Listening Skills

1. Listening Skills

2. Reflective Listening • When the listener mirrors back the thoughts and/or feelings the speaker is experiencing • “Are you say…………” • “You seem…..” • If the listener is wrong then the speaker can restate in a different way

3. Listening Blocks • I must defend my position • I’m looking for an entrance into the conversation • I don’t have time to listen to you • I already know what you have to say • I know what you should do

4. Active Listening • Ask questions, not with yes, no or one word answers • Use appropriate eye contact • Not if understand ask for clarification • Don’t cross arms or legs or lean back • Lean slightly forward • Facial expressions and tone of voice • Be honest and sincere

5. Open-ended questions • Closed: Are you feeling bad today? • Open: How are you feeling today? • Relfection (paraphrasing)

6. The average college student spends about 14 hours per week in class listening (or perhaps I should say "hearing"--there is a difference!) to lectures. See if you can improve your listening skills by following some of the strategies below: • Maintain eye contact with the instructor. Of course you will need to look at your notebook to write your notes, but eye contact keeps you focused on the job at hand and keeps you involved in the lecture.

7. Focus on content, not delivery. Have you ever counted the number of times a teacher clears his/her throat in a fifteen minute period? If so, you weren't focusing on content. • Avoid emotional involvement. When you are too emotionally involved in listening, you tend to hear what you want to hear--not what is actually being said. Try to remain objective and open-minded.

8. Avoid distractions. Don't let your mind wander or be distracted by the person shuffling papers near you. If the classroom is too hot or too cold try to remedy that situation if you can. The solution may require that you dress more appropriately to the room temperature. • Treat listening as a challenging mental task. Listening to an academic lecture is not a passive act--at least it shouldn't be. You need to concentrate on what is said so that you can process the information into your notes.

9. Stay active by asking mental questions. Active listening keeps you on your toes. Here are some questions you can ask yourself as you listen. What key point is the professor making? How does this fit with what I know from previous lectures? How is this lecture organized? • Use the gap between the rate of speech and your rate of thought. You can think faster than the lecturer can talk. That's one reason your mind may tend to wander. All the above suggestions will help you keep your mind occupied and focused on what being said. You can actually begin to anticipate what the professor is going to say as a way to keep your mind from straying. Your mind does have the capacity to listen, think, write and ponder at the same time, but it does take practice.

10. Listen Better, Learn More • In one of the Family Circus cartoon strips, the little girl looks up at her father, who is reading the newspaper, and says: "Daddy, you have to listen to me with your eyes as well as your ears." • That statement says almost all there is to say about listening, whether in our personal conversations or in learning in school.

11. Do Listening Skills Affect Learning? • Listening is not a school subject like reading and writing. • Many of us seem to feel it comes naturally and that as long as we can listen to directions on how to find the restroom, nothing more needs to be said. • The latest studies reveal that listening is a very large part of school learning and is one of our primary means of interacting with other people on a personal basis. • It is estimated that between 50 and 75 percent of students' classroom time is spent listening to the teacher, to other students, or to audio media.

12. Can Parents Guide their Children to be Better Listseners? • According to research on listening skills, being a good listener means focusing attention on the message and reviewing the important information. • Parents can model good listening behavior for their children and advise them on ways to listen as an active learner, pick out highlights of a conversation, and ask relevant questions.

13. Sometimes it helps to "show" children that an active listener is one who looks the speaker in the eye and is willing to turn the television off to make sure that the listener is not distracted by outside interference.

14. Guides for Modeling Good Listening Skills • Be interested and attentive. Children can tell whether they have a parent's interest and attention by the way the parent replies or does not reply. Forget about the telephone and other distractions. Maintain eye contact to show that you really are with the child. • Encourage talking. Some children need an invitation to start talking. You might begin with, "Tell me about your day at school." Children are more likely to share their ideas and feelings when others think them important.

15. Listen patiently. People think faster than they speak. With limited vocabulary and experience in talking, children often take longer than adults to find the right word. Listen as though you have plenty of time. • Hear children out. Avoid cutting children off before they have finished speaking. It is easy to form an opinion or reject children's views before they finish what they have to say. It may be difficult to listen respectfully and not correct misconceptions, but respect their right to have and express their opinions. • Listen to nonverbal messages. Many messages children send are communicated nonverbally by their tone of voice, their facial expressions, their energy level, their posture, or changes in their behavior patterns. You can often tell more from the way a child says something than from what is said. When a child comes in obviously upset, be sure to find a quiet time then or sometime that day to help explore those feelings.

