LISTENING COMPREHENSION

nandkishore sarap

Importance of listening Listening skill is very important in the

process of any interactive process. Listening is an every day situation of

gathering information and acquiring knowledge.

All successful people are essentially good listeners.

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Benefits of acquiring listening skills

Improve your ability to understand and evaluate the views and opinions expressed by others.

Enable you to gather proper and accurate information, helping in apt decision making.

Help you to establish rapport with colleagues easily.

Help you to present yourself best in both dyadic and group communication situations.

nandkishore sarap

Process of Listening

Listening is a four stage activity. reception of sound waves through ears interpretation of the sound received evaluation of the interpreted meaning

according to the needs and expectations reaction to the message

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Purpose of listening

We listen for two specific purposes – to gain new information and ideas passed

on through various sources. Effective listening is vitally important in

formal situations. Effective listening is very much useful to participate in discussions and other interactions.

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Factors affecting listening

We listen more carefully when we expect immediate benefit.

Methodical and analytical people are good listeners whereas aggressive and self-centered are bad listeners.

We try to ignore to hear the person or topic we don’t like.

Our profession also decides our need of listening.

Physical environment plays important role in effective listening.

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Improving listening skills

Collection of information about the setting, the topic and the speaker as preparation for listening.

Cultivating a positive attitude towards the speaker and the topic.

A listener has to keep an open mind, to understand what is being said and evaluate it with the context.

One has to concentrate on the matter being spoken, carefully identifying the main points.

Listen with eyes and not merely with ears i.e. observing non-verbal clues such as twinkle in the eye and gestures. The visual clues of the speaker help in understanding his attitude with the audience and points he is making.

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Improving listening skills

Ignore distractions such as gaudy dress, odd body movements and speech mannerisms of the speaker.

Try to avoid interruptions, immature comments, direct advice particularly in seminars and meeting. Wait for your turn or till you are invited for comment and question.

Have patience while listening. Time lag between thinking and listening may lead to boredom as the speed of thinking is much more than speaking. Try to utilize this time gap in summarizing what was spoken earlier.

Take notes systematically.

nandkishore sarap

Assignment

Listen carefully to lectures, talks and speeches and take notes systematically.