1. Chapter three Effective Listening Eng. Mohammad Al-sumady
Communication Skills ELE205
Chapter three
Effective Listening
Eng. Mohammad Al-sumady

2. Outline Why listening is important?? Hearing VS listening
Types of listening
Why bad listening occur?

3. Listening is important
The International Listening Association presents interesting facts and statistics that describe the importance of listening in our lives:
85% of what we know we have learned by listening.
We remember only 20% of what we hear
Less than 2% of us have had any formal educational experience with listening
Being listened to spells the difference between feeling accepted and feeling isolated

4. Listening is important
The hurt feeling generated when we fail to demonstrate our listening skills can damage our personal and occupational relationships with others.
People are fired, customer are lost and working relationship are strained , friendship suffer, marriage and families fail because of ineffective listening.

5. Listening is important
When we do listen and are listened to, we experience a confirming connection that brings about shared understanding, which is the goal of effective communication.
In fact, we spend 50% of our communication listening, estimate listening efficiency reach 25%, then we miss ¾ of what we hear.
The highest compliment that you could pay to supervisor as, “I like my boss; he listens to me!” .

6. Hearing VS. Listening
The term “listening” has different meanings for different people:
Listening involve paying attention and maintaining eye contact
Remembering what has been said word-for- word
Reading between lines to perceive the unspoken message.
“None of them contains all elements of the effective listening”
Some individuals confuse listening with hearing

7. Hearing VS. Listening Hearing is sensory process that includes:
Conversion of acoustical energy
Sound reception
Auditory sensation
Transfer to the brain
Listening is a mental process that includes:
Choosing to attend (mentally & physically)
Understanding thoughts and feelings
Confirming meaning
Responding appropriately

8. Hearing VS. Listening
Technicians of all kinds use Hearing skills to monitor procedures. Judge the smoothness of operations or locate problems. They hear “whirs”, “pings”, “screeches”, “pops”,…..etc, hearing these sounds can trigger the listening process to begin. After recognition of aural stimuli, they can decide whether the sound deserve attention or not “Hearing involves the physical recognition of sound”

9. Hearing VS. Listening
Listening goes beyond simple recognition of sound and can be defined in terms of the following elements:
-Attending to the speaker (mentally and physically).
Assigning meaning of both the verbal and non- verbal messages.
Verifying accurate understanding of these messages.
Evaluating the importance of message.
And finally, responding appropriately.

10. Types of Listening
Discriminative: involves recognizing different auditory and visual messages and identifying their distinguishing features before we process the messages at any other level.
Comprehensive: listening to understand a message in order to recall or use that information at a later time (lecture, conference, film,…)
Therapeutic: listening to provide a troubled sender with the opportunity to talk through a problem. (it is common when friends face choices in there lives and when strong feelings need to be expressed and heard).

11. Types of Listening
Critical: listening to understand and evaluate the content of the message (to judge and separating facts and drawing conclusions. used in negotiations and making decisions).
Appreciative: listening to obtain sensory stimulation or enjoyment through the works and experiences of others (music, poetry, words of a great leader).

12. Discriminative listening
Listening Tree
Discriminative listening
comprehensive
therapeutic
critical
appreciative

13. Minimize bad listening habits…..
Bad listening occurs…..
Because we are poorly trained to listen
Through our formal
education, we offered
learn reading,
speaking,
writing and rarely
listening.

14. Minimize Bad listening habits…..
Bad listening occurs…..
Mistaken belief that because we are bombarded with an overwhelming number of messages daily. We somehow learn to listen automatically.
Radio commercials, scream at us as we drive to work, machines grind, hum the noises of production, stereo systems…..such overloads instead of helping us to listen better, teaches us to tune out many of the messages we receive.
(External distraction)

15. Minimize Bad listening habits…..
Bad listening occurs…..
Because we disagree with speaker.
When we doubt what the speaker is saying, when we begin to formulate a response before the speaker has concluded, or when we are preoccupied with our own personal problems.
(Internal distractions keep us from listening well)

16. Minimize Bad listening habits…..
Bad listening occurs…..
Because we overreact to emotional words (we can not listen if we are angry, happy)
Our listening effectiveness drops as
our emotional responses increases.
Listing to a speaker who is against
you (in beliefs, attitudes,..) is difficult.
Emotional control: not easy to be achieved, but essentially for successful listening.

