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The Art of Effective Listening Skills: Needs, Goals and Strategies

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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research journal ISSN 2278-9529

The Art of Effective Listening Skills: Needs, Goals and Strategies

Bipin Bihari Dash

Lecturer in English
College Of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar
A Constituent College Of B.P.UT, Odisha, India

ABSTRACT:

Listening is an important communicative process and is crucial to effective communication.

It is a process of receiving and interpreting the spoken word. It involves recognising what is
said and comprehending the matter that is, understanding the main and subsidiary points as
well as the links between the different parts of speech. This means that effective listening
involves not only recognising unit boundaries phonologically, but also the recognition of
false starts, pauses, hesitations, stress, intonation, and rhythm patterns. While receiving and
interpreting the spoken word, the listener is concerned with four factors, that is, sensing,
message decoding or interpreting, evaluating and response. Listening skill is perhaps the most
critical element in language and language learning, as it is the key to speaking, and beyond
that reading and writing. Particularly, for the professionals, listening is used much time than
the other skills. At all levels---from entry level to managerial ---listening is perceived as
crucial for communication. In this paper I would like to explore and analyse the strategies of
listening skills and its goal and need for the professionals.

KEYWORDS: Listening skill, Communication, Language skill, Sub-skills

INTRODUCTION:

Before we get into the technique of effective listening, let’s define what we mean by the word
‘listening’. Listening – the process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding
to spoken and/ or non-verbal messages.

Without a doubt, listening is an activity that most of us are not really taught how to do
effectively. We tend to be overly concerned with the outgoing sounds, rather than the
incoming signals—for that’s what they are. Listening is as important, may be even more
important than speaking. Without proper listening skills it is difficult to communicate
effectively with others. We’ve all met the person who talks a mile a minute and does not
really want to hear what others have to say. Is this person actually communicating? The

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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research journal ISSN 2278-9529

answer is ‘NO’ .If you do all of the talking and never listen, you will never really
communicate very well with others. Ben Franklin states, “The heart of a fool is in his mouth,
but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart”. There is a saying in Turkey: “If speaking is
silver, then listening is gold”. Howard G. Hendricks views on listening in this way:

The Principle of Listening,

Someone has said, is to develop a
big ear rather than a big mouth.

PROCESS OF LISTENING:

Although listening is considered a passive process, it is a highly active process, because in

order to be extremely active and alert. In fact, becoming a good listener requires us to
understand how listening happens. Essentially a cognitive process, listening involves the
following stages.

The Listener The Listener The Listener The

hears decodes or evaluates
Listener
sounds and interprets the the message
focus responds
message
on them

1 2 3 4

Fig-01 M Ashraf Rizvi’s Effective Technical Communication pp: 60

TYPES OF LISTENING:

In order to hone our listening ability, it is advisable to know the different types of listening
that we need to employ on different occasions.

1. superficial listening
2. Appreciative listening
3. Focussed listening
4. Evaluative listening

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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research journal ISSN 2278-9529

5. Attentive listening
6. Empathetic listening
7. Informative listening
8. Relationship listening
9. Appreciative listening
10. Critical listening
11. Discriminative listening
12. Content listening
13. Analytical listening
14. Biased listening
15. Sympathetic listening
16. Passive listening
17. active listening
18. Therapeutic listening
19. Intensive listening
20. Extensive listening

SUB-SKILLS OF LISTENING:

Listening Skill Problems /Reason Possible Solution and

Practical Activities

The learners have problem in identifying the The learners should know
sounds in the language. Ur states: “Once words phonemic chart. They
Phonological
have been integrated into sentences within should know
Recognition colloquial, spontaneous speech, recognizing pronunciation, stress,
them becomes much more difficult.” intonation etc.

The students have problem in predicting the The speaker can elicit
general content and also have problems with information about the
Prediction
predicting the next word. They may not have topic. The learners
the cultural or topic knowledge to allow them to brainstorm in order to
predict the content of a listening, or it may be predict the content of the
that the learner’s do not have enough listening. Analyse the
grammatical knowledge to predict the next ideas logically.
word, e.g. India is a country. The
students may not realise that an adjective often
precedes a noun.

