FACULTY OF ICT BIM111: COMMUNICATION SKILLS Joachim.Bibuli Lecturer

Introduction Listening Is With The Mind Hearing With The Senses Listening Is Conscious. An Active Process Of Eliciting Information Ideas, Attitudes And Emotions Interpersonal, Oral Exchange

Fallacies about Listening  Listening is not my problem!  Listening and hearing are the same  Good readers are good listeners  Smarter people are better listeners  Listening improves with age  Learning not to listen

Fallacies about Listening  Thinking about what we are going to say rather than listening to a speaker  Talking when we should be listening  Hearing what we expect to hear rather than what is actually said  Not paying attention ( preoccupation, prejudice, self- centeredness, stero-type)  Listening skills are difficult to learn

Ethics of listening Listening affects all kinds of communication It is the fundamental process through which we create relationships 1.How responsive a listener are you.(Effective listeners focus their attention. What difficulties do you have when trying to focus 2.Are you prepared to listen 3.How well do you use your listening time.i.e whats the percentage of information you retain. When was the last time you jumped to a wrong conclusion.

Ethics of Listening 3.How much of a role do you play in ensuring the integrity of the message. We often run into problems when we use serial communication or chain of command to relay messages. In serial communication person 1 sends a message to person 2,person 2 then communicates his or her perception of person ones’s message(not person one’s message itself) to person 3 who continues the process.

Listening Vs Hearing Listening and hearing are entirely different most people are born with the ability to hear. Hearing is the involuntary, physiological process by which we process sound and requires no conscious effort on your part. If the physiological elements in your ears are fully functional your brain will process the electromechanical impulses and you will hear

Listening Vs Hearing Listening is a deliberate process through which we seek to understand and retain heard stimuli. Listening depends on a complex set of skills that must be acquired. Whereas hearing simply happens to us and cannot be manipulated,listening requires us to make an active concious effort to comprehend and remember what we hear.

Listening Vs Hearing In listening you process the external sounds of your environment to select those relevant to your activities and your interest Listening is both an internal and external process.(we listen to the sounds we hear, what others say, what we say aloud and what we say to ourselves in response

Listening levels Listening to help others(active/empathic listening) Listen to analyse and evaluate content Listening to retain content

Listening levels Listening to understand content Hearing The common problem with listeners is the inability to determine the listening or involvement level appropriate

Stages of listening Hearing Focusing on the message Comprehending and interpreting Analyzing and Evaluating Responding Remembering

Types of Listening Informative Listening Vocabulary Concentration Memory Relationship Listening Attending Supporting Empathizing Appreciative Listening Presentation Perception Previous experience

Types of Listening Critical Listening Ethos Logos Pathos Discriminative Listening Hearing Ability Awareness of Sound Structure Integration of non-verbal cues

Ineffective listeners We can not listen at full capacity all the time but we should be aware of our ineffective listening behaviours if they prevent us from understanding what could be important to us. How many of the ineffective listener categories are you familiar with Fraudulent listeners.i.e pseudo listeners and also nodders.They adopt the outward appearance of listeners but are counter feiters

Ineffective listeners Monopolistic listeners. These want you to listen to them but have neither the time nor desire to listen to you Completers. These are gap fillers. They never quite get the whole story when they listen. To make up for what they have missed or misinterpreted they manufacture information to fill in the gaps

Ineffective listeners Selective listeners are like bees going after honey in a flower. They zero in only on those portions of the speakers remarks that interest them or have particular importance to them. In their search for honey they often miss the flower. Avoiders. These close their ears to information they would rather not deal with. They sometimes pretend not to understand

Ineffective listeners Defensive listeners. Tend to perceive remarks of other persons as personal affronts or attacks Attackers. Wait for you to make a mistake or slip up so that they can undercut and challenge what you have to say

Barriers to listening Environmental barriers Physiological barriers Psychological barriers  Selective Listening  Negative Listening Attitudes  Personal Reactions  Poor Motivation

FEEDBACK Feedback is information returned to a message source or communicator. The feedback process is intimately connected with the listening process. Developing an understanding and appreciation of the way feedback works is essential to improving your listening skills

Types of feedback Evaluative feedback.i.e evaluative response we state our opinion about a matter being discussed.e.g “How did you like my speech” will elicit an evaluative response. There is both positive evaluative feedback and negative evaluative feedback

Types of feedback Formative feedback is used as a memory refresher and motivational tool to improve performance. Timing of giving the feedback counts

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