UNIT - III

ORAL COMMUNICATION

LISTENING

• Listening might be defined as the art of hearing and

understanding what someone is saying.

Listening

• LOOK

• IDENTIFY

• SET-UP

• TUNE IN

• EXAMINE

• NOTE

• LOOK-speakers shd see the order of consistency

• IDENTIFY-why the instructor is saying

• SET-UP – set your mind to listen

• TUNE IN – increase your attention span

• EXAMINE –the context to determine the main points

• NOTE- take notes while you listen

Advantages of Listening

• It breaks up the barriers between the people.

• We can understand each other more.

• It prevents miscommunication of objectives and priorities among people.

• It also prevents time lost because of having to communicate a second or third time to get things straightened out

• We listen to

Obtain information

Solve problems

share experiences

persuade or dissuade

Types of Listening

Six Types of Listening

• 1. Informative Listening

• 2. Attentive Listening

• 3. Relationship Listening

• 4. Appreciative Listening

• 5. Critical Listening

• 6. Discriminative Listening

1.Informative Listening• Informative Listening refers to the situation

where the listener’s primary aim is to understand the message.

Examples:lectures or instructions from teachers .

we listen to understand new practices or procedures and how well we perform depends on how well we listen.

• Three key variables in Effective listening

• 1.Vocabulary - increasing your vocabulary will increse your potential for better understanding.

• 2.Concentration – it requires discipline, motivation, and acceptance of responsibility.

• 3.Memory- It allow you to understand what others say. Without memory of concepts and ideas, you could not understand the meaning of messages.

Without memory you would have no knowledege bank.

2.Attentive Listening

• When people listen attentively, their goal is to understand and remember what they are hearing.

• Attentive listeners have relational goals like giving a positive impression, advncing the relationship, or demonstrating care.

• Communication scholars identified three skill clusters and the accompanying behaviour that are used by attentive listeners.

• Attention Skills

• Following Skills

• Reflecting Skills

Attention Skills• A posture of involvement : Inclining one’s

body towards the speaker, maintaining the open body position and positioning the body at an appropriate from the speaker.

• Appropriate body motion:nodding your head, using facial expressions .

• Eye Contact: Sustained, direct and reflective.

• Non-discriminative environment: doing what it takes to eliminate distracting noises, movement etc.

Following Skills

• Door openers:an invitation to talk, keeping silent, attending to show interest.(eg pg. No.99)

• Minimal encouragers: Brief inicators to the other person that you are with them.

• Infrequent questions:asking open ended question, ask one at a time.

• Attentive silence: Most listeners talk too much. Learn using non-verbal attentive listening

Reflecting skills

• 1. Rephrasing- Restating what you believe to the essence of a speaker’s comments.

• 2.Reflecting feelings- Understanding and expressing vocally the emotion you think the speaker is trying to convey.

• 3. Reflecting meanings- tying feelings to content.

3. Relationship Listening

• The purpose fo relationship listening is either to help an individual or to improve the relationship between people.

• Therapeutic listening is a special kind of relationship listening.

“ get things off the chest”

1. Attending

2. Supporting

3. Emphathizing

Attending

• In relationship listening, attending behaviour that the listener is focusing on the speaker.

• Eye contact is one of the most important attending behaviour.

• Head nods, smiles, frowns, and vocalized cues such as ‘I see’, ‘yes’.

• A pleasant tone of voice, gentletouching and concern for the other person’s comfort are other attending techniques.

Supporting

• Wise relationship listeners know when to talk and when to just listen - they generally listen more than they talk.

Non-supportive effects

• 1. Interrupting the speaker.

• 2. Changing the subject

• 3. Demonstrating a lack of concer for the other person

• 4. Turning the conversation towards oneself.

Emphathizing

• Empathy is feeling and thinking with another person.

• The caring, emphathic listener is able to go into the world of another- to see the other sees - to hear as the other hears – and feel as the other feels.

4.Appreciative Listening

• Appreciative listening includes listening to musinc for enjoyment, to speakers because you like their style, to your choices in theatre, television, radio or film.

• The quality of appreciative listening depends on three factors:

1. Presentation

2. Perception

3.Previous experience.

Presentation

• Presentation encompasses many factors

- the medium

- the setting

- the style

-the personality of the presnter

Sometimes it is our perception of the presentation, rather than the actual presentation, than most influences our listening pleasure or displeasure.

Perception

• Expectations play a large role in perception. Perceptions - and the expectations that drive them - have their basis in attitudes. Our attitudes

determine how we react to, and interact with the world around us.

Previous experience

• Previous experience influences whether we enjoy listening to something, in some cases, we

enjoy listening to things because we are experts in the

area.

5. Critical listening

• Politicians, the media, salesman, advocates of policies, and procedures, and our own financial , emotional , intellectual, physical and spritual needs require us to place a premium on critical listening and the thinking that accompanies

• Three things that were outlined by Aristotle.

• Ethos

• Pathos

• Logos

Ethos(Source credibility)

• The credibility of the speaker is important. The two critical features of speaker credibility are expertness and trustworthiness.

• When listening to a message that requires a critical judgement or response, ask yourself.

whether the speaker can be trusted, to be honest, unbiased and straight forward?

Logos(logical arguments)

• Even speakers with high enthos often make errors in logic not by intention but by accident, carelessness or lack of analysis.

• Critical listeners have a right to expect well-supported arguments from speakers,arguments that contain both true propositions and valid inferences or conclusions.

Pathos(Psychological appeal)

• The psychological or emotional element of communication is often misunderstood and misused.

• Simply said, speakers often use psychological appeals to gain an emotional response fro listeners.

• Speakers may appeal to nay one or several needs, desires, or values that are important, such as adventure, fear, creativity etc.

6. Discriminative Listening

• It is the most important type , because for it is the basic to the other four.

1. Hearing ability

2. Awareness of sound structure

3. Integration of non-verbal cues.

Hearing ability

• People who lack the ability to hear well have a greater difficulty in discriminating among sounds.

• Often this problem is more acute for some frequencies, or pitches, than others.

Awareness of sound structure

• Native speakers become quite proficient at recongnizing vowel and consonant sounds that do or do not appear at the beginning , middle or end of words.

• Attention to the sound structure of the language will lead to more proficient discriminatory listening.

Integration of non-verbal cues.

• Words do not always communicate true feelings. The way they are said,

or the way the speaker acts, may be the key to understanding the true or intended meaning.

Planning