Good morning class. Today we are going to tacle about listening.

but before that

lets have first an eyes breaker as a warm up for todays discussion. we are going to
play the msg relay. I need 5 representatives from this side and also from this side.
The person in front will be given a message and must pass it correctly to the next
person. The goal is to get the message past to the last person intact and without
any changes. the last person will write it on the paper and later on we are going
to compare it to the msg the first person read.

Congatualation to the winner later you will receive your price.

so what we have done earlier is an example of listening.

The Nature of Listening

everyone of us use listening in our day to day lives. But although many of us can
hear, many of us fail to listen to what other people are saying. according to the
textbook Speak right we spend 44% listening but only 30% speaking, 15% in
reading and 11% writing. that only shows how much time is given to listening to
other people, to the radio, and other sounds that modern technology offers.
Listening skills therefore must be develop for we listen more than we read, talk or
write.

As you can see, listening is a significant part in communication. everyone

supposedly listen everyday weather in the class lecture, a meeting or when
talking to someone. after all listening makes up majority of the time we spent in
communicating.

There is a difference between hearing and listening. these two are very different
things. hearing is physiological while listening requires focus. hearing is the
function of bodies ability to receive sounds. it accidental, involuntary and
effortless while listening requires fucosed, its a voluntary action and its
intentional

The Process of Listening

There are five stages in the process of listening. the first one is:

Receiving or hearing is a physiological dimension of listening. it occurs when

sound waves hit the ear at a certain frequency and loudness. hearing is influenced
by background noise.

The second one is Understanding occurs when we make sense of a message.

During the understanding stage of listening, we attempt to comprehend the
message’s meaning. It’s during this stage that incorrect meaning can be applied to
a message. Asking questions to fill any information gaps is the best way to better
understand a message

the third one is evaluating it consist of judging the messages in some way. At
times you may try to evaluate the speakers underlying intentions or motives
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.
This allows the person to record information about people, objects, and events
for later recall.

. Responding is also a part of listening process. It is giving observable feedback.

this can be done through our body language. A good listener show that they are
attentive by for example nodding for agreement or taking down notes from the
speaker.

Listening performs variety of function according to Seiler.

Types of listening according to function

 Informative/Informational Listening
Listen to get information and comprehend daily occurrences, such as,
weather forecast, directions, instructions and orders received from
superiors and the like. the best example for informative listening is what
we are doing in school, is what you are doing right now. you listen to your
teacher to get information and learn something.

 Evaluative/Critical Listening

This kind of listening is done to judge or analyse information gathered or heard.

The listener discriminates and listens with a critical mind before believing,
accepting, or reacting to what was heard after judging the evidence, arguments,
facts, or opinions presented by speaker. An example for this is when we listen to a
political debate. We listen to make judgements about what the person is saying
and we seek for the truth of what is being said.

 Empathic Listening
 This involves the physical, emotional, and intellectual aspects of the
listener. This provides emotional support for the speaker. We do this a lot
when we are talking to our friend who have problems. Empathic listening
aims to understand, comfort, and help others lessen their burden, or share
in their joy by putting oneself in their shoes.

 Appreciative Listening

This kind of listening aims to seek pleasure, personal satisfaction, and

appreciation.

This is where you simply listen to enjoy, relax and appreciate. There is no
pressure in this one because you do this for your own benefits. for example
you listen to music to be relaxed or you listen in some kind of inspirational
msgs to motivate yourself. You do this for enjoyment and entertainment.

Barriers Against Effective Listening

 distraction. this is very common if you have your phone out on the desk
when you’re trying to listen. you can very likely preoccupy by that. if you
are distracted by the noise or another conversation coming from another
room, that can make you out of focus, what you have to do is manage
these distraction. Turn off your phone and put it inside your bag. close the
door or move to a different location so you can focus and not be
distracted,

the second one is preoccupation. preoccupation is happening in your mind. For

example you might be thinking about something else or maybe someone else
when you enter the conversation and that hinders you to listen effectively.
another Barrier for listening is the topic. maybe this topic is just boring to you or
maybe you don’t care about it and maybe that is something that you do not like.
and that is going to be very diffecult. the solution here is to develop a curiosity
and just make your mind up that you are going to take interest in what the other
person is saying.

the next barrier in listening is rebuttal tendency. a lot of times where in instead of
listening carefully, you’re figuring out what were gonna say next and getting
ready to jump in. and if we are thinking this way and maybe we want to debate
them. Don’t worry too much about what your gonna say next, you can figure that
out and there can be a pause in the conversation. that’s not a bad thing that’s
actually a good thing. just focus on them and worry about your response for later.

and the final barrier to effective listening is unfortunately sometimes it’s the
speaker. Sometimes the speaker is boring or uninteresting or they are doing
something distracting, they say um a lot. Maybe they are a soft talker. and you
can’t get over something about them. and when you are in this situation try not
to be too judgemental to the speaker and try to have a little bit of compassion for
the person as a human being and not worry about how they are performing as a
communicator but just tune into who they are as a person and care a little bit
more about them. and that helps you become a better listener in the moment
and get over that barrier.