Communication Skills:

Listening, Response
and Feedback Skills
Module 3
Lesson 6 – Listening Process
Introduction
Listening
• Listening is one of the most utilized
skills in our interpersonal
communication, but the skill that is
attended to the least. Interestingly,
most people believe that they are good
listeners.
• Many people think that all that is
needed is to stay quiet and let the other
person speak. But listening is much
more than that!
• Listening is a cooperative connection
with another person, demonstrating
that a receiver is equally responsible for
the cocreation of meaning in a
conversation.
The Importance of Speaking and
Listening
• Speaking and listening make up 69%
of our total communicating time each
day. One study showed that college
students spent about 53% of their
time listening and 16% speaking, but
only 14% writing and 17% reading .
Every successful communication
requires a sender and a receiver. When
a message is spoken, it is received by
listening. In other words, listening is
the other half of speaking; the two
activities belong together. Listening
makes up 53% of all communicating
time.
Hearing vs. Listening
• A good place to start learning about
listening is to find out what it is and
how it works. English has two words
that describe this “receiving” activity:
hearing and listening. Hearing and
listening are quite different.
Hearing happens every time sound waves
strike your ear drum and nerves transmit the
vibrations to the brain. It is an automatic
thing that you can’t really control. Invisible
sound waves enter the ear canal and make
the ear drum vibrate. These vibrations then
make the tiny bones in your ear vibrate too.
The nerves in your ear send signals to your
brain.
You can’t stop hearing something, but
you can, and often do, stop listening.
Listening happens after hearing and
refers to the decoding of sound waves
in your brain into meaningful words
and messages. You can learn to control
and improve your listening.
Four Stages of Listening
1. Attending
2. Understanding
3. Responding
4. Remembering
• Attending. The listening process begins
with attending. This simply means telling
your brain to (1) make a commitment to
listen and (2) pay attention to what it
hears.
For example, you are really hungry,
you may not pay attention to the
teacher’s lesson, but you will definitely
hear the voice of a vendor selling
hamburger. You can and do choose
which sounds you will attend to, so
with practice you can teach your brain
to attend “on command”.
Understanding. The next step in the listening
process is understanding. How well you
understand depends on a lot of factors. Here
are some of them:
• Is the message in a language you can
understand?
• Do you understand the words (vocabulary)?
• Do you have a need for the information you
are hearing?
• Is the message something you care about?
• Is the person speaking believable?
• Do you want to know what that person is
saying?
• Do you agree with the person speaking?
• Do you have the same values as the person
speaking?
Understanding only happens when the message
your brain creates is very similar to the
message that the speaker intended to send.
Responding. Because communication is a two-
way street, with messages going back and
forth between the sender and receiver, your
response to the speaker is also part of
listening. Speakers use a listener’s response
(feedback) to judge how accurately their
message is being received. Feedback includes
smiling, nodding, gesturing, as well as asking
questions to show your level of interest and
understanding.
Remembering. The last piece of the listening
process has to do with remembering the
message so that it will remain useful to you
over time. In general, people remember
only about half of what they have heard, even
right after the message has been received.
Within eight hours of receiving a message,
only about 35% of it is remembered, and that
amount drops to 25% after two months, even
for good listeners.
Activity # 6.1
• This listening activity includes some
words and phrases that may be
unfamiliar.
• Don’t just ignore these words or else
you may miss an important idea. Use
the words you do know in a passage to
help you make a good guess about the
new words.
Why is listening important?
• Listening is a key component of
effective communication skills.
• Listening is key to understanding
what other people are really trying to
say. Without listening, it's easy to
get something wrong and make
assumptions.
• Listening is the most important part of
communication. That’s because it allows you
to come-up with a substantial and
meaningful response. You can pick up on
subtleties you wouldn’t have otherwise,
especially with body language.
• If something isn’t clear, you can ask
clarifying questions. This is something you
might not have done without active
listening.
