Developing effective listening

6.1 Developing effective listening

Hi，everyone, this is Alice.

Do you think you are a good speaker？Do you want to be a good speaker? Of course you will say YES. But do you know, if you want to be a good speaker, you have to be a good listener.  

We have four different listening styles in different occasions.

The first one is appreciative listening. We listen appreciatively when we enjoy music, a bird’s song, or the murmur of a brook.

The second one is discriminative listening when we want to single out one particular sound from a noisy environment.

Think about a noisy party like this, if I say, "Sara, David, pay attention," some of you will stand up.

We recognize patterns to distinguish noise from signal, and especially our name. 

The third one is empathic listening. Counselors, psychiatrists, and good friends always use this way to encourage people to talk freely without fear or embarrassment.

The last one is critical listening. In this style, the listeners will evaluate what they hear and decide if another person’s message is logical, is worthwhile, or has value.

So I think all the students, especially students in colleges should develop this listening style immediately.  

We spend roughly 60 percent of our communication time listening, but we're not very good at it. We retain just 25 percent of what we hear.

So why? Why is listening so hard? Because of the filters.  

Listeners filter what they hear based on their backgrounds and personalities. Just as sunlight becomes weaker as it passes through a tinted window, communication can become distorted when it passes through personal filters.

So, what are your filters? Think about it.

Attitudes, age, morals, physical conditions, culture, languages, beliefs and so on are all filters. These filters take us from all sound down to what we pay attention to. Most people are entirely unconscious of these filters. But they actually create our reality in a way, because they tell us what we're paying attention to right now. When I married my husband, he promised to listen to me every day as if for the first time.

Now that‘s something he falls short of on a daily basis. I am still wondering about his filters.

I believe, to become successful in work and life, you should know as much about your own filters. But no matter how much your filters affect your listening, you must respect other people’s point of view.

So, what should we do? How can we develop effective listening? Here I will give you some suggestions.

1. Refrain from judging or evaluating the speaker.

2. Focus your attention on the message.

3. Search for areas where you agree.

4. Keep an open mind.

5. Be patient.

Be patient is very, very important. If you are patient enough to listen to other people’s opinion, of course you can listen effectively.

6.Pay closer attention to body language.

7.Hold your temper when you disagree.

Whenever you disagree with other people’s opinion, do not say no immediately, just think about it twice, then you are going to say something again.

8. Put yourself in the speaker’s position

Remembering all of these will help you to be a good listener.

You can learn to be a good listener. Studies have shown that a little bit of knowledge and a lot of practice can lead to improved listening. Good listeners use not only their ears but also their other senses.

Next I will share with you how to listen to a whole speech.

During a speech, the beginning may be the most entertaining part, because the speaker is doing her utmost to gain your attention.

So, you might take some time to think about the title of the speech and make some guesses about the direction of the speech. This is very important in good listening.

Be a critical listener during the body of the speech. Your main goal is to understand the speaker’s message and intent. But this is also the time to test the strength of the speaker’s message.

Listen carefully to what the speaker says, and in this way he is approaching to the content and the major points of view in his speech.

During the last part of a speech, the listener- YOU must be on guard for emotional appeals or propaganda, or material designed to distort the truth or deceive the audience.

As a speaker ends his or her speech, ask yourself whether he or she has earned whatever acceptance or support he or she is asking you to do so.

I believe that every human being needs to listen consciously in order to live fully -- connected in time and in space, around the physical world, connected people around us.

If people stop listening to each other, they will do something like this, this, this and this.

That's why effective listening is so important, that is why we should as a skill in our schools. 

If we can learn listening in our schools, we can take our listening off that slippery slope to that dangerous, scary world that I talked about, aand move it to a world where people can listen carefully, effectively and consciously, where people can connect and communicate with each other effectively. Thank you. 

Practice