17. Minimize Bad listening habits…..
Bad listening occurs…..
Because of falling to use the thought- speed advantage (i.e. we think faster than any one can talk. We must give ourselves the chance to understand the message completely). We fool ourselves by believing that we can do the followings and still listen at the same time :
Daydreaming
Plan
Take mental holidays
Worry
Allow our mind to wonder

18. Minimize Bad listening habits…..
Bad listening occurs….. To overcome:
We must become aware of the problem.
We must find out what cause our bad listening habits and take steps to overcome them.
To improve listening, learn new listening skills and habits to replace the poor listening well-established habits you have.

19. Outline-lec.2 Interpret non- verbal behavior. Listening tools:
- Attending tools
Remembering tools
Evaluating tools
Responding tools

20. Nonverbal behavior.
To understand the total message we must receive both verbal and non verbal components.
Nonverbal message can replace, strengthen or contradict the verbal message.

21. Nonverbal Behaviors
In face-to-face situation, factors such as distance, body orientation, eye contact, posture, tone of voice, gesture and others can provide information.

22. Nonverbal Behaviors
Non-verbal communication can be classified into several categories:
Kinesics: body behaviors.
Proxemics: the language of space (distance).
Chronemics: time is part of the total message.
Touch
Appearance

23. Nonverbal Behaviors
Kinesics: refers to many behaviors of the body, Ex. : posture, gesture, body orientation, facial expressions and eye behavior. Body speaks in many ways.

24. Nonverbal Behaviors Proxemics includes the following elements:
Language of space (culture bounded)
Distance
Territory
Space

25. Nonverbal Behaviors
Proteomics is the study of set measurable distances between people as they interact.

26. Nonverbal Behaviors
Territory: our relationship to fixed space such as favorite chair at home, our work place.

27. Nonverbal Behaviors
We need to be aware of others “personal space”, ”territories” and “distance” when we communicate at work

28. Nonverbal Behaviors Chronemics:
Is the study of the use of time in communication. The way we perceive time, structure our time and react to time is a powerful communication tool, and helps set the stage for the communication process.

29. Nonverbal Behaviors Chronemics (our sensation of time):
How much time it takes to communicate the message? And how urgent the message is?
Cultural difference and individuals sensation of time
Focusing on multiple things at one time
Focusing on single thing at one time.

30. Nonverbal Behaviors Touch:
Touch can share a rang of feelings from warm feeling to a congratulatory to a push way. (pay attention, I am here, move over)
Touch behavior must be
interpreted in light of culture,
status, gender,
and personality. (take care!!)

31. Nonverbal Behaviors
Appearance: includes the body, clothing, possessions and belonging. People assign meanings to our body types, skin color, manner of dress, hair style and accessories we display. For example tattoos, and nose ring. Is only a part of the total message & may work to reinforce it or contradict it.

32. Listening tools: Listening tools includes: Attending tools
Remembering tools
Evaluating tools
Responding tools

33. Listening tools: A) Attending tools includes: Attitudes.
Attending behaviors.
Emotional control.

34. Listening tools: A) Attending tools:
The central (positive) attitude important to listening effectively is “I WANT to understand you” and other positive attitudes:
I want to avoid distractions
I want to hear before I judge

35. Listening tools:
Actions associated with good attending behavior (each of them has a best or optimum level of effectiveness much like a carburetor setting ) includes:
eye contact that is appropriate in duration, frequency
Body postures that reflect your interest (back off chair, slight forward lean and body orientations)
Distance that is suitable for the message being shared (personal, social or public)

36. Listening tools: Suggestions to follow when attending a talk:
Stop talking, ( you can’t listen & the same time)
Hear the speaker out, (wait until the speaker has completed his message before offering a response).
Tune out distractions, or minimize as much as you can ( all; internal, external,… )

37. Listening tools:
Develop an open mind tolerance of ideas and opinions different from your own. Don’t lose your “cool”, (stop mentally debating with the speaker before you fully understand what is being said ).
Take advantage of though speed (review what said, relate to your own experiences & predict the speaker next line of thought).

38. Outline-lec.3 Listening tools: - Attending tools Remembering tools
Evaluating tools
Responding tools

39. Listening tools:
B) Remembering tools: (after paying attention to the speaker)
We remember information more easily when message is:
Meaningful, useful and of interest to us
Out of ordinary
Organized
Visual
Capacity to remember increased when listener needs specific information.

