Listening Skills
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Hi guys, how are you doing?
Here I am writing about one of skills in learning English. That is listening skills. As cited in Koneru (2011) listening is one of vital skills. Indeed, the research study has proved that it is the most important link in a process of communication, “the effectiveness of spoken words depends not so much on how people talk but mostly on how they listen” (p,3). Moreover, listening occupies more times than talking, reading and writing. Listening is one of the ways people understand a message from any interlocutors.
To make you easier in understanding this article, I am outlining it into several parts:
1. Why is listening important? Because
effective listening
-
Makes you understand the concepts of
communication crystal clear.
-
Assists you to understand the views of people
-
Assists you to establish rapport with people
quickly
-
Improve your intellectual ability to understand
and evaluate the views and opinions expressed by others
-
Enable you to collect views, opinions, and
feelings of others on a certain concept or setback.
-
Enable you to collect accurate information
-
Helps speaker to convey his ideas clearly in a
dyadic and group communication condition
To achieve the above effectiveness, a person should
be more concentration.
2. What is the difference between listening
and hearing?
Some people might think that both are
similar. In fact, that each of them has significant different. Hearing is one
of psychological process in which vibration of sound waves carry through the
eardrums to reach the central auditory system of the brain (p,4). In addition,
hearing is a fast and automatic process. When we are hearing, we do not need our
physical cues, like body movement, eye contact, and body language. While
listening is a serious process or conscious process to get a message from
others. Listening is a process which engages your parts of body, like eye
contact, body language. In which it is a process of hearing with understanding,
interpreting and responding. UNDERSTANDING - RELATING- COMPREHEND- INTERPRETING
If we look at the above processes, listening starts from hearing with understanding the sounds surrounded through ears. Then, human relates (relating) the sound to sound system of language. In Subsequence, humans comprehend the message conveyed. After that, he or she might be interpreting it and respond it.
3. Purpose of listening
Before knowing the purpose of listening,
let us know the types of listening. There are three types of listening.
1.
Content listening
2.
Critical listening
3.
Appreciative listening
Those types have several purpose and situation:
Types of listening
|
Purpose
|
1.
Content listening
|
To get main aspects of the
topic
To understand and retain the
information
|
2.
Critical listening
|
To accept or to reject the
message
To evaluate critically
To evaluate the validity of the
conclusions
To find the logic of the
argument
To find the strength of the
argument
To find the implications of the
message for your organisation
|
3.
Appreciative listening
|
To derive artistic pleasure
To understand the speakers’
feelings, needs and tone, so that you can appreciate his or her point of view
|
4. Difficulties of listening
There are some barriers occur on people
when they are listening:
1.
There is unclear pronunciations sounds of the
words
2.
Not concentration
3.
Taking note to much
4.
Unaware of homonymic words
5.
Lack of perspective
6.
Unaware of homophonic words
7.
Inappropriate use of language
5. How to overcome the difficulties of
listening
1. We
must have a purpose in listening
2. We
must understand the previous background of the topic
3. Being
more effective in taking note
4. Being
more emotionally stable
5. Beware
of non-verbal communication devices
6. Allowing
the speaker to complete the speech
7. Beware
of stress patterns of English language
1.
Poor and
good listening
Poor listener
1.
Careless listening impairs hearing
2.
Gets unfocussed easily
3.
Listens casually
4.
Shows little/no interest
5.
Lack of attention
6.
Tunes out dry subjects
7.
Takes wide notes
8.
Tunes out if delivery is poor
9.
Disregards non-verbal communication techniques
10.
Gives no importance to vocal techniques
11.
Draws quick conclusions without complete
comprehension
12.
Tends to enter into an argument without complete
comprehension
13.
Does not show interest in difficult expository
material
14.
Reacts to slogans and emotional expressions
15.
Tends to entertain in day dreams with slow and
monotonous speaker
16.
Does not show any interest to recap the
important concepts
17.
Does not exercise the skill of inference
18.
Ignore the tone
Good listener
1.
Conscious attention
2.
Try to evade distraction
3.
Listen cautiously for acts and ideas
4.
Shows enormous interest
5.
Shows unquestionable concentration
6.
Tries to find out what is necessary for him
7.
Takes less notes: only the important points
8.
Concentrate on content not on delivery
9.
Pays attention to know the importance of the
message
10.
Give importance to get clarity of the message
11.
Draws inferences after complete comprehension of
the topic
12.
Interrupts only for clarification
13.
Takes the difficult expository material as an exercise
or a challenge to the mind
14.
Interprets and comprehends slogans and emotional
expression and does not get carried away by them
15.
Tries to anticipate the message mentally and
draws conclusions out of it
16.
Listen carefully and summarises the important
concepts
17.
Tries to draw inference wherever it is required
18.
Tries to comprehend the message from the tone of
the speaker
2. How to improve listening skills
Listening is not easy skills. It needs hard effort, positive attitude,
concentration and willingness. The bellow are some guidelines to improve
listening skills.
1.
Think about the topic in advance
2.
Develop desire to learn
3.
Focus on listening and not on delivery
4.
Determine the personal value of the topic for
you
5.
Repel destruction
6.
Focus on the matter being spoken, carefully
identifying the main points
7.
Depersonalise your listening so that you
decrease the emotional impact of what is being said
8.
Better hold your rebuttal until you have heard
the total message
9.
Concentrate on the subject while listening
10.
Do not let your thought wander while listening
11.
Keep an open mind by asking questions that
clarify your understanding
12.
Listen for main points as well as for facts, and
know the difference between the fact and principle, idea and example, and
evidence and argument
13.
Make meaningful notes which should be brief and
to the point
14.
You should be more flexible in your views. It enhances
your listening skills
15.
You can evaluate the content not the speaker
16.
Differentiate important points from irrelevant points
17.
Practice your listening skills by attending
lectures, public speeches
3.
Reference:
Koneru, A. (2011). English
Language Skills. India: McGraw-Hill Education
