Listening skills

Topics
• Types of listening Active vs. passive,
Empathetic,
• Traits of a goodlistener,
• barriers in effective listening
• Tips for effective listening
 Listening
• Defn: Listening is a process of receiving, interpreting
and reacting to a messagefrom the speaker

• No communication process is complete without

listening
 Listening
• Listening is an important skill. Listening is quite similar to
reading as it involves reception and decoding of the verbal
message from the other person. The following example
illstrates importance of listening

In a biology class teacher asked the students to refer to a book

titled “ Origin of Species”
One of the students sincerely went to library searched in the
catalogue of library books , looking for a book named “Orange
and Peaches” but to his utter dismay he could not find it. When
he approached the teacher he found that the book was entitled
Origin of Species. This is what happens when there is lack of
concentration in listening.
 Listening vs. Hearing
• Hearing and listening are not the same even though
people may often use these words interchangeably.
In fact, hearing solely depends on the ears, it is a
physical act, everyone can hear without deliberate
effort. Hearing is merely vibration of sounds on the
ear drums followed by an electrochemical response.

• On the other hand listening requires voluntary

attention and then making sense of what is being
said.
Listening vs. Hearing

vs.
 Types of Listening
There are various forms of listening. Two
broad categories of listening are as follows:

1) Casual Listening: Casual listening is to

listen to someone or something
without much attention and
concentration. This type of listening has
no specific purpose.

2) Focused listening: Focused listening is an

intentional and a systematic process. The
listener gives his full attention and
concentration on what the speaker is
saying to get information, knowledge and
ideas. This type of listening is also
considered as“ IntensiveListening”.
Other types of listening:

• Active listening also called as attentive

listening. Active listening involves
attention, careful consideration of, and
concentration on the speaker’s ideas.
The listener participates in
communication process actively and
attentively.

• The listener nods his head, leans

forward or shows positive body
language, which supports and
encourages the speaker to
communicate more enthusiastically. This
is positive type of listening.
• Passive Listening:
• Passive Listening is very stern, rigid and
orthodox type of listening. This type of
listening may create confusion in the mind of
the speaker about true intention of the
listener. The listener wears a ‘ flat’ face,
serious expressions, gestures that are used in
active listening. Some times passive listening
is used to show status of the listeners.
• Critical listening:Critical
listening can also be called as
‘evaluative listening’ This type
of listening involves critical
evaluation of the speaker’s
thoughts and ideas. The listener
assesses speaker’s depth of
knowledge, choice of words and
tone and style of thelistener.
• This type of listening is used in
seminars, conferences, group
discussions, and other formal
types of interactions.
• Appreciative listening: This type of
listening appreciates and supports the
speaker. The listener encourages and
motivates the speaker to speak more.

• Pretentive Listening: Pretentive

listening is also called as ‘False
Listening” .The Listener pretends that
he is listening attentively to the
speaker.
The listener may even nod his head,
smile at the speaker, lean forward, or
he will pretend to write down
something. The speaker is under the
false impression that 'Listener' is
paying attention
• Empathetic listening: This Type
of listening exercises emotional
influence on the listener.The
listener not only understands
the literal message but also
understand the feeling,
emotions, and the world view of
the speaker.
• Therapeutic listening: This type
of listening involves a healing
process in which person reveals
their suppressed desires. The
listener listens to the speaker
with the purpose of letting the
speaker’s suppressed feelings
come to the surface.
• Selective Listening: In This type
of listening the listener listens to
only important and specific
information. The listener does
not pay heed to other topics or
issues in the speech

• Biased Listening:
In this type of listening, the
listener is biased and prejudiced
against the speaker. The listener
has preconceived notions about
the speaker and the speech. The
listener may exhibit lack of trust
and respect for the speaker.
• Assertive Listening: In this
type of listening, the listener
allows the speaker to express
his ideas freely and frankly.
The listener respects the
speaker’s right to speak.
Assertive listening encourages
the speaker to communicate
his ideas in an open
environment.
Types of Listening Responses

