Listening as a Communication Skill

What is listening?

Listening refers to a series of five steps that involve receiving, understanding, remembering,
evaluating and availing response. It is the attention given to sounds and speech patterns;
identification of signals and symbols and comprehension of messages.

People often confuse hearing and listening. Much as they are closely related, there is quite a
distinction between the two. Hearing is a psychological process of the brain being aware of the
outside acoustic energy, which is picked up and transmitted by the ear to the brain. Listening, on the
other hand, is a cognitive process that begins with paying attention to particular stimuli -- usually
sounds or speech.

RECEIVING
UNDERSTANDING REMEMBERING
Attending
Learning &picking Recalling
Hearing meaning
Retaining

EVALUATING
RESPONDING
Judging
Giving feedback
Criticizing

Stages of Listening

1. Receiving -- Attending and hearing.

Verbal and non-verbal messages are sent by the speaker consisting of words and
symbols including facial expressions, among others. This means the receiver should not
only concentrate on the verbal messages but also the non-verbal messages.

Making receiving effective:

 Focus attention on the speaker’s verbal and non-verbal messages
 Avoid distractors from the environment
 Focus attention on what is being said and not what next is going to be said
 Maintain your role as a listener and avoid interpreting until the speaker is done
2. Understanding – Learning and picking meaning.
This occurs when the full meaning of a speaker’s speech/action has been learnt. It
includes understanding the thoughts, expressions and emotions that accompany them.

Ways of achieving understanding:

 Relate the speaker’s new information to earlier learning
 Receive the message from the speaker’s point of view and avoid interpretation
until the speaker is done
 Ask questions where necessary
 Rephrase the speaker’s message to evaluate your own understanding with
his/her thoughts and feelings

3. Remembering – Recalling and retaining.

This involves portraying the ability to think right in line with what had been said or a
message that had been delivered earlier on. Therefore, this is reproduction of what is in
the learner’s memory in regards to what the speaker said.

Effective remembering can be assured through:

 Identification of central ideas and the major support advanced
 Summarizing the message in an easier to understand way to you as an
individual
 Repeating the names and key concepts for yourself

4. Evaluating – Judging and criticizing.

This involves making judgement of the message. It helps in identification of other
concentration points for appropriate response. It is more in nature with critical analysis
than other situations. An example is given of the situation where you are required to
evaluate the impact of cutting foreign aid to Uganda in a national dialogue while
listening.

How to make evaluation effective:

 Resist evaluation until you have fully understood the message being delivered by
the speaker. Assume the speaker is one with good will, and give him/her the
benefit of doubt by asking for clarification on issues to your objection.
 Distinguish facts from inferences, opinions and personal interpretations by the
speaker.

5. Availing response – Answering or giving feedback.

This occurs in the responses one makes while listening and after the speech or
presentation. The responses made during a speech should be supportive and should
acknowledge your listening. They may include back channeling of I, yes, ok, uh-uh. These
give the speaker the assurance that you are attentive. The responses made after the
speech must be elaborative.

Benefits of Listening:
i) Listening helps in gaining social circle, i.e. being accepted in a particular
community or group.
ii) Listening increases one’s ability to understand and make proper judgment.
 iii) Listening helps in acquisition of more knowledge.
iv) Listening stimulates the speaker to explore more on the feelings and thoughts of
others.
v) Listening helps in problem identification and provision of a solution.
vi) Listening makes communication effective.

Types of Listening:

1. Participatory and non-participatory listening. Participatory listening is also termed as active

listening whereas non-participatory listening is termed as passive listening.

Participatory or active listening involves the physical (sitting upright and facing the speaker) and
mental (being emotionally ready to listen) engagement of the listener in the communication
process. Effective participatory listening may involve some expressions like non-verbal cues like
putting one’s thumb up and verbal cues like asking questions.

Non-participatory or passive listening is listening without speaking or shifting from the direction of
the speaker. This kind of listening is a one-way delivery of a message. The speaker comes and makes
a presentation with an intention of you having no say in the process of communication. For example,
“the state of the nation” address.

In controlling these two facets of listening, the following guidelines must be observed:

- Avoid preoccupying your mind with external thoughts.

- Participate by writing down the speaker’s most important points to you so you can
go through them later.
- Attend carefully to what the speaker is saying, regardless of whether it is
participatory or non-participatory listening.