7 Types of Listening Styles
• There are a few different methods of
effective listening, and each one is
suited to specific circumstances. Here
are descriptions of the main types of
listening and the scenarios in which
you would be likely to use them:
1. Discriminative listening: Discriminative
listening is the first listening type that
you’re born with. Everyone innately has
discriminative listening skills. Instead of
relying on words, discriminative listening
uses tone of voice, verbal cues, and other
changes in sound. Discriminative listening
is how babies understand the intention of a
phrase before they can understand words.
If someone speaks to them in a happy
and amused tone of voice, they’ll smile
and laugh back. The mannerisms, facial
expressions, and body language of a
speaker help clue in, to the speaker’s
message.
2. Comprehensive listening: This type of
listening is usually developed in early
childhood. People use comprehensive
listening to understand what someone is
saying using words. For example, your
teacher is discussing the lesson. You’ll need
to use comprehensive listening to analyze the
words and understand the message.
3. Informational listening or informative listening
is the type of listening people use when they are
trying to learn. It usually takes a high level of
concentration to perform this type of listening.
That’s because you need to be highly engaged to
understand a new concept. You also need to apply
critical thinking to what you are learning. This is so
you can understand what you’re learning within the
context of relevant information.
4. Critical listening: Critical listening is the style
of listening people use when they are trying to
analyze and judge complex information that is
being communicated to them. You might use
critical listening in problem-solving or in trying
to decide if you agree or not with a message.
The word “critical” has multiple meanings, but
in this case, it simply means that you are
evaluating information—not necessarily
passing judgment.
5. Biased listening: is also known as selective
listening. Someone who uses biased listening
will only listen for information that they
specifically want to hear. This listening
process can lead to a distortion of facts.
That’s because the person listening isn’t fully
in tune with what the speaker wishes to
communicate.
6. Sympathetic listening: Sympathetic
listening is driven by emotion. Instead
of focusing on the message spoken
through words, the listener focuses on
the feelings and emotions of the
speaker. By using sympathetic listening,
you can provide the support the speaker
needs.
You can understand how they’re really
feeling, not what they say they are
feeling. Sympathetic listening is crucial
if you want to build a deeper
relationship with someone in your life.
7. Therapeutic listening and empathetic
listening: Therapeutic or empathetic listening is
a listening process wherein a listener tries to
understand the point of view of a speaker and
imagines themselves directly in the speaker’s
position. Empathetic listening (sometimes
referred to as empathic listening) goes a step
further than sympathetic listening in that an
empathic listener will relate to the speaker’s
experience as if it were their own.
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-listening-styles-help-you-communicate#7-types-of-listening-
styles
Lesson 7 - Active Listening
Lesson 7 - Active Listening
• In today's world of high tech and
high stress, communication is more
important than ever, however we
spend less and less time really
listening to each other. Genuine,
attentive listening has become rare.
The way to improve your listening
skills is to practice "active listening."
This is where you make a conscious
effort to hear not only the words that
another person is saying but, more
importantly, the complete message
being communicated.
Active listening requires the listener to
fully concentrate, understand, respond
and then remember what is being said.
You make a conscious effort to hear
and understand the complete message
being spoken, rather than just
passively hearing the message of the
speaker.
 A 5-Minute-Activity # 6.2
Directions:
• Work in pairs and write your
answers in the boxes.
• The first pair to finish will win the
activity.
Benefits of active listening:
1. Builds deep trust - As you cultivate the
habit of listening sincerely, you invite
people to open-up. They can sense that
you will not be jumping to conclusions
based on superficial details. They also
realize that you care enough about them
to listen attentively.
2. Broadens your perspective – The way
you understand life from your beliefs
and thinking is only one way to look
at it – listening to other people’s
perspectives allows you to look at life
from different perspectives, some of
which you may not have thought of
before.
3. Strengthens your patience – as you
gradually get better and better at
listening, an automatic benefit is that
you develop patience. Patience to let
the other person express his or her
feelings and thoughts honestly while
you don’t judge.
4. Makes you approachable – As
you present yourself as a patient
listener, people feel more
naturally inclined to communicate
with you. By being there for
them, you give them the freedom
to express their feelings.
