Nature and Purposes of Listening | Macro-Skills - Listening

Summary

This lecture provides an in-depth exploration of listening as an active cognitive process, emphasizing the importance of understanding, interpreting, and evaluating oral messages. It outlines various types of listening, including active, partial, intermittent, and appreciative listening, each with distinct characteristics. The lecture also details the five stages of the listening process: receiving, understanding, remembering, evaluating, and responding. Additionally, it highlights four key purposes of listening: appreciative, empathic, comprehensive, and critical listening, demonstrating the multifaceted nature of effective listening in communication.

Takeaways

• 😀 Listening is an active cognitive process where meanings are attached to oral signals, involving decoding, interpreting, and evaluating messages.
• 😀 Effective listening is more than just hearing; it includes understanding, interpreting, and identifying the components of spoken language.
• 😀 Active listening helps listeners learn faster, make sound judgments, and retain important information.
• 😀 Partial listening occurs when a listener is distracted, thinking about their reply instead of truly engaging with the speaker.
• 😀 Intermittent listening happens when the listener disengages from the conversation, nodding or agreeing without genuinely listening.
• 😀 Appreciative listening involves absorbing all of the speaker's meaning, paying attention to tone, facial expressions, and other non-verbal cues.
• 😀 The process of listening includes five stages: receiving, understanding, remembering, evaluating, and responding.
• 😀 Receiving is the first stage of listening, where the listener focuses on hearing the speaker’s message.
• 😀 Evaluating a message involves judging its value based on clarity, logical presentation, and supporting reasons.
• 😀 Responding, the final stage, involves providing feedback, either formative or summative, to show involvement in the listening process.
• 😀 Listening serves multiple purposes, including appreciative listening for enjoyment, empathic listening for emotional support, comprehensive listening for understanding information, and critical listening for evaluation and judgment.

Q & A

What is the cognitive process involved in listening?

Listening is a cognitive process where we attach meaning to oral signals. It involves actively decoding, interpreting, understanding, and evaluating messages.

How does the Council of Chief State School Officers define listening?

In 2009, the Council of Chief State School Officers defined listening as the ability to understand the teacher's language, comprehend important details, identify pertinent information, and keep up with training modules.

What distinguishes active listening from other types of listening?

Active listening involves fully engaging with the speaker, absorbing information quickly, and making sound judgments. Active listeners typically write down key ideas and focus on understanding the broader concepts rather than remembering every detail.

What are the characteristics of partial listening?

Partial listening occurs when listeners are distracted, often thinking about their next reply instead of focusing on the speaker's message. These listeners may appear disengaged or inattentive.

What is intermittent listening and how does it affect communication?

Intermittent listening happens when listeners 'tune out' certain messages, especially unpleasant ones. They may nod or shake their heads to appear engaged but are not truly listening or processing the message.

What role does appreciative listening play in communication?

Appreciative listening involves absorbing a speaker’s message, including not just the words but also non-verbal cues like tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language. It is often used for emotional or aesthetic enjoyment.

What are the five stages of the listening process?

The five stages of listening are: 1) Receiving – focusing on hearing the message, 2) Understanding – attempting to comprehend the meaning, 3) Remembering – retaining the information, 4) Evaluating – assessing the message’s value, and 5) Responding – providing feedback.

Why is remembering an essential part of the listening process?

Remembering is crucial because it indicates whether you have truly understood and processed the message. Without retention, the message may not have been learned effectively.

What types of feedback are given during the responding stage of listening?

Feedback during the responding stage can be formative, which occurs throughout the communication process, or summative, which happens at the end of the interaction.

How does critical listening differ from other types of listening?

Critical listening involves evaluating and making judgments about the ideas presented. It’s used to critique and assess the quality of the message, as opposed to merely understanding or enjoying it.

What are the main purposes of listening?

The main purposes of listening are: 1) Appreciative listening (for pleasure), 2) Empathic listening (for emotional support), 3) Comprehensive listening (to gather information), and 4) Critical listening (to evaluate and judge ideas).