorically. I am leading to the multiple factors which erect the attention of Americans during past years and now. The obstacles when providing conversation may touch upon the proper language, habits, ethnical and cultural peculiarities etc. These elements of the societal life are widely anticipated in the US, but during the whole period of struggle against racial, gender and other types of discrimination the constructive solutions are not invented yet. With approach to this idea I think ;that an ideal listener is that who is able to take into account all peculiar factors about a related person during a conversation, so that not to injure his/her feeling of self esteem and self confidence. In practice I use such respectful attitude to people who differ in their manners, language, religion and cultural background. One more substantial barrier is the noise pollution and its negative effect on the process of conversation.
Solution to Noise Pollution
According to John Stewart (1995) the conversation should be implemented not only in proper context and wording, but also in an appropriate environment. It means that noise is one of the main factors which are concerned with passing off the ideas of a conversation. In this respect noise pollution will make a “wall” between, for example, an interviewer and an interviewee. Such walls may provide a delay in delivering information and in making good attempts for listening. In this case internal and external noise pollution should be primordially prevented. The efficiency of the conversation to a large extent depends on the appropriate conditions of making conversation. Communication becomes easier when there are all conveniences for this reason. The idea of noise pollution should be cardinally resolved in the workplace and heavy industries, in particular. When people are not able physically to listen to each other then there is no chance to speak about positive feedbacks. It also considers streets, especially, the main ones where the rates of noise are too high due to working engines of cars.
The solutions for this problem presuppose the initial choice of communicators to estimate the place for providing conversation. Among them may be: restaurants, cafes, home, and nature somewhere in the countryside. Silence is the best helper for attempting to be heard and to make others listen to you. Sounds of city are destructive not only for conversation but also for health. If there is a noise at the place where the conversation takes place Burley-Allen (1995) provides the following piece of advice: “Hear noises without being destructed by them” (17). It is hard, of course, and it needs enough time to get accustomed with noise, in order not to notice it. “Concentrate on concentrating, you make it possible to be aware of noises without being distracted by them,” – highlights the author (Burley-Allen, 1995, p. 122). A high level of concentration can be achieved due to the extent of care for the theme of conversation.
The journal article by Siobhan Leftwich (2005) provides different levels of listening which can be taken into account by listeners to evaluate their level of this skill. Thus, the author stating the ideas of Madelyn Burley-Allen points out three types of listening, so that to point out the straightforward effect of what was said on both speaker and listener. Hyslop and Tone (2009) are highly intended to admit the significance of listening to predict probable obstacles or weighty issues which may appear before, during, and after the conversation and define listening in this prospect as “an active process requiring the same skills of prediction, hypothesizing, checking, revising, and generalizing that writing and reading demand” (para 16). Though, internal as well as external noise should be considered by a listener, so that to make efforts in listening to a speaker. It is vital due to some facts which state the benefits of effective listening, namely:
Within what a man knows 85% he/she learned by listening;
In 50% of cases people usually recall immediately after listening to someone’s talk;
20% of what people hear they automatically remember;
People listen at 125-250 words per minute, but think at 1000-3000 words per minute (International Listening Association, 2003).
These authoritative statistical data should make people think over the direct need to reduce levels of noise and increase ability to listen to others.
Plan of Action
My interpersonal communication skills still need improvements due to constant communication and its varied forms. In this case there should be a proper schedule for making conversation successful and fruitful from the very beginning until end. In accordance with good listening William F. Kumuyi (2008) provides most balanced approach of the features to be determined. The author gives the information on how good listeners should behave, namely:
They don’t interrupt the speaker. In fact, they talk less and weigh their words. They keep an open mind while the communication lasts, avoiding pre-judging. They keep the man and the message separate where credibility problem might hinder comprehension and persuasion. They prompt the speaker to bare it all by asking open-ended questions, summarising or paraphrasing what they think the speaker has said to clarify ambiguities and achieve full understanding (Kumuyi, 2008, p. 49).
As was mentioned earlier, a good listener does not build “walls”, but with the bottom of his/her heart urges to build “firm bridges”. In this respect one should underline the significance of drawing up a possible sequence of actions to provide communication. As for me, first, there should be an inner call to promote and develop listening skills, then to elaborate the ability to listen. For this purpose Burley-Allen (1995) gives an advice to listen for different sounds several times a day making them lower on each occasion. In fact, it may seriously influence the hearing organ of perception. So, it serves to be one of the prominent reasons to become a good listener. This physiological approach also gives a direct capacity or ability to become a great listener even if one is not indulged in this activity or is not willing to listen to somebody’s story.
As far as I am concerned, the interpersonal communication skills should be stable, constant, and predetermined. I want to point out that the negative experience should not be an entire obstacle for further conversation. This principle of diplomatic relationships shows, for instance, how politics are capable to participate in different activities even if they had previously struggles which cost them a lot of money or powers. Moreover, in order to invite more members in conversation there should be constant points on encouragement of a speaker. This means that a listener should be capable to use such phrases as: “Great! Good for you!” A listener should not forget about the background of such words, so that not to make them empty or with a shade of indifference. Furthermore, for me it is better to look at the personal traits of character and capacities which I have at the moment. One more touch should be considered with the extent of my interests in comparison with others, in order to evaluate the points which may be touched upon while communicating (Blank, 2001). People are different in tastes and each one wants to represent his/her individuality. This is why I would like to relate to the experienced people in this issue.
Goldsmith, Greenberg, and Hu-Chan (2003) suggest following the table of instructions which are concerned straightforwardly with the psychological features of how people react on words and actions with a positive coloring:
Avoid being sidetracked by your reactions to the speaker’s status, sex, method of delivery, or cultural differences.
Reduce distraction by having phone calls held and other interruptions.
Mind smiling, nodding, and saying “Yes, I see, please go on.”
Allow pauses to make the speaker feel sure that there is enough time to communicate.
Be sensitive to the feelings of the other person.
Often summarize, ask questions, and paraphrase to show understanding of the issue.