• Clarification

• Paraphrasing

• Reflection

• Summarisation
 Traits of a good listener
• Being non evaluative:
• If you are an active listener your verbal and non-
verbal behavior should suggest to the speaker
that he is being properly heard and understood.
It should not indicate what you think about a
person. The purpose is to communicate
overlooking the qualities of thespeaker.
• The behavior of the listener should convey the
impression that you accept the person without
making judgment of right or wrong, good or bad,
suitable or unsuitable.
• Paraphrasing (summarize)
• If you wish to clarify a point, you can simply
summarize what the speaker has said and
enquire the speaker whether you have heard
it accurately or not.
 Reflecting Implications (suggestions)
• In order to persuade the speaker ( to motivate
the speaker) to extend his ideas, the listener has
to reflect eagerness and willingness to learn
more by using expressions like nodding or
through verbal means, thereby giving positive
feedback.
• This technique can used by listener to get more
information from the speaker in the area of
interest of the listener.
 Reflecting Hidden Feelings
• Sometimes the listener has to go beyond the
general feelings and contents of what is being
said to unravel the underlying feelings,
intentions, beliefs that may influence the
speaker’s words.
• Acceptance is conveyed more by listeners
manner and tone than by the words.
 Inviting FurtherContribution
• In a situation where listener hasn’t heard or
understood enough, the listener can respond
with empathy and understanding, prompt the
speaker to give more information.
• The idea here is to get a better understanding
of the subject by asking questions. But the
questions should be for seeking information
not to interrogate or challenge the speaker.
 Responding Non-Verbally
• Listener can portray his image
as that of an active listener by
adopting certain postures, and
sending non verbal signal which
communicates the listeners
interest in what the speaker is
saying. This may include eye
contact, Leaning forward
towards the listener, head
nodding.
• Listener can also use some
receptive utterances like ‘yes’
‘uh-hum’ to indicate that
message of speaker is being
understood.
 Barriers to effectivelistening
• The factors which create barriers in
effective listening are asfollows:
• Environmental Condition:
Environmental condition like humidity,
temperature,etc limits the listeners span
of listening.

• Space Distance: Distance between the

speaker and the listener may affect the
listening process. If the speaker is
speaking from long distance, the listener
may struggle to grasp what the speaker
is speaking. Some of the words may be
misunderstood by the listener.
• Omniscient attitude of the
listener:
Many people consider
themselves as ‘ know it all’.
They think that they have
perfect knowledge of everything
in the world. According to them
listening to others is pure waste
of time. They are not listening
to the speakers because they
think that they already know
what he is going to say.
• Infrastructure: Poor Infrastructure may affect
listening process. Lack of proper ventilation, light,
acoustics can act asa barrier to listening.

• Speed of the speaker:

Speed of the speaker can act as a barrier to
listening. If the speaker is speaking too fast, the
listeners have no other alternative than just
watching the speaker. The Human brain receives
sounds at a specific speed. If this speed is not
maintained properly, the listeners may get
distracted.
• Speakers' Non-verbal communication:
Speaker not using facial expressions, gestures, body
language, eye contact and other factors can create
barriers to listening. If the speaker relies only on
verbal expressions, the listener will be tired of
constant bombardment of words.

• Voice and tone of the speaker: the listener will

feel bored and fed up when listening to a
monotonous speech. If the speaker’s voice is not
audible, the listener may not listen to it
attentively.
• Lack of Factual Information : Many a times
listeners do not listen attentively and carefully
because they does not find any factual
information in the speech.
• Language of the speaker: If the speaker is
using highly technical jargon and difficult
words, the listener will be clueless about the
meaning of those words. They will try to find
meaning of those words instead of listening to
the speaker.
• Horn Effect in the Listener: The
horn effect is the tendency to
underestimate a person in all the
fields because he is bad in one of
the field. The listeners reject and
nullify the speaker’s chance to
speak for most of the time
because listeners dislike the
speaker.
• Span of the Speech: The process
of listening can take place for a
limited period of time. If the
speaker is speaking for hours at a
time, the listener turns into
pretentive listener.
The power of listening

The philosopher Epictetus stressed the

power of listening in his quote:

“Nature gave us one tongue and two

ears so we could hear twice as much as we
speak.”
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