16. Communication Suggestions • Be interested. Ask about children's ideas and opinions regularly. If you show your children that you are really interested in what they think, what they feel, and what their opinions are, they will become comfortable about expressing their thoughts to you. • Avoid dead-end questions. Ask children the kinds of questions that will extend interaction rather than cut it off. Questions that require a yes or no or right answer lead a conversation to a dead end. Questions that ask children to describe, explain, or share ideas extend the conversation. • Extend conversation. Try to pick up a piece of your child's conversation. Respond to his or her statements by asking a question that restates or uses some of the same words your child used. When you use children's own phrasing or terms, you strengthen their confidence in their conversational and verbal skills and reassure them that their ideas are being listened to and valued.

17. Share your thoughts. • Share what you are thinking with your child. For instance, if you are puzzling over how to rearrange your furniture, get your child involved with questions such as, "I'm not sure where to put this shelf. Where do you think would be a good place?" • Observe signs. • Watch the child for signs that it is time to end a conversation. • When a child begins to stare into space, give silly responses, or ask you to repeat several of your comments, it is probably time to stop the exchange.

18. Reflect feelings. • One of the most important skills good listeners have is the ability to put themselves in the shoes of others or empathize with the speaker by attempting to understand his or her thoughts and feelings. • As a parent, try to mirror your children's feelings by repeating them. You might reflect a child's feelings by commenting, "It sounds as if you're angry at your math teacher." • Restating or rephrasing what children have said is useful when they are experiencing powerful emotions that they may not be fully aware of.

19. Help clarify and relate experiences. • As you listen, try to make your child's feelings clear by stating them in your own words. • Your wider vocabulary can help children express themselves as accurately and clearly as possible and give them a deeper understanding of words and inner thoughts.

20. Why Parents Can Help Build Communication Skills • Parents play an essential role in building children's communication skills because children spend more time with their parents than with any other adult. • Children also have a deeper involvement with their parents than with any other adult, and the family as a unit has lifelong contact with its members. • Parents control many of the contacts a child has with society as well as society's contacts with the child.

21. Adults, parents, and teachers set a powerful example of good or poor communication. • Communication skills are influenced by the examples children see and hear. • Parents and teachers who listen to their children with interest, attention, and patience set a good example. • The greatest audience children can have is an adult who is important to them and interested in them.

22. Good Listeners Listen with their Faces • The first skill that you can practice to be a good listener is to act like a good listener. • We have spent a lot of our modern lives working at tuning out all of the information that is thrust at us. It therefore becomes important to change our physical body language from that of a deflector to that of a receiver, much like a satellite dish. Our faces contain most of the receptive equipment in our bodies, so it is only natural that we should tilt our faces towards the channel of information.

23. A second skill is to use the other bodily receptors besides your ears. You can be a better listener when you look at the other person. • Your eyes pick up the non-verbal signals that all people send out when they are speaking. • By looking at the speaker, your eyes will also complete the eye contact that speakers are trying to make. • A speaker will work harder at sending out the information when they see a receptive audience in attendance. • Your eyes help complete the communication circuit that must be established between speaker and listener.

24. When you have established eye and face contact with your speaker, you must then react to the speaker by sending out non-verbal signals. • Your face must move and give the range of emotions that indicate whether you are following what the speaker has to say. • By moving your face to the information, you can better concentrate on what the person is saying. • Your face must become an active and contoured catcher of information.

25. It is extremely difficult to receive information when your mouth is moving information out at the same time. • A good listener will stop talking and use receptive language instead. • Use the I see . . . un hunh . . . oh really words and phrases that follow and encourage your speaker's train of thought. • This forces you to react to the ideas presented, rather than the person. • You can then move to asking questions, instead of giving your opinion on the information being presented. • It is a true listening skill to use your mouth as a moving receptor of information rather than a broadcaster.

26. A final skill is to move your mind to concentrate on what the speaker is saying. • You cannot fully hear their point of view or process information when you argue mentally or judge what they are saying before they have completed. • An open mind is a mind that is receiving and listening to information.

27. Things To Remember • If you are really listening intently, you should feel tired after your speaker has finished. Effective listening is an active rather than a passive activity. • When you find yourself drifting away during a listening session, change your body position and concentrate on using one of the above skills. Once one of the skills is being used, the other active skills will come into place as well.

28. Your body position defines whether you will have the chance of being a good listener or a good deflector. Good listeners are like poor boxers: they lead with their faces. • Meaning cannot just be transmitted as a tangible substance by the speaker. It must also be stimulated or aroused in the receiver. The receiver must therefore be an active participant for the cycle of communication to be complete.