Do not react until being sure that you understand the other person.
Instead of judging what the person says as wrong, just point out what was said (208).
An Overarching Goal
The Holy Bible teaches people with words “know thyself” (Carroll & Prickett, 1998, p. 930). With these words it is vital for me to perpetually examine my capacities and intentions for making good deeds. I see my life, as a representation of divine design of God’s mind. In other words I try to follow the Testaments written in the Scriptures, so that to be aware whether I move in a right direction. Life is too short, and people miss many significant information and ideas when they listen to a speaker improperly. I look at it as a manifestation of ignorance toward life prescriptions and toward a definite destination of a man. My personal position points out the need for better approaches to theoretically develop and then implement the listening skills in practice.
As for me, the most significant, prominent, outstanding and ideal figure in the history of mankind stays and will stay the person of Jesus Christ. His teaching is substantial in all times notwithstanding the high technological and scientific progress. People will be people. Their nature will never be changed seriously, because the rules of the society are constant. Either are the rules of the Universe and God’s approach to His creature, a man. Jesus in this relation provides all positive features of character which should have a man for making his/her life beautiful, well-grounded, happy, and rightly designed. In His speeches Jesus appealed to people with words “Listen to the word of God!” With such words He separated two word meanings as of ‘to listen’ and ‘to hear’ as well as He highlighted the difference between ‘knowledge’ and ‘cognition’ (Carroll & Prickett, 1998). In other words, Jesus Christ according to listening wanted to make theoretical knowledge to be proved in practice.
I try to imitate Jesus in this relation. I see my earthly way in making conversation one of my priorities for the whole life. This motivation I am willing to communicate to my would-be children. It is needful for making world without conflicts which are in majority of occasions caused by poor listening skills with more points on personal ambitions. In this respect Jesus was a peacemaker and tried to work out problems with words and then with actions supported by words. Though, I want to be an imitator of Jesus to make my environment safer and more concerned. This is the main goal of my overarching design.
Then I want to follow the instructions generated by the Bible investigating how words of God relate to contemporary situations. Listening is not odd in this case, because it is the main tool for provision of appropriate recognition of how things are scheduled in this world. Thus, I would try to keep my tempers without impulsiveness and cruel intentions which may be concerned with impolite or impatient attitude of mine toward a speaker. It is definitely that factor which may ruin my interpersonal communication skills. The Bible interprets this aspect of life by words that a man who governs his spirit and soul matters is better than a conqueror of a city (Carroll & Prickett, 1998).
Furthermore, the process of my own control over the behavioral blend presupposes the need to forgive and be able to support friendly relationships notwithstanding the previous conflicts or scandals. Listening provides thinking. As it was mentioned above, people think faster than they listen, so it grounds the necessity to think and evaluate while listening. When a man forgives a person he/she puts off the burden of being once offended and keeping negative attitudes toward those who were responsible for this. The idea of forgiveness is needful for me, because I have a mere understanding of it in practice.
One more touch presupposes the development of my leadership skills and taking responsibility for people. It is greatly displayed in a manner with which so-called leaders listen to the audience. Michael H. Hoppe (2007) outlines a prospect on active listening for today’s leaders:
Active listening is not an optional component of leadership; it is not a nicety to be used to make others feel good. It is, in fact, a critical component of the tasks facing today’s leaders (29).
Jesus in this case behaved as a very experienced and concerned leader. He was able to listen to people who wanted healing, for example. When he went through one settlement one in grain man cried, so that Jesus was able to hear him. When Jesus stopped and noticed him a man asked for healing and was healed. This is a grave example of how leaders should approach to active listening and acting as well. All points stated above are of great significance for me and their determination proves my personal conversational mission before an eternal perspective.
Conclusion
To sum up, the gradual steps for making listening skills improved are maintained in the paper, so that to show the significance of this process for the life objectives which are grave for people. In this relation the point on active listening presupposes more behavioral features which should be behaved during a man’s life. Burley-Allen (1995) directly improves the thesis of the extra-ordinary significance for listening by the following statement: “Your act of listening is the only help required. Active listening alleviates a problem by giving the person a chance to talk it through while experiencing emotional release” (6)… The example of Jesus Christ is one of the most appropriate to show the ideal blend of character traits, in order to be capable to listen and provide further actions. In fact, successful people are so because once they made efforts in listening and gaining proper information to provide personal skills and success, as a result. The pathway of such people is thorny in most cases, but their ability to listen and to capture the needful information helped them to be authoritative and supreme among other people. This is why the necessity to get accustomed to so obvious and elementary things as listening should be reckoned with. It is so because with a flow of time people rejected the universal truth of active and thorough listening. In support of above mentioned words one should be conscientious about the statement: The more people listen, the more they are closer to rational approach about resolving of problems.
Reference
Arnett, R. C. (2005). Dialogic confession: Bonhoeffer’s rhetoric of responsibility.Chicago, IL: SIU Press.
Blank, W. (2001). The 108 skills of natural born leaders. New York: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.
Burley-Allen, M. (1995). Listening: the forgotten skill. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Carroll, R., and Prickett, S. (1998). The Bible: Authorized King James Version. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Glaser, T. (1997). John Stewart and Milt Thomas, “Dialogic Listening: Sculpting Mutual Meanings,” in Bridges Not Walls, ed. John Stewart, 6th edition, (New York: McGraw- Hill, 1995), pp. 184-201. Web.
Goldsmith, M., Greenberg, C. L., and Hu-Chan, M. (2003). Global leadership: the next generation. New York: FT Press.
Hoppe, M. H. (2007). Active Listening: Improve Your Ability to Listen and Lead Ideas Into Action GuideBooks. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.
International Listening Association. (2003). Learn Higher. Complex of slides. Web.
Kumuyi, W. F. (2008). Sir, Listen Up! Leaders Can Be Better Communicators Turning the Art of Verbal Exchange into an Awesome Weapon of Influence If They Can Do One More Thing: Listen Well. A Lot of Leaders Are Bad Listeners; Because They Listen with Bias, Impatience, Inattention and a Closed Mind. New African 48-51.