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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research journal ISSN 2278-9529

The listener may have problem in identifying The learners should have
the specific information required if they try to given supporting
Listening for
listen to all the words, including the materials. May be
Specific redundancy. The listener may not recognise the incomplete text, graphs,
information linking devices. charts, flow charts etc.

Difficulty in identifying what the speaker says. Study the speaker and
It may be the curiosity to follow each word. then answer the
Global
questions. know and
Comprehension
observe the speaker

This skill enables the listener to develop the While using listening
process of arriving at a hypothesis of a listening material it is important to
Inference
text by deducing the meaning from the context look at the level of an
of the listening material. it is a difficult sub- inferential task given to
skill as the students have lack of knowledge in match it with the
second language. student’s language level.

This would involve the learner making Study the body language
assumptions about the speaker’s attitude: and then follow the
Inferring
whether the speaker is speaker.
Attitude
happy/sad/annoyed/worried etc.

BARRIERS TO LISTENING:

As listening is a complex process, it is desirable to take care of the barriers that may hamper
the smooth flow of oral communication. Awareness of these barriers can help the listener
adopt them. The barriers to the listening process may emanate from either the speaker,
listener, or the circumstances of communication. In oral communicative situations, any
interference or noise that interferes with the listening process can create misunderstanding
and confusion and may sometimes lead to communication breakdown.

According to Sanjaya Kumar and Pushp Lata there are several hindrances to effective
listening. Some of these are:

 Physical Barriers
 Psychological Barriers
 linguistic Barriers
 Cultural Barriers
 Semantic Barriers
 Environmental Barriers

Vol. II. Issue. III 4 May 2013

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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research journal ISSN 2278-9529

 Lack of Interest
 The Ego
 Involved with the Self
 Lack of Self Confidence
 Fear
 Preconceived ideas and Notions
 The Familiarity Trap
 Personal Stress in Life
 Different Levels of Perception
 Different Language Variety and Accent

Meenakshi Raman and Prakash Singh explains that listening is never easy. There are a
number of common barriers that we, if we are aware of them, can try to counteract.

Variables that create listening barriers.

Content speaker medium distractions

Mindset language feedback listening speed

ACTIVE LISTENING SKILLS:

Active listening is an essential mentoring skill. One of the most common mistakes mentors
can make is confusing ‘hearing’ and ‘listening’. Hearing is merely noting that someone is
speaking, listening , however, is making sense of what is heard and requires the individual to
constantly pat attention, interpret, and remember what is heard. Hearing is passive: listening
is active. Active listening requires the listener to hear the words and identify the feelings
associated with the words. There are four essential requirements for active listening;

• Intensity
• Empathy
• Acceptance
• Willingness to take responsibility for completeness

An active listener concentrates on what the speaker is saying. The human brain is capable of
handling a speaking rate six times that of the average speaker. Thus, the listener must focus
on the speaker. Turning out distractions will increase listening ability (Robbins, 1991).Active
listening is all about building rapport, understanding, and trust.

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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research journal ISSN 2278-9529

Active listening skills:

 Restating
 Summarizing
 Minimal encourages
 Reflecting
 Giving Feedback
 Emotion Labelling
 Probing
 Validation
 Effective Pause
 Silence
 ‘I’ MESSAGE-by using ‘I’ in our statements; we focus on the problem not on the
person. An I-message lets the person know what you feel and why-for example, “I
know you have a lot to say, but I need to...”
 Redirecting
 Consequences


EFECTIVE LISTENING TECHNIQUES:

Mallika Nawal states that we will enumerate the different tools/ techniques that can improve
our listening skills. We must, namely, do the following to improve our listening skills.

Eliminate distractions
Concentrate
Focus on the speaker
Maintain an open mind
Look for nonverbal cues
Do not react to emotive words
Ask questions
Sit so you can see and hear
Avoid prejudices
Visualize the message
Relate message to personal experience
Listen between the lines
Take notes
Paraphrase
Provide nonverbal feedback

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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research journal ISSN 2278-9529

STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVE LISTENING:

The human brain is built for conversation, but we achieve better results when we think
strategically about listening and make a few simple, deliberate choices that support our
conversational goals. Our skill as a listener can make or break our success in leadership,
teams, customer relationships, and negotiations.

