LISTENING

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
At the end of the lesson, the student should be able to:
• Compare the differences between listening and hearing;
• Classify the different types of listening;
• Identify the different types of listeners;
• Barriers to listening; Listening tips; Stages of Listening; and
• The Listening Process
INTRODUCTION
There is a difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is
accidental, involuntary, and effortless. This indicates that hearing is simply
the process of absorbing sound. Listening, on the other hand, is focused
voluntary, and intentional. In this section, we will be discussing the
concept of listening and its importance in communication to fulfill human
activities. Listening is a process of receiving, interpreting, and reacting to
the messages received from the communication sender. Listening is key to
all effective communication. Without the ability to listen effectively,
messages are easily misunderstood. As a result, communication breaks
down and the sender of the message can easily become frustrated or
irritated.
 Effective listening is an art of communication, which is often taken for
granted and ignored. Like any other art, listening requires to be cultivated
consciously and carefully. Unfortunately, our education systems from
kindergarten up to college do not pay attention to teaching effective listening.
As listening is a crucial component of any communication, poor listening can be
seen as a significant impediment to communication. Due to poor
communication, communications are frequently lost as a result. To decipher the
sounds, understand the meanings of the words, and respond to the message,
listening involves deliberate effort. Understanding the code signals and the
communication sender’s attitude are two factors that affect how the listener
interprets the sound signals.
All successful interpersonal connections are built on the ability to listen
effectively. Consider and work on improving your listening abilities because they
are the foundation of success.
 Hearing is an unintentional and involuntary brain response to sound that
requires no effort. We are fenced by sounds most of the time. For instance, we
are familiar to the sounds of airplanes, lawn mowers, furnace blowers, the
rattling of pots and pans, and so on. We hear those incidental sounds and,
unless we have a reason to do otherwise. We train ourselves to ignore them. We
learn to fiter out sounds that mean little to us, just as we choose to hear our
ringing cell phones and other sounds that are more important to us

Listening, on the other hand, is purposeful and focused rather than

unintentional. As a result, it requires motivation and effort. Listening, at its best,
is active, focused, concentrated attention for the purpose of understanding the
meanings expressed by a speaker
HEARING VS LISTENING
HEARING LISTENING

Accidental Focused

Involuntary Voluntary

Effortless Intentional

Implies perceiving sounds Understandable information with involvement

from mind and body
Is a passive process Is an active process

Involves effortless activity Requires conscious efforts, concentration and

interest
 9 TYPES OF LISTENING
Effective Types of Listening
1. Comprehensive listening
Comprehensive Listening is when you make judgments based on what the other person says
and determine the truthfulness of the statements you hear. Also known as critical listening or
evaluative listening, you may also judge what the person says compared to what your values
are and decide if they’re good or bad.
2. Discriminative Listening
Discriminative Listening enables us to pick up on verbal cues that indicate what the speaker is
truly saying or what emotions they are trying to express.
3. Critical Listening
Critical Listening is an important type of listening because it requires you to listen to a
message and assess whether the message and the speaker are trustworthy. It can also enable
you to take the message presented to them, compare it to the knowledge you may already
have on the subject and form your own analysis and opinion on the message.
4. Therapeutic Listening
This type of listening is when you let a troubled person discuss their problems. While medical personnel,
counselors and other types of professionals often employ this type, other professionals may use it when
listening to acquaintances or friends to let them express their emotions or get advice.
5. Full Listening
When you pay careful attention to what the other person is saying, it is called full listening. This type of
listening is where you aim to fully understand what the content of the conversation is. You may pause and
then summarize what you just heard or use paraphrasing where you say back to the person what you just
heard to see if it’s correct.
6. Deep Listening
Deep Listening requires you and the other speaker to understand each other’s sides. You must carefully
pay attention to the details of a conversation and pick up on many cues. These cues can include watching
body language, identifying biases and preferences, figuring out goals and needs and perceiving values
and beliefs.
Ineffective Types of Listening
7. Selective Listening
This type is when you only address certain aspects of what the other person has said to filter
the message to understand its intent more quickly. This type of listening may impact your
ability to understand every detail, which may lead to miscommunications.
8. Partial Listening
Partial Listening is when you have the intention to listen to another person but are distracted.
This keeps you from hearing the other person completely.This type of listening may be
interpreted as false listening or impacts a person’s ability to fully and accurately answer a
question or follow instructions.
9. False Listening
False listening is when you pretend you are listening to the other person but are not really
comprehending what you are hearing. These listeners may show they understand by smiling,
nodding, and grunting when they think it is appropriate. This type of listening may impact
your ability to be effective in your job.
STAGES OF LISTENING
The Receiving Stage
The first stage of the listening process is the receiving stage, which involves
hearing and attending. Hearing is the physiological process of registering
sound waves as they hit the eardrum. As obvious as it may seem, in order to
effectively gather information through listening, we must first be able to
physically hear what we’re listening to. If we have a hearing impairment, our
ability to listen will be challenged. Excessive noise in the environment can
create obstacles to receiving audible sound waves.Paired with hearing,
attending is the other half of the receiving stage in the listening process.
Attending is the process of accurately identifying and interpreting particular
sounds we hear as words. The sounds we hear have no meaning until we give
them their meaning in context. Listening is an active process that constructs
meaning from both verbal and nonverbal messages.
The Understanding Stage
The second stage in the listening process is the understanding stage.
Understanding or comprehension is “shared meaning between parties in a
communication transaction” and constitutes the first step in the listening
process. This is the stage during which the listener determines the context and
meanings of the words he or she hears. Determining the context and meaning
of individual words, as well as assigning meaning in language, is essential to
understanding sentences. This, in turn, is essential to understanding a
speaker’s message.Before getting the big picture of a message, it can be
difficult to focus on what the speaker is saying. In the Writing Center, you and
your writer may have trouble understanding each other if you have different
accents, if the writer is struggling with language fluency, or if the space is very
noisy.
The Remembering Stage
In the listening process, the remembering stage occurs as the listener
categorizes and retains the information she’s gathered from the speaker for
future access. The result—memory—allows the person to record information
about people, objects and events for later recall. This happens both during and
after the speaker’s delivery.