Leftwich, S. (2005). Now Hear This: Want to Become a Better Communicator? Shut Up and Develop Your Listening Skills. Black Enterprise, 35, 112-115.
Migliazzo, A. C. (2002). Teaching as an act of faith: theory and practice in church-related higher education. Washington: Fordham University Press.
Stewart, J. R. (1995). Bridges not walls: a book about interpersonal communication.Ed. 6. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Effective listening refers to the ability of an individual to take in information from other sources, synthesize it, infer and interpret to his or other people’s benefit. It is essential in that one adopts listening skills because people are often more focused on what they are saying than on what they are hearing. Listening is difficult because people don’t work as hard at it as they should to perfect it (Kratz, 1994). Listening happens naturally and putting a lot of effort into it is unnecessary. Even though, effective listening calls for hard work, determination to get it right and effort to perfect this art. As a business studies student, I need to develop good listening skills as it is required that auditors listen to explanations, arguments, defenses of financial ethics and methods and must draw reasonable conclusions from the information table to them. They must always communicate with fellow employees whose backgrounds differ diversely.
Essence of effective listening skill
Effective listening skills are very vital to my success as a business person as it helps me various ways. First, it helps to reduce stresses, anxiety, uncertainty, dishonesty, mistrust among other bad virtues within the business organization. With this in mind therefore, the organization should provide a favorable environment where every employee feels free to express his or her own views without fear. These skills also help me to become an active listener who pays attention to the speaker, analyzes and summarizes the conversation, does not react negatively to criticism, but rather acknowledges them thus having a productive conversation leading to true understanding of all the parties involved (Kratz, 1994). Effective listening will also make management of the organization easier as it boosts the morale of the workers leading to high effectiveness and productivity.
Further, effective listening skills help one to pay keen attention the speaker, thus removing anticipation which can lead to confusion and misunderstanding. Finally, effective listening skills assist one to judge the information given whether to believe it or not, depending on how it compares to my personal knowledge, or the way it is conveyed.
Active Listening and Collaboration
Active listening refers to a multi-step process, including making emphatic comments, asking appropriate questions, and paraphrasing and summarizing for the purposes of verification (Reed, 1985). The goal is to develop a clear understanding of the speaker’s concern and also clearly communicate the listener’s interest in the speaker’s message. In addition, use of active listening skills helps establish an amiable trusting relationship with the employers and/or the clients. It is also important in developing appropriate management plans. Active listening is a structured form of listening and response that focuses the attention on the speaker. Active listening demands that the receiver of a message shun the belief that listening is easy and that it happens naturally, rather realize that effective listening is hard work (Reed, 1985).therefore, what you get by active listening is clarity of thought and therefore effective communication.
Through collaboration, people get to work together at the workplace and ensure they work as a team. Through working as a team and collaboratively, optimum work targets are reached easily thereby improving efficiency, recognition of the company. The company therefore can withstand competition for finite resources. Collaboration being a structured process, people should work together as a team towards a common goal, and this refers to involving everybody in the discussion through initiating and sustaining dialogues that continue to engage each party. Further, it involves sharing ideas, learning from others and gaining mutual respect. This refers to the art of facilitating collaboration by being both in servitude and leadership in discussion/conversation, losing any pride, not being flustered by unexpected events, respecting everyone, and having a learner’s mind (Reed, 1985). Each of these seems to rely on an ability to relay and share power among individuals by listening and encouraging active listening within the group. Engaging one another gives them confidence by listening and reinforcing the importance of their ideas by being liberal and open minded. Once we have initiated and sustained a conversation on these principles, much of the initial barrier to communication is removed and we are able to communicate with the other party freely without fear. We therefore become confident and coherent of thought and are able to reason critically and deductively.
Benefits of Active listening
Active listening is important in that it encourages people to listen attentively to others. Moreover, misunderstandings are avoided; as an individual will confirm that he/she do fathom what the other has said. In addition, active listening tends to open people up, get them to say more and express themselves freely (Reed, 1985).
Methods of Effective listening
There are many methods of effective listening and include encouraging the speaker: This can take many forms such as practicing silence, keenness, maintaining neutrality (Kratz, 1994). Except for recognition that you’re following along, such as a semi-verbal “uh-huh” or a head nod. This means that one is paying attention. This will in turn encourage the speaker to carry on and also help the listener to understand everything thing that is being said. Another method of effective listening is paraphrasing (Kratz, 1994). This can be achieved by rephrasing and restating what the speaker said in other words different from what he used to allow him to confirm that you have fathomed the message. This helps him in identifying the major points of emphasis by the speaker, i.e. subject matter of the conversation. Expressing feelings and showing some responsibility is another method of effective listening. This can be by using reflective statements, that is, words that retell important words or phrases that the speaker uses, then summarize what you have just heard and repeat it back to the speaker. Lastly, summarizing is a method of effective listening. This can be by concluding the information given and restating the part of the conversation sometimes after the initial conversation had happened (Kratz, 1994).
Conclusion
In my plan to become a better listener it is imperative that I be ready to listen to the speaker whenever necessary, being attentive to the speaker’s message, having a positive attitude and avoiding prejudgment, and last but not the least noting down important points to form the basis for the discussion topic. For me to become a better communicator, I must avoid giving unnecessary and un-useful information and only give that which is important. Further, it is essential to observe the listener’s mood and expectations and always ensure that there is clarity of thought and that my statements do not contradict. The information I give should be true and valid and not based on hearsay I must always be keen not to hurt my listener’s feelings by avoiding negative remarks about them.
References
Kratz, D.M. (1994). Effective Listening Skills. New York: Irwin Professional Publishing.
Reed, Warren H. (1985). Positive listening: learning to hear what people are really saying. New York: F. Watts. ISBN 0-531-09583-5.