40. Listening tools: B) Remembering tools:
Lyman suggests memory techniques steps:
Repeating or making notes if the listener must recall the exact words (if not recall the meaning )
Linking (link first to the second…good for items list)
Picturing (mental image for the location being described, good for directions)
Grouping (phone number, social security number…)

41. Listening tools:
C) Evaluating tools: 1.Separate facts from interference or openion. 2. Detect logical fallacies. 3. Be sensitive to biased language.

42. Listening tools:
C) Evaluating tools: (As the attentive listener gains an understanding of the total message, the critical listening process begins)
The critical listener separates facts from interferences and openion, detects logical fallacies, spots relative terms, & maintains emotional control

43. Listening tools: C) Evaluating tools: Facts:
Made after observation based on observable sense data. Observation report what you can see, touch, hear and smell.
Only about present or past never the future.
Stay with observation
Objective & devoid of any interpretations, conclusions, or assumptions about what has been observed, like observing a man with tattoo on his arm is a fact, assuming he must belong to motorcycle club is an inference that goes beyond the observable data. 43

44. Listening tools: C) Evaluating tools: 1.Separate facts from inference:
Inferences
Made at any time (past , present or at future)
Go beyond observation (as in biker with tattoo case).
Unlimited in scope (include assumption, conclusion and interruption about what has been observed)

45. Listening tools:
C) Evaluating tools: 1.Separate facts from interference:
It’s often a good idea to state your opinions to others in non factual terms by the use of an ‘I’ message. (I think, To me, From my point of view,…).

46. Listening tools: Example:
Sandy and Pat, both data processors, are especially good at their jobs. There combined experience totals some 30 years. They are reliable , hardworking , and very strong individuals. In fact, Sandy lifts weight for a hobby, and Pat plays basketball.

47. Listening tools: Example: (T) True (F) False (?) Inference
This story concerns two men ? T F (?)
Sandy and pat are both hard workers? (T) F ?
Sandy is handicapped? T F (?)
Pat and sandy are married to each other? T F (?)
Sandy never lifted weights? T (F) ?

48. Listening tools: C) Evaluating tools: 2. Detect logical fallacies:
Faulty causation: when coincidental events are seen as having a cause effect relationship.
Either : thinking presents 2 alternatives when, in fact many more possibilities exist; there are many possible alternatives, look for other possibilities that are not stated. Whenever either/or decision presented

49. Listening tools: C) Evaluating tools: 2. Detect logical fallacies:
Hasty generalization: few samples used to represent the whole of the conclusion. (if several of our friends own hybrid cars, its hastily to conclude that hybrid sales are taking off.
Circular reasoning: restates what you are trying to prove without providing evidence.
Comparison: you must look for differences not only similarities

50. Listening tools:
C) Evaluating tools: A critical listener must be aware of relative terms that cloud the exact meaning of a message and may create misunderstanding. Relative terms such as “several” “many” and “most” lack specific meaning to communicate clearly. Like wise terms such as “inexpensive” “affordable” “limited warranty” may suggest different meanings to critical listener. Be careful to question the exact meaning of such terms.

51. Listening tools:
C) Evaluating tools: 3. Be sensitive to biased language: Critical listener must be sensitive to loaded words.

52. Listening tools: D) Responding tools: (In addition of attitudes,
the listener must choose how to respond to message received)
Evaluating:
Judge: right, wrong, good, bad. Ex: That was stupid, That’s right,
Advice: Offer advice, share solutions. Ex: why don’t you..?, if I were you…, you really should.

53. Listening tools: D) Responding tools:
2. Interrupting :Explains or teaches. This response explains why something happens by adding information not stated in the original problem. Ex: You may feel that way because…., Maybe the reason of this problem is…, She probably did that because….. 53

54. Listening tools: D) Responding tools:
3. Supporting: reassure and comfort to make people feel better, cheer them up, offer help or encouragement. Ex: look at the progress you have made since…., I am sure things will be better, If there is any way I can help…. 54

55. Listening tools: D) Responding tools:
4. Questioning: probes, clarifies, or seeking more information. Two types: closed questions (yes or no), open questions (more than yes or no). What makes you think that? Where were you…..?
5. Paraphrasing : Summarizes, restates or reflects. Shows your understanding by your own words . Ex: if I understand you, you have…. In other words.. 55

56. Listening tools: D) Responding tools:
An important point to remember is that these responses are not right or wrong. They all have their place in effective interaction with those who have problems. What’s needed is practice in developing the skillful and appropriate use of these responses. 56

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See page 55

58. End of chapter 3 Any question?