5. Increases competence and knowledge –
Great listening skills make a person more
competent and capable. The more an
individual can get information out of the
discussions, the instructions, the more
efficient and successful they will be at
completing the task. Listening also builds
knowledge through progressive learning.
6. Helps detect and solve problems – in
listening, one can spot flaws and
come-up with suggestions for
improvements. Listening to others
will help you understand what needs
to be changed and worked on to
retain talent and make
improvements.
Examples of active listening
• Here are some examples of statements
and questions used with active
listening:
Paraphrasing - "So, you want us to build
the new school in the style of the old
one?“
Brief verbal affirmation - "I appreciate
the time you’ve taken to speak to me"
Asking open-ended questions - "I
understand you aren’t happy with your
new car. What changes can we make to
it?“
Asking specific questions - "How many
employees did you take on last year?"
Icebreaker Activity
Pair Work: Listen,
draw, write
Barriers to effective listening
1. Noise
Noise is one of the biggest factors
to interfere with listening; it can be
defined as anything that interferes
with your ability to attend to and
understand a message.
2. Attention Span
• A person can only maintain focused
attention for a finite length of time.
Whether or not these concerns are well
founded, you have probably noticed that
even when your attention is glued to
something in which you are deeply
interested, every now and then you pause
to do something else, such as getting a
drink.
3. Receiver Biases
• Good listening involves keeping an open
mind and withholding judgment until the
speaker has completed the message.
Conversely, biased listening is
characterized by jumping to conclusions;
the biased listener believes, "I don’t need
to listen because I already know this."
4. Listening Apprehension
• This is the fear that you might be unable to
understand the message or process the
information correctly or be able to adapt
your thinking to include the new
information coherently. In some situations,
you might worry that the information
presented will be too complex for you to
understand fully.
Becoming an Active Listener
• There are five key active
listening techniques you can
use to help you become a
more effective listener:
1. Pay Attention
Give the speaker your undivided attention and
acknowledge the message.
• Look at the speaker directly.
• Put aside distracting thoughts.
• Don't mentally prepare a rebuttal!
• Avoid being distracted by environmental
factors. For example, side conversations.
• "Listen" to the speaker's body language .
2. Show That You're Listening
Use your own body language and gestures to
show that you are engaged.
• Nod occasionally.
• Smile and use other facial expressions.
• Make sure that your posture is open and
interested.
• Encourage the speaker to continue with
small verbal comments like yes, and "uh
huh."
3. Provide Feedback
Our personal filters, assumptions, judgments, and
beliefs can distort what we hear. As a listener, your role
is to understand what is being said. This may require you
to reflect on what is being said and to ask questions.
• Reflect on what has been said by paraphrasing. "What
I'm hearing is... ," and "Sounds like you are saying...
," are great ways to reflect-back.
• Ask questions to clarify certain points. "What do you
mean when you say... ." "Is this what you mean?"
• Summarize the speaker's comments periodically.
4. Defer Judgment
Interrupting is a waste of time. It
frustrates the speaker and limits full
understanding of the message.
• Allow the speaker to finish each point
before asking questions.
• Don't interrupt with
counterarguments.
5. Respond Appropriately
Active listening is designed to encourage
respect and understanding. You are gaining
information and perspective. You add nothing
by attacking the speaker or otherwise putting
her down.
• Be candid, open, and honest in your response.
• Assert your opinions respectfully.
• Treat the other person in a way that you think
they would want to be treated.
https://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm
Activity # 6.2
How are Your Listening Skills?

Directions:
• Rate yourself for each of the listening
skills below.
✓ I am great at this
o I am ok at this
X I need to work on this
1. I look at people in the eye when they talk to me.
2. I watch people’s facial expressions to better understand them.
3. When I listen, I really want to understand the other person’s
point of view.
4. I do not interrupt.
5. I wait until the other person pauses before I ask questions.
6. I give the other person my complete attention.
7. I pay attention so I can remember what was said.
8. I keep an open mind while listening.

9. What can you do to improve your listening skills?