As stated by Karp (2015), empathetic care is associated with greater health benefits for patients and increased client satisfaction. Empathy is thus may be regarded as an essential skill needed to grow as a professional in counseling. Empathy is a critical attribute of active listening which is defined by many scholars and practitioners as one of the basic counseling and communication skills. According to Family Health International (FHI, 2011), “listening involves more than just one sense” (p. 47). Eye contact, nods, lack of distraction, body postures, etc. are meant to demonstrate attending (Drab, n.d.). Moreover, despite the prevailing opinion, active listening does not mean simply sitting silently and waiting for a speaker to finish talking, it involves an element of communication as well. To be an active listener, a counselor should not just hear what a person says but should observe his/her behavior and, at the same time, say encouraging things relevant to the situation.
Overall, active listening implies listening with an appropriate internal and external activity. It helps to establish a trustful contact with a client and conciliate him/her. As mentioned by the International Organization for Migration (IOM, 2009), it is very difficult to help clients in finding their solutions without trust. But it always takes time and significant efforts to bring professional relationships to the right point where patients would feel welcomed and free to discuss their issues. To facilitate the establishment of a trustful relationship with a client, a counselor should implement active listening techniques and develop the right attitude to the work process and people with whom he or she interacts. It may allow counselors to understand clients’ opinions and be able to help them in a more efficient way. Thus, along with being active, listening should be emphatic.
According to FHI (2011), empathy is the translator of counselors’ understanding of individuals’ experiences, emotions, and behaviors into a response through which they (counselors) share their own perceptions with the clients. Empathic listening allows us to live through the same feelings as a speaker experienced, reflect these emotions, comprehend the psychological state of the interlocutor, and share it. Empathic listening does not include the element of advising. Counselors should not attempt to evaluate the speaker; moralize, criticize, or edify him/her. It is possible to say that an empathic attitude allows developing a calm environment during sessions. And as it is mentioned by the IOM (2009), a peaceful and poised atmosphere transmits calmness to clients and helps them to gain more confidence in their own abilities.
Importance of Active Listening in Counseling
Since the work of a counselor is based on communication with patients and clients, the listening skill in this profession is of great importance. The overall outcome of counseling sessions largely depends on the level of trust between a counselor and a client, as well as on the extent to which the specialist understands his/her client. According to Kawamichi et al. (2015), active listening substantially facilitates positive and open interpersonal relationships. Cihangir-Çankaya (2012) states while active listening includes an empathetic attitude, it allows professionals to be better able to comprehend what happens to their patients/clients and help them. Moreover, the researcher notes that respect and attention to personality are inherent in the process of active listening (Cihangir-Çankaya, 2012). Considering this, active listening and positive interactions can be very rewarding for individuals.
Kawamichi et al. (2015) suggest that the “mirroring” of others’ behaviors involved in active listening may lead to the activation of positive feelings in those who perceive it (p. 17). The researchers also observe that recipients of an attitude of active listening may significantly improve the evaluation of issues discussed in the ongoing process of interaction – they feel reappraised and generate greater social rewards (Kawamichi et al., 2015). In this way, the practice of active listening during a counseling session may help to generate emotionally relevant experiences and add values that may significantly improve the psychological state of clients and favorably affect the overall course of counseling by making a positive impression.
Skill Implementation in Counseling: How and When
As it was mentioned above, the purpose of active listening behaviors is the maintenance or creation of a trustful climate during the conversation, and active listening is thus always useful in counseling due to the very nature of the profession. Overall, it is possible to distinguish several types of conditions in which this communication technique is of particular importance. For example, it is very helpful when a counselor deals with strong emotions and needs to verify if he/she comprehends the emotional state of a client in the right way.
Frequently, especially when a client is anxious, it may be hard to understand the sense of what he/she says. To identify the actual meaning of clients’ statements and messages, counselors may use different reflective methods such as paraphrasing and affective reflection. Drab (n.d.) defines paraphrasing as a “selective focusing on the cognitive part of the message – with the client’s keywords and ideas being communicated back to the patient in a rephrased, and shortened form” (p. 1). He distinguishes four major steps a counselor should undertake to make paraphrasing more effective:
listen and recall,
identify the content of the message,
rephrase, and
check perception (Drab, n.d.).
By following these steps, a specialist will ensure that he/she did not omit any essential parts in a client’s message and identified the key idea in it. Moreover, effective paraphrasing allows a counselor to show patients that he/she has understood their concerns and verify if he/she perceived them correctly to avoid misunderstanding at the further stages of communication development. It is important to show a patient that you want to understand him or her without criticizing his/her words. To do so, counselors should pay attention to a manner they articulate a rephrased message. For example, it is possible to commence sentences with such phrases as “In other words, you think…,” “If I have understood you correctly…,” “It sounds like…,” and alike. This type of questioning in paraphrasing leads to greater accuracy and efficiency of communication.
Additionally, Drab (n.d.) emphasizes that an active and emphatic listening implies amplifying and clarifying feelings of a client. Therefore, a counselor should clearly recognize that there is no need to try to identify with or share similar experiences with them by just saying “I know how you feel,” etc., but should attempt to understand their personal concerns and emotions as deeply as possible. Such listening techniques as affective reflection may also help in this.
Affective reflection is defined as an “open-ended, respectful manner of what the client is communicating verbally and nonverbally, both directly through words and nonverbal behaviors as well as reasonable inferences about what the client might be experiencing emotionally” (Drab, n.d., p. 2). In other words, an effective reflection implies mirroring and verbalizing the captured meaning of a client’s message to clarify it and motivate him/her to continue speaking. However, one needs to ensure that the conversation is led to be a client. Counselors should not interfere with patients’ ideas but should ask questions in the context of their thoughts.