2. Empathic and Objective listening

Empathic listening seeks to understand what the other person is saying by demonstrating
their empathy to the speaker. This type of listening is also called therapeutic listening. It
therefore emphasizes on the empathy, feel and seeing the world from the speaker’s point of
view.
Objective listening, on the other hand, is that type of listening that goes beyond showing
empathy. It measures the meanings and feelings against an objective reality.
In accommodating these two types of listening the listener should avoid listening
partially. In other words, the listener is required to pay painstaking attention to the
speaker.

3. Surface and Depth Listening

Surface listening is paying much attention to the most obvious parts of the message -- in that
by hearing just simple sentences, one understands everything.

Depth listening is, on the other hand, listening with the intention of getting the entire meaning of
the message being delivered. For this type of listening you should focus on both the verbal and non-
verbal messages of the speaker.
In accommodating these two types of listening the listener should listen to both content and
relational messages. Do not disregard the surface meaning of the interpersonal message in your
attempt to uncover the in-depth meaning.

4. Listening for enjoyment and listening for information

In a situation of listening for enjoyment the listener aims at receiving the information that
will simply help them achieve their goal for listening, e.g., Listening to music just for
entertainment or feeling happy.
Listening for information, on the other hand, is also known as comprehensive listening. This
involves seeking for the content in the message. It is therefore the ability of the listener to
understand the message being passed on by the speaker.

Common Listening Problems that Listeners Face:

i) Letting thought speed outrace listening speed. Thought speed refers to the rate at
which the listener overrides the speaker’s message in interpretation and
imagination. The listener may end up understanding a different version of what is
being delivered. Listening speed refers to paying attention and carefully focusing on
the speaker’s message.
ii) Faking attention. This refers to presenting a false and misleading attention to the
speaker. This is done by using appropriate verbal reinforcements such as “o yeah, I
see”.
iii) Internal distraction. This can be either physical (feeling hungry, tired or headache) or
psychological (personal feelings about a problem, e.g., paying rent).
iv) Listening only to easy material. E.g. haters of mathematics may choose to take on
the theoretical bit while avoiding calculations.
v) Egocentric. This is selfish, self-centeredness or egotism. Egocentric listening occurs
when the listener concentrates more on him/herself than the speaker passing on
the message.
vi) Becoming overstimulated. This is when the listener is too involved in the speaker’s
message. It is more of reaching a good point while the speaker is still presenting;
thereby dismissing the rest of the information.
vii) Selective listening. This is where the listener chooses to listen to what he/she feels is
of importance or use and decides to eliminate the rest of the information from the
speaker; thus the listener ends up missing out some useful information. This can be
cause by bias of the listener to the speaker’s information.

Other factors that affect the listening ability of an individual include the following:

 Dress and appearance

 Tone of the speaker’s voice
 Sitting arrangement
 Sitting posture
 Accent, pronunciation and diction.
A good listener has to exhibit the following:

 Show interest in the speaker you are listening to and his/her views.
 Respond when necessary, keep quiet if it is not crucial for you to say something. Avoid
interruptions and arguments, because this destroys the self-confidence of the speaker and
can be time wasting.
 Acknowledge that you are listening, for example by nodding your head in approval. Make
simple statements like “I see” or just to mention that “that is a good point” to encourage the
speaker. Remember that some people thrive on encouragement, and value compliments
when they feel they have made a good point.
 Know the appropriate time to seek clarification or ask questions. For some people asking
questions in the middle of a discussion disrupts their concentration; hence their listening
ability.
 Find positive ways of seeking improvement. For example, instead of saying “your accent
drive me mad” one could say “please speak slowly”.
 Avoid sensitive statements, which trigger emotions and referring to positions in society.
Whenever possible, know what the speaker is interested in as well as what puts him/her off.

In conclusion, listening is a skill that can be learned and practiced. In order to do this, you should
always ask yourself the following questions:

 Was I really interested in the subject matter and/or the speaker?

 Did I summarize the major points?
 Did I respond appropriately, and sought clarifications where I did not understand?
 Did I indicate any physical or facial expressions that I was really not listening?
 Did I avoid external distractions?
 Did I hold my temper when emotions arose?