Explain the process of Listening.

Differentiate Hearing and Listening.

Definition:

                                Listening is a process of receiving, interpreting and reacting to the message received from the speaker. Listening requires respect. Point scoring and name calling can have no place in a listening process. The words we use may cause offence and so they need to be chosen carefully.

                                The listening process is not a debate. It is not about persuading someone else that you are right, nor is it about finding a compromise between two positions. One writer has said: “Debate is too often about two opposing opinions, about making points that build up one and demolish the other. It’s adversarial … In my experience, debates rarely build anything or anybody up; rather they entrench us and our opinions.” Listening processes are about how another person sees and understands the world and the gospel and not about you making others agree with you, or others making you agree with them.  

                               

5 Steps In The Listening Process 

1. Reception – involves receiving stimuli, such as facial expressions, body language, and appearance.  These stimuli enter your short-term memory and the process of listening begins. .

2. Attention – involves concentration, selectivity, motivation, and intent.  In this step of listening, the stimuli enter the short-term memory system.  You must focus your attention on the incoming information and block out distractions to concentrate.

3. Perception – involves the initial attempt to evaluate information received.  During this process, you become aware of the information you understand and the information that does not make sense.  Your previous experiences affect how you perceive the information.

4. Assignment of meaning – the process of interpreting or attaching meaning to what you hear by linking the new information to previous information or experiences.

5. Response – this may include a nonverbal form of feedback, such as nod to indicate understanding.  Or this may include verbal feedback, such as paraphrasing the speaker to ensure accuracy of your interpretation.

Ways to Become an Active Listener  

• Be attentive - concentrate on what is being said, not the delivery.

• Be impartial - being open to whatever is being said, without judgment - don't form an opinion, just                listen.

• Reflect back - restating what has been said helps the speaker know that you understand. 

• Summarize - pull together the important messages so that you and the speaker recognize what was important during the conversation.

• Avoiding distractions - in the environment, from the speaker, within the listener.

• Paraphrase - Saying, in your own words, what the other person has said to you. This way they know you have heard them and you know that what you have heard accurately reflects what they are saying – in so far as they have agreed that it is what they have said. But remember, they may feel they have to agree.

• Clarifying  - Making sure you understand what the speaker means (I think what you said was …, What I hear you saying is …, What did you mean when you said/talked about …, Are you saying …).

6 Ways To Improve  Your Listening Skills 

1. Focus on the speaker and let them know you are listening by giving verbal cues such as, ‘yes’, ‘ I see’ and non-verbal cues such as, nodding, leaning forward and smiling. Give the speaker your full attention.

2. Make eye contact, look at the person you are speaking to or who is speaking to you. Looking in another direction or distracting glances appear as though you are not listening.

3. Avoid interrupting. It’s rude and you cannot talk and listen at the same time. If you assume what people are going to say before they say it and then interrupt to respond to your assumptions, you will annoy the person you are talking with and you will miss the real message.     

4. Ask questions and try to see the other person’s point-of-view. Don’t assume that you know what the person saying if things are not making sense for you. If you are unsure of the meaning ask for clarification and then if you are still not sure repeat it back to them.

5. Acknowledge the other person’s feelings; make them feel like you understand and that it is okay to feel the way they do.

6. Be patient when you don’t understand; getting upset won’t solve any problems but will only create more. 

Difference between listening and hearing

Hearing is simply perceiving sounds;

 listening, on the other hand, is a more complicated process of forming meaning out of these sounds.

What is hearing?

Hearing is an action in which, just the sound is perceived by the ear, and it requires no or very little concentration. Very little or no effort is required as your mind is occupied in other thoughts or perhaps you are engaged in a different task while the other person is sharing his or her thoughts with you. Words spoken are just heard. This is a passive process.

What is listening?

Listening is an action where you choose to actively concentrate on what you hear and your brain processes the information into knowledge. You need to put in a lot of effort in terms of attention, processing, thinking, analysing and concentrating. You do not think about anything else, or get engaged in any other tasks, but you sit down and listen to what the speaker is saying, word by word. You look into the feeling and meaning of what is being said. Words spoken are listened to and processed. This is an active process.

Difference between hearing and listening:

Hearing:

We always hear something around us all the time and it is just a physical ability. For example, while you are at home, you might hear the sound of other people talking, sound of cooking in the kitchen, sound of television, and sound of anything that is happening around. While you are at work, depending on where you work, you hear the sound of various things around you. While on the road you hear the sound of traffic and any events in the public, the people laughing, talking, shouting etc. And, at the end of the day, after you go to bed and fall asleep, you hear sounds even while you sleep. All these happen around you and you do not necessarily see the incidents. It is just sound waves reaching your ears. Hearing is an alarm system which operates even outside of the line of sight.

This also applies to music. Nowadays music is played everywhere, in shopping malls, in restaurants, in supermarkets, in offices and everywhere. It puts people in a situation where they just hear this music as every other noise around them. Not all of us listen to that music and acquire anything from it. People lose the chance of acquiring any skills from it and in a way it devalues music. Most people use music to just fill the silence while they are doing other tasks.

Listening:

When you need to listen, you need to pay attention, because you need to interpret and respond in the end. Listening is a skill which is diminishing and this can be due to advancement in digital technology, not wanting to concentrate or too much of information to handle. Listening is a skill that can be improved with a little bit of hard work, dedication and determination. Everywhere and in every relationship we come across this complaining phrase quite often, “You never listen” or “You do not want to listen”.

As Ernest Hemingway quotes, “When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”

A typical example that we come across in our day to day life is, people reading something on the internet and responding to the speaker / trying to listen to someone, or typing something on the computer, eyes on the screen and an ear listening to the other person or texting on the mobile and responding to someone who is talking to you. These are common scenarios we come across in offices and personal lives almost every day. These behaviours clearly indicate that the listener is behaving in an awful manner, not respecting the other and indirectly this tells the speaker that they are less important than the work that the listener is doing. This puts the speaker in an awful situation and makes them feel inferior.

                                Source: Internet & Technical Communication(Oxford University)