Contrary to paraphrasing that primarily focuses on the content and cognitive elements of statements rather than the emotional connotations, when using the given technique, a counselor pays attention mainly to a client’s feelings. For example, one may use such phrases to check the understanding of patients’ emotions as “You seem to be anxious because…” or “So you were irritated by…,” etc. It is also important to choose words carefully and avoid highly expressive words because inappropriate use of words demonstrates inattentiveness and may lead to counterproductive outcomes. For example, it is inappropriate to use such words descriptions as “very angry” or “depressed” in a paraphrase when a client had only said that he was sad (Drab, n.d.).
Conclusion
Well-developed listening skills may be regarded as indicators of a counselor’s professional competence. The literature review made it clear that active listening is very beneficial for patients and clients as the perception of appraisal and respectful attitude associated with it lead to the activation of positive emotions and the generation of meaningful social experiences. Perceived active listening may help to boost clients’ confidence and, in this way, resulting in better treatment/counseling outcomes.
Two major components of active listening are identified in the literature: empathy and reflection. Both of these attributes help to establish positive and trustful relationships with clients. The empathetic attitude expressed through attending, paraphrasing, or affective reflection gives a speaker a sense of appreciation that he/she has been heard. Active listening may be considered a vital element of person-oriented counseling because it focuses on relationships and personality. And it is possible to say that by practicing active listening, psychologists may multiply the healing effect of their counseling sessions.
References
Cihangir-Çankaya, Z. (2012). Reconsideration of the listening skill scale: Comparison of the listening skills of the students of psychological counseling and guidance in accordance with various variables. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 12(4), 2370-2376.
All forms of human interaction involve communication, which means transferring and receiving of information between the involved parties. The process involves a sender, a receiver and a message, which is transferred from the sender to receiver through different media, which facilitate the transfer of the purpose or reason underlying the message; but mere communication is not enough. The communication between involved parties should be effective, as this ensures the achievement of the purpose of communication and in absence of an effective communication, there are chances that the message will not convey its intended purpose or might be interpreted wrongly by the receiver. Communication may be verbal or non verbal but in either case, effectiveness is important. In the effective communication process, when verbal, two important constituents may be listening and speaking; speaking is concerned mostly with the sender listening is concerned with the receiver. But in the process of listening and speaking, there might be different communication barriers involved that may prevent the transferring of message and for this reason, it is important to teach people how to listen and speak effectively when communicating with each other.
Due to the importance of listening and speaking in the process of effective communication, there are courses that have been designed to improve these skills. This report deals with different aspects of listening and speaking, its importance in the communication process and criteria for evaluating its effectiveness. Besides, it also discusses ways of teaching students to enhance their listening and speaking skills, based on different strategies and methodologies.
Background of learning skills
Listening and speaking are both important part of communication process but more than often, it so happens that people consider speaking important but do not give sufficient attention to listening. This thought was more prevalent in earlier days when listening as well as speaking were taken as natural tendencies and it was thought that people only require teaching of reading and writing (Nunan, 1997).
But this thought changed onwards specially after 1950s. every once in a while the emphasis shifted on listening like in 1960s, the prominence of oral language increased the importance of listening but then it again faded and came back in 1980s with the increased importance on comprehensible input ideas by Krashen, which was later further supported by Asher’s methodology of effective learning, which drew its provisions from Krashen’s work. Learning also gained value from work of people like Gillian Brown who demonstrated the vitality of both listening and speaking abilities (Nunan, 1997).
Currently, the emphasis on listening skills has been increased because of its greater value in foreign language classrooms. The reason behind the growing popularity is that listening supplies input to the learner, which if not understood at the right level, makes learning an impossible task; this makes listening the basis for speaking. The underlying reason behind the recognition of listening is true not only in case of foreign language learning but also in case of every other form of learning (Nunan, 1997).
Models of listening
Over the last twenty years, there are two views of listening that have been dominating the language pedagogy, namely, the bottom-up processing view and the top-down interpretation view (Nunan, 1997).
According to the bottom-up processing model, listening is assumed to be the process of linearly decoding the sounds that are heard which means decoding ‘from the smallest meaningful units (phonemes) to complete texts’. This model stipulated that the building blocks of speech are phonemic units which are decoded and joint to form words. What follows further is a chain of words to form phrases, chain of phrases to yield utterances and finally blocks of utterances linked with each other to produce complete meaningful texts. In this linear decoding, the last step is the derivation of meaning from the speech (Nunan, 1997).
The top-down model puts forward the theory that with the help of clues, which are the incoming sounds, the actual meaning of the message is reconstructed by the speaker. If prior knowledge of the context and situation is available, it is used by the listener in order to derive meaning from what is heard. Prior knowledge may include things such as before hand knowledge of what is being spoken, acquaintance with the speaker(s) and the relationship of speaker to different variables (Nunan, 1997).
The decision of which theory is better is not really easy to make as both theories work hand in hand with each other, therefore it is important to apply and make use of both the theories in learning processes. For instance it is important to teach learners to identify smaller units as in bottom up approach but at the same time, it is equally important to teach them how to use their prior knowledge to decipher what they listen to which is a top down approach (Nunan, 1997).
These models are supplemented by three main modern views of listening. The first one reflects the change in perspective which considers listening skills more important than the particulars of language content. The second perspective aims at linking the teaching of listening skills in classroom to what is actually applicable in real life situations. The third and the last view lays stress on the vitality of equipping the listeners with motivation and a focus for listening (Field, 1997).
Types of listening
Listening may be classified with respect to different variables. The important variable that may be used for classification include the reason for listening, the part of the listener in the communication and the nature of message that is being listened to. The strategy that the listener adopts will vary according to the variable that is being used to classify listening (Nunan, 1997).
The purpose of listening and the nature of the message that is being communicated are often related to each other. For instance if the type of message is informative like a news broadcast, the purpose of listening is important to be considered as the purpose might be just to obtain a general idea of the day or to elicit specific information from within. In both cases, the types of message is the same but the purpose is different and therefore considering them both as a part of single unit is important to determine the required strategy on the part of the listener. The different types of messages themselves required different strategies like listening to instructions to operate a computer software requires different listening skills than listening to a short story. The part that a listener plays in learning is also important. A listener may be required to stay silent or to participate in the interaction. When the listener is required to participate, this is called reciprocal listening and when he/she is not required to do so, it is called non-reciprocal listening. In a listening classroom, the normal role of a listener is non reciprocal (Nunan, 1997).