The following steps can make our more effective conversationalist:

 Decide what our Goals are for the Conversation: skilled listeners think about
their purposes for having a conversation and make their choices based upon those
purposes. Valid business purposes for a conversation include the following:
• Exchange information
• Building working relationships
• Feeling good
• Making someone else feel good
 Be Aware of our Opinions
 When to Speak and When to listen: there are a few rules of thumb when deciding
whether to talk or listen.
• Never assume we should talk more
• We can ask
• Make an effort to share the floor
• When the conversation lags, refocus
 Planning What to say When we Speak- Focussing and Clarifying
 Attentive Listening
• Get over our self
• Stop multitasking
• Recap regularly
• Use Body language

NEEDS AND GOALS OF LISTENING SKILLS:

Current English as a second and foreign –language has encouraged to treat each
communicative macro skill separately due to space constraint, but the interrelationship among
these skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) is not paid attention. Human being
learns first listening skills and then other three language skills. The essence of listening skill
for effective communication has been recognised almost for a long time. For being a good
administrator and professional person listening skill is very vital. Listening is a key to
understanding. Time, empathy, and concentration on the communicator’s messages are
prerequisites for understanding. People want to be heard, want to be taken seriously, and
want to be understood. The main goal of listening skill helps in taking down notes

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effectively. We need this skill recapitulate the intended meaning in the messages. The
listening activity provides a wide range of listening practices. They cover a variety of formal
and informal styles of language, from interviews and presentations to conversational
dialogues. The other goals and needs of listening skills are mentioned below:

 Gaining Knowledge:
Each person can learn new information about topics, ideas, and people. Listen for the
meaning beyond the words and the context of the communication. Listen to the person
– get in touch with emotions, language, habits, and temperament.
 Receiving better work and cooperation from others:
Showing a sincere interest in other peoples’ problems, ideas, thoughts, and opinions
can bring us more respect and cooperation.
 Winning Friends:
Not only does it help us to make new friends, but it will also enrich ongoing
friendships.
 Solving Problems and conflicts:
Only after understanding the other person we can agree, or disagree, and then work
cooperatively to clarify thinking, seek solutions, and resolve conflict.
 Reducing Tension:
It gives the other person a chance to ‘ get it off the chest’, to ‘ clear the air’, or ‘ let off
a little stream’.
 Preventing trouble:
If people can learn to listen before speaking, before sticking their neck out, before
taking untenable and unreasonable positions, or making commitments that cannot be
kept, they will likely avoid many unfortunate experiences.
 Doing a better job:
Try asking our partner or fellow workers for ideas about improving our listening
performance. Then try some of their suggestions.

Good listening skills are a prerequisite for success in one’s professional career. It is a critical
area of effective communication skills, and when we listen carefully, we succeed in
developing a rapport with people. We can become good listeners by actively and
imaginatively entering the frame of references of other person. However, this is not an easy
task and, dedication, and training.

CONCLUSION:

Listening, as we have seen, does not come naturally to individuals. It, in fact, requires an
increased awareness of one’s own listening style. Effective listening requires good sense on
the part of the listener for he/she needs to make a conscious choice, effort, and practice to
develop the art of effective listening. Furthermore, like in the case of speaking, listening type
too has to be customised depending on the receiver and the situation. Effective leaders are
active listeners; therefore, it is imperative that each and every one of us improve and
improvise on our respective listening styles.

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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research journal ISSN 2278-9529

Works Cited:

Das, et al.An Introduction to Professional English and Soft Skills. New Delhi: Cambridge
U.P, 2009.
Kumar, Sanjay and Pushp Lata. Communication Skills. New Delhi: Oxford U.P, 2011.
Nawal, Mallika. Business Communication. New Delhi: Cenage Learning India Pvt. Ltd,
2012.
Prasad, P. The Functional Aspects of Communication Skills.4th Ed. New Delhi: S.K.Kataria
and Sons, 2008.
Raman, Meenakshi and Prakash Singh. Business Communication. 2nd ed.New Delhi: Oxford
U.P, 2012.
Rao, Nageshwar and Rajendra P.Das. Communication Skills. 2nd ed.Mumbai: Himalaya
Publishing House, 2009.
Rizvi, M. Ashraf. Effective Technical Communication. . New Delhi: Tata McGraw-
Hill, 2005.

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