1.3. Listening

Text : Stephen E. Lucas, The Art of Public Speaking, McGraw Hill

Hearing: The vibration of sound waves on the eardrums and the firing of electrochemical impulses in the brain.

Listening: Paying close attention to, and making sense of, what we hear.

Listening is important

• Top-flight business executives, successful politicians, brilliant teachers nearly all are excellent listeners.
• In most working places, effective listeners hold higher positions and are promoted more often than people who are ineffective listeners.
• According to business managers number one communication skill is “listening”. 
• Mostly everyone depends on listening than speaking.
• As a speaker listening is always important to get information and ideas.
• Best speakers are always best listeners.

Listening and critical thinking

Types of Listening 

1.Appreciative listening: Listening for pleasure / enjoyment (Listen to music, comedy,)

2. Empathetic listening:Listening to provide emotional support for the speaker (Friend’s distress story)

3.Comprehensive listening: Listening to understand the message of a speaker. (Attending for a lecture)

4.Critical listening: Listening to evaluate a message for purpose of accepting or rejecting it.( Ex: Campaign speech of a political candidate )

Comprehensive thinking skills

• Summarizing information.
• Recalling facts.
• Distinguish main points from minor points, are central to comprehensive listening.

Critical thinking Skills

• Separating facts from opinion
• Spotting weakness in reasoning 
• judging the soundness of evidence

Four causes of Poor Listening 

1.Not concentrating:  120-150 words a minute – we talk, 400-800 brain can process. 
Spare brain time:  The difference between   the rate at which most people talk (120 to  150 words a minute) and the rate at which the brain can process language (400-800 words a minute).

Though, we have enough spare time/ brain time we just interrupt our listening by thinking about other things.Ex: Student union meeting-one has lost his/her listening 

2.Listening too hard:

Sometimes we try to catch speaker's each and every word.Try to remember all the data (names, places, dates, information), therefore we often miss the speaker's main points.
- Efficient listeners usually concentrate on main ideas evidence rather than trying to remember everything a speaker says.

3.Jumping to conclusion:

Before the speaker’s message we just jump into conclusion.

-Putting words into a speaker's mouth, we are so sure we know what they mean, we don't listen to what they actually say.
-Jumping to conclusion is prematurely rejecting a speaker's ideas as boring or misguided.

4. Focusing on delivery and personal appearance:

We tend to judge people by the way they look or speak and therefore do not listen what they say.

Speaker’s accent, personal appearance, vocal mannerism, dress, etc

How to become a better listener

1.Take listening seriously:

• Learn how to listen effectively
• Practice and self-discipline
• Doing self-evaluation on Listening

2.Be an active listener:

• Avoid passive listening ( listen to a song while studying, parents listen to their children while preparing meal, students listen a lecture while doing another subject’s work)

• “Giving undivided attention to a speaker in a genuine effort to understand the speaker’s point of view.
• In a conversation, active listeners do not interrupt the speaker or finish his/her sentence.

• When listening to a speech, they do not allow themselves to be distracted by internal or external interference.

• They do not prejudge the speaker.

• They will focus the speaker's message only.