Teaching flexibility in learning strategies
The type of listening may vary every time in learning according to the different variables, as mentioned before, therefore it is important to teach how to adjust listening strategies according to the involved variables. This flexibility can be taught by considering a single message or text and making learners listen to it but according to different purposes. For instance learners may be made to listen to international news first for general idea, then to match events and their countries of origin and finally for details (Nunan, 1997).
Barriers to listening
Removing obstructs that make listening ineffective is important because listening is a simple way to improve communication patterns. Following are some of the barriers to learning listening skills:
Incomplete listening: a listener thinks that he already knows what the speaker intends to say even before she is done with it. Some people may try to cut off the speaker’s conversation or complete the sentences (Webb, 2006).
Finding solutions: this means that a listener is not paying attention to what is being said as he is unintentionally thinking of the solutions to the perceived problem being discussed by the speaker (Webb, 2006).
Ulterior motives: in this case, the listener is not really listening for the purpose of listening but is actually listening for some other ulterior motives and therefore he is not paying complete attention to the speaker (Webb, 2006).
Comprehending the language: there are no absolute meanings in words themselves and therefore the listeners must use language to comprehend the intended meaning of the speaker. Having faith in the literal meaning of words can create misunderstandings (Webb, 2006).
Confusing the forest and the trees: the forest refers to context of a situation whereas the trees refer to the minute details. This barrier arises when people pay close attention to details and as a result, miss out on the meaning of the speech (Webb, 2006).
Splitters and lumpers: splitters are those who pay more attention on difference between things whereas lumpers tend to look for similarities. There may be confusion or misunderstandings when the speaker is a splitter and the listener is a lumper or vice versa. This confusion can be reduced if the listener loudly clarifies what he thinks the speaker is saying, consequently the conversational noise can be reduced (Webb, 2006).
Recommendations to enhance listening skills
In order to enhance the listening skills, some of the following recommendations may be used:
Teachers should try to integrate listening with production of active speech as learners mostly listen in this context.
students should be enlightened about the nature and process of listening as this provides them to understand the method of their learning skills, besides, teachers may also provide students with a vague idea of the difficulties and problems that they may come across and recommend ways to deal with these.
Availability and frequent use of listening texts should be promoted.
If there are native speakers of the language being taught are present, then they may be asked to help the teacher with teaching listening comprehension as opportunities to contact native speakers should be provided to foreign students.
Audio and visual aids should be used simultaneously in listening activities and texts.
Listening skills should be assessed in individual listening tests as well as through variety of other tests which involve different variety of questions and progressive levels of difficulty (Danaher, 2005).
It is important to enable teachers to distinguish specific behavorial patterns of listening apparent in weak listeners and to supply students with exercises that may help in endorsing better behavorial patterns of listening. Attention must be paid to the part of the listener and the interplay between the listener, text, and context as it may create difficulties for the listener. Equally vital is the to monitor the ways in which the behavorial patterns differ for successful and unsuccessful listeners (Brown, n.d.).
Speaking skills
The communication process is two ways, this means that it is dependant on speaking and listening both. Speech is a form of transferring or conveying message to other and it has to be effective so that the listener may easily comprehend it, for this reason, the messages have to be coherent, clear, simple and adapted to the listeners. The speaking process consists of topic selection, information gathering, organization of ideas or thoughts, analysis of listener’s characteristics and consideration of other different aspects of the speech.
Speaking is essential to the communication process as it determines our pattern of interaction with the environment and manner of expressing ideas. Just like listening, speaking doesn’t come naturally and has to be learned to achieve competence and thus communicate effectively.
Characteristics of an effective speaker
Speaking effectively is an art; therefore, there are some important characteristics that must be inculcated while teaching speaking skills. These characteristics include:
Ability to comprehend the connection between different aspects of the speaking process.
Identification and implementation of suitable strategies for formal and informal speaking as deemed appropriate across various situations.
Use of clear, simple and persuasive language that respect the background of the listeners.
Ability to ease communication anxiety and hesitation (NATCOM).
Essentials of speaking
There are three areas that speakers need to emphasize upon in order to produce effective speech:
Mechanics: this consists of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary of the speech. It is important for the speaker to use the appropriate words and pronunciation.
Functions: the transaction and interaction involved in the communication process is called function. A speaker should know how to bring clarity to message when essential and to sort unnecessary information as required.
Social and cultural rules and norms: an understanding of the listener, the context, the purpose and the topic is vital to produce effective speech (NCLRC, 2004).
In relation to mechanics, it should be noted that instructions for spoken language should not employ the rules of written language description alone as it will lay down an unsteady methodological foundation for building the base of starting an argument, it may also result in ‘ideological confusion’. When it comes to speaking, the features of grammar that are evident in most of the daily conversations are simply “wrong1, and are corruptions of and lapses from the standards enshrined in the scholarly grammars” (Carter & McCarthy, 2004).
Enhancing Speaking Skills
There are different strategies that may be taught to students to enhance their speaking skills. Some of the important strategies include:
Use of minimal responses: teaching students to use minimal responses at the very basic stage of the learning process helps them participate in the oral interaction. Such responses allow the learner to focus on the speech of others without diverting attention to plan their own response to it.
Use of scripts: scripts are ‘predictable set of spoken exchanges’ that are associated with a situation. Scripts are often helpful to anticipate the order of speaking amongst the communicators and their responses; as a result speakers know when their turn to speak is and what they are supposed to speak.
Using language for clarity: students have to be encouraged to speak and assured that misunderstandings are a part of the communication process. Therefore, the strategy is to encourage students to clarify speech when needed by using clarity phrases and comprehension checks (NCLRC, 2004).
