LISTENING

What is Listening?

Your friend is telling you about his new motorcycle. He is telling you about the engine, the exhaust pipe and so on. You have something in your mind at the time, but you can still hear what he is saying. Is that listening?

Listening is:

The active process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken and/or nonverbal messages.

It involves the ability to retain information, as well as to react empathically and/or appreciatively to spoken and/or nonverbal messages.

Basically, listening involves understanding of the words and sound that we hear and interpreting them into something that we can understand, by giving meaning to the words and sentences.

Differences between Hearing and Listening?

Hearing : Is a simple act of receiving sound only.

Listening : Is the act of receiving sound, constructing it, and responding to

the spoken verbal or nonverbal messages.

Process of Listening

When we receive a message, there are four stages of listening so that we can understand what we heard.

Importance of Listening

~An essential skill for effective communicators
~Helps to build and maintain relationships
~Help to determine whether the person we are talking to is being deceitful.
~Able to improve workplace relationship and be more productive
~Successful communication