Memory is essential throughout the listening process. We depend on our

memory to fill in the blanks when we’re listening and to let us place what
we’re hearing at the moment in the context of what we’ve heard before. If, for
example, you forgot everything that you heard immediately after you heard it,
you would not be able to follow along with what a speaker says, and
conversations would be impossible. Moreover, a friend who expresses fear
about a dog she sees on the sidewalk ahead can help you recall that the friend
began the conversation with her childhood memory of being attacked by a
dog.
Evaluating
The fourth stage in the listening process is evaluating, or judging the value of the message.
We might be thinking, “This makes sense” or, conversely, “This is very odd.” Because
everyone embodies biases and perspectives learned from widely diverse sets of life
experiences, evaluations of the same message can vary widely from one listener to another.
Even the most open-minded listeners will have opinions of a speaker, and those opinions will
influence how the message is evaluated. People are more likely to evaluate a message
positively if the speaker speaks clearly, presents ideas logically, and gives reasons to support
the points made.
Unfortunately, personal opinions sometimes result in prejudiced evaluations. Imagine you’re
listening to a speech given by someone from another country and this person has an accent that
is hard to understand. You may have a hard time simply making out the speaker’s message.
Some people find a foreign accent to be interesting or even exotic, while others find it annoying
or even take it as a sign of ignorance. If a listener has a strong bias against foreign accents, the
listener may not even attempt to attend to the message. If you mistrust a speaker because of an
accent, you could be rejecting important or personally enriching information. Good listeners
have learned to refrain from making these judgments and instead to focus on the speaker’s
meanings.
Responding
Responding—sometimes referred to as feedback—is the fifth and final stage of
the listening process. It’s the stage at which you indicate your involvement.
Almost anything you do at this stage can be interpreted as feedback. For
example, you are giving positive feedback to your instructor if at the end of
class you stay behind to finish a sentence in your notes or approach the
instructor to ask for clarification. The opposite kind of feedback is given by
students who gather their belongings and rush out the door as soon as class is
over. Notice in Figure 4.3 “Stages of Feedback” that this stage is represented
by the lips because we often give feedback in the form of verbal feedback;
however, you can just as easily respond non verbally.
LISTENINGLISTENING IMPROVE YOUR LISTENING
SKILLS
Listening is an important skill for anyone who wants to be good at communication. There are
many reasons why listening is so important. Some of these are:

1. Demonstrate your ability to pay attention

2. Build personal and professional relationships
3. Helps you understand others
4. Enables you to communicate effectively
5. Helps businesses run smoothly
6. Build trust and rapport
7. Enhance basic human interaction
WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR LISTENING
SKILLS:
1. Maintain eye contact with the speaker
2. Visualize what the speaker is saying
3. Limit judgements
4. Be patient
5. Wait for a pause to ask questions
6. Ask clarifying questions
7. Empathize with the speaker
8. Pay attention to non-verbal cues
9. Provide the speaker with feedback
10. Practice listening
ADDITIONAL TIPS:
Be prepared
• Keep Positive Attitude
• Listen to Understand not refute
• Focus your Attention
• Concentrate on Context
• Take Notes
• Curb the impulse to Interrupt
• Summarize, evaluate and restate
BARRIERS TO LISTENING
1. Physical Barriers
Physical barriers to communication are obstructions in physical form that hinder the
communication between two parties. Being physical, these obstructions are mostly visible, and
you can reduce or eliminate them through physical changes. Physical barriers can occur because
of natural calamities like thunder or man-made objects like walls or doors. Any disturbance in
communication caused by such barriers can affect the operations of a business or a workplace.
Overcoming these barriers is essential to ensure complete and clear communication.
2. Physiological Barriers
Physiological barrier is a mental noise that emerges from our mood and energy level. It
becomes difficult to receive and process information when you’re in a more extreme mood,
whether positive or negative. For example, it can be just as distracting to be madly in love as it
can be to feel consumed by anger.
3. Linguistic Barriers
In our global society, a language barrier is probably one of the most common obstacles to effective
listening. It can exist when there is a language difference between the two individuals talking or when
one person has a poor understanding of the spoken language. It is important to note that a language
barrier does not have to be an issue of nationality or ethnicity. It could simply be a difference in dialect.

4. Cultural Barriers
What defines culture? Culture certainly includes race, nationality, and ethnicity, but it goes beyond
those identity markers as well. When we talk about culture, we are referring to belief systems, values,
and behaviors that support a particular ideology or social arrangement. The following are various
aspects of our individual identity that we use to create a membership in a shared cultural identity: race,
ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and class. Culture guides language use, appropriate
forms of dress, and views of the world. The concept is broad and encompasses many areas of society
such as the role of the family, the role of the individual, educational systems, employment, and gender.
See module for your activities.

Thank you!