Assessing learning
One of the most critical tasks for language teachers is to determine how much skills the students have learnt in the course. Assessments, when carefully designed and implemented can provide input about the understanding that students have attained and whether it is helpful to achieve the goals of the course. To assess the level of understanding that the learners have obtained of the skills, following are some forms evaluation that may be used: (NCLRC, 2004).
Traditional tests: these are pencil-and-paper tests that require students to study or listen to a range of different topics and then answer questions related to them. Students might also be asked to create or opt for a right grammatical form or vocabulary item. The knowledge that students have gained of language forms and the listening and speaking skills that they have developed can be assessed through such tests (NCLRC, 2004).
Alternative assessment: these forms of assessments are different from traditional assessment in both their method and their grading, such assessments consist of activities that focus on the strength of students to analyze how much skills they have learnt. These assessments are not paper pencil tests but actually involve performance to judge that students can successfully use learned skills to communicate (NCLRC, 2004).
Peer and self assessment: another way of making assessments is to make students evaluate their peers’ work; this localizes within the students- features of quality work. The teacher must tell the students when evaluating what to look for, how to provide feedback and what is it that people expect them to fulfill when making assessment of their peers (NCLRC, 2004).
Conclusion
To carry out an effective communication, speaking and listening effectively are very important skills to learn. Even though, both these abilities are gifted at the time of birth but making their effective use has to be learned. There are two models to approach listening, namely bottom up and top down. Students should be taught to consider the different variables that are involved and to adapt the strategies accordingly, also important is the identification of the barriers that hinder listening and strategies to overcome them and enhance listening.
Speaking also has to be practiced to accomplish perfection, required characteristics have to be developed that ensure clarity and effectiveness of the speech; students should also be equipped with the basic strategies to enhance speaking.
Finally, it is important for teachers to assess how much the students have learned from the listening and speaking course and whether the course objectives are being accomplished.
Thus, students and teachers both should work and co operate with each other to excel in listening and speaking skills so as to excel the art of communication, which is vital to the success of all forms of human interaction in different spheres of life.
References
Danaher, M. 1994, ‘Summary report of a study investigating issues of concern to the effective teaching of listening skills to beginning students of Japanese as a Foreign Language (JFL)’, QJER, Vol 10, 2008. Web.
NATCOM, ‘Speaking, Listening, and Media Literacy Standards for K Through 12 Education’, 2008. Web.
NCLRC 2004, ‘Assessing Learning’, 2008. Web.
Nunan, D. 1997, ‘Listening in language learning’, The Language Teacher, [online]. 2008. Web.
Webb, M. 2006, ‘Eight barriers to effective listening’, 2008. Web.
Carter, R. and McCarthy, M. 1994, ‘Grammar and the Spoken Language’, 2008.
Brown, G. n.d., ‘Investigating Listening Comprehension in Context’, 2008.
Field, J. 1997, ‘Skills and strategies: towards a new methodology for listening’, 2008.
Listening is a very significant skill that should be cultivated in every individual irrespective of age or role played in the society. This is because it touches on almost every aspect of life that necessitates communication: for instance, education, job or even family relationships.
Listening reduces chances of misunderstandings and conflicts, thereby improving relationships that are formed among people and enhancing individuals’ lives. Listening has also proved to be very essential in enhancing cooperation through fostering of aspects such as individual and corporate understanding, an issue that is very important.
In regard to job, listening skills enhance success through effective performance since people are able to understand each other’s needs and customer satisfaction is improved. In the business sector, effective listening enhances productivity and profitability, and in the education sector, it enhances learning as it allows adoption of ideas from all the people involved (Jean-Luc and Mandell 27). This paper gives an in-depth discussions of was through which listening skills can be improved.
Enhancing listening skills
Effective listening skills are significant. In order to understand the concept of enhancing listening skills, it is important to define what effective listening entails. Effective listening involves the process of gathering all the essential details of the information being communicated at any given time.
It is a process that is only achieved under some circumstances: for instance, an ideal environment. It requires maximum attention to all aspects of communication, especially facial and other nonverbal expressions. Asking questions also contributes greatly to effective listening as it ensures that the listener is at par with the speaker and understands whatever is being communicated. It is through effective listening that an individual is able to comprehend information, retain it and respond appropriately to different situations.
There are various ways that have been put forth in an effort to enhance listening skills or rather ensure that effective listening is maintained in any form of conversation irrespective of the concepts being discussed.
The efforts aimed at enhancing listening skills work by the principle of eliminating, or rather reducing the challenges that go hand in hand with listening; that is, the factors that hinder effective listening. According to Cioffi (par 6), listening skills could be enhanced through personal discipline among the listeners: for instance, through willingness and determination as well as avoiding any form of distraction that could affect attention and concentration.
This could be achieved by maintaining a relaxed mode and putting aside any other aspect that may promote wandering of thoughts. Another simple way of enhancing listening skills is being focused and looking at the speaker’s eyes and other bodily expressions as a way of controlling thoughts and avoiding divided attention. An individual should also avoid interrupting the speaker in the middle of a talk and instead let him/ her finish giving out the discussion.
This is because a concept that could be disturbing at that particular time could be covered before the discussion is over, thus clearing the doubts. It is therefore advisable for people to ask questions once the discussion is over and still one has some contentious issues. Interrupting to offer help is usually viewed to be advantageous, but in the real sense, it affects listening in a negative way as it interferes with the flow of conversation.
Even though it is not easy, a person should never be emotional if listening is to be effective. This is because emotions distorts proper reasoning and could hinder understanding. Rather than taking a discussion as a competition where listeners aim at impressing others by showing that they know a concept, debating should be done on a separate setting where it has no effect on listening.
One should try and affirm points of agreement while at that same time avoid dismissing statements of contention unless the issue is really burning and cannot wait, or failure to raise a disagreement at the moment would mislead the majority of people.
Listening is mostly confused with hearing but there is usually more to listening than just hearing. Unlike hearing, listening requires that there is maximum concentration to ensure that what is heard is remembered and retained for the longest period of time possible. Asking questions is also an aspect that is highly advisable as a way of enhancing listening skills.
This is because it plays a great role in clearing doubts that may exist between the speaker and the listener and also ensures that they both move at the same pace as opposed to where there would be limited understanding that would in turn bring about problems in comprehending important concepts. People should always be open-minded when listening as opposed to having an answer in mind.
Open mindedness allows people to get new ideas, thus promoting effective learning of various concepts since one anticipates acquiring new knowledge, which could only be possible through listening. It is also good to always learn to give others a chance to air their views and opinions in regard to a given concept no matter how knowledgeable one may be in the given area rather than formulating immediate responses as a way of pride or impressing others.
A good listener should make sure he/she listens to the inner self through summarizing (in the mind), what is communicated. This can be shown through aspects like nodding either in concurrence or in protesting, which are clues that show that a person is actively present or involved.
This behavior is not only beneficial to the listener but also satisfying and empowering to the speaker as it assures him or her that an impact has been created. Another essential factor that is mostly neglected by many is that of ensuring that the environment is conducive for maximum attention: for example, doing away with anything that would create noise or any other physical distraction.
All the above efforts require that a person has both the will and patience to listen and learn. This is, however, worthwhile as effective listening is associated with long-term advantages including appropriate communication that in turn allows success in the general life of individuals in the competitive business world (Tronshaw (par 2).
Conclusion
It is evident, from the discussion above, that listening skills are essential in our everyday undertakings. They should therefore be enhanced under all circumstances irrespective of the costs involved since the benefits associated with effective listening surpass the problems associated with lack of effective listening to a very large extent.
The most important factor that enhance effective listening is, however, maintaining maximum attention by avoiding any aspect that may in one way or the other reduce chances of concentration or rather make an individual’s mind to wander.
Works Cited
Cioffi, Rebecca. “Importance of Listening Skills on Job Performance”. Ehow. 2010. Web.
Jean-Luc, Nancy and Mandell, Charlotte. Listening. New York: Fordham Univ Press, 2007.
Tronshaw, Oubria. “How to Enhance Listening Skills”. Ehow. 2011. Web.
Informational listening requires one to apply the skill of paying attention to facilitate easy comprehension and remembrance of details. Informational listening entails a passive type of listening where the recipient of the information is not involved in critiquing, judging, or evaluating the message passed. This type of listening is most prevalent in a school setting, where people attend lectures, participate in workshops and watch instructional videos (Hamilton et al., 2019). Therefore, it is necessary for one to offer undivided attention to ensure every detail is conserved in their memory to promote fast recollection of details when the need arises.
Critical listening requires one to possess the skill of facts and opinion recognition. It is through opinions that one gets to understand whether a speaker is offering factual or unreliable information. Besides, the opinions that are imperative for identification include those of the speaker and the person themselves. If one is unable to recognize their own opinions, they might miss facts when information is being conveyed (Hamilton et al., 2019). For instance, if a person has a negative opinion towards a particular topic, they may reject the facts based on that topic or even form a negative predisposition toward the speaker.
One of the fundamental skills in empathic listening is being nonjudgmental. When a person is nonjudgmental, the ability to form opinions based on the other party is freed, allowing them to focus on the person’s perspectives. Additionally, being nonjudgmental allows the listener to acknowledge the other party’s emotions and views, which initiate the help process (Hamilton et al., 2019). In other instances, a listener who is nonjudgmental allows the speaker to understand and work through their situation swiftly, promoting better care.
One of the skills that I would appreciate improving for effective listening is limiting interruptions. In most cases, interruptions result in poor reception of information and prevent people from giving their full attention. Additionally, interruptions show the speaker that the information being disseminated is irrelevant. By reducing interruptions, not only will my listening improve but also the ability to retain and remember information more easily (Hamilton et al., 2019). Limited interruptions serve as an incentive to the speaker, allowing them to maintain their energy while speaking.
Reference
Hamilton, C., Creel, B., & Kroll, T. (2019). Communicating for success, 2nd edition. Routledge.
Active listening is an integral and paramount skill for effective mentors. Mentorship conversations are built on the foundation of the coach’s ability to persuade, negotiate, and influence the mentee. According to Vaynerchuk (2017), genuine mentors are defined by their humility, empathy, and a sincere desire to assist their protégés. The author notes that mentoring differs from management due to the central significance of altruism in the former, and the coach’s “need to learn to listen first” (Vaynerchuk, 2017, p. 54). The article’s dominant thesis is that although mentors may offer advice, better listening skills separates mentorship from management and enhances its overall impact.
Influential managers should serve as mentors and understand that their role is to develop and grow their subordinates. On the converse, mentors work for their protégés, a perspective which pinpoints the disparity between managerial and coaching arrangements. Vaynerchuk (2017) argues that there is a major difference between mentoring and providing management advice. He posits, “when you are able to go deep, getting a better understanding of someone and the problem at hand and forming a relationship, you can serve as a mentor” (Vaynerchuk, 2017, p. 54). This illustrates that mentors ought to be empathetic and humble as a foundation for productive dialogues. A major refutation in the article is the author’s claim that all managers possess mentorship DNA and that their role is to support their subordinates’ growth and development.
Vaynerchuk’s (2017) publication has various practical implications that could enhance the effectiveness of mentoring. The article emphasizes listening skills as the fundamental concept in coaching and the criticality of empathy and humility for the coaches. He posits that “to be a true mentor, you must deploy empathy and humility and realize that it’s about the mentee” (Vaynerchuk, 2017, p. 54). However, the article is beset by the extensive reference of personal experiences, absent utilization or comparison to other works, and the aggressive focus on the reputation, position, and influences. A transpiring research question from the publication is how the audience would validate the author’s sentiments, especially on the claims of mentorship legacy he has established by listening to his mentees.
Reference
Vaynerchuk, G. (2017). Be a manager. Be a mentor. Understand the difference. Inc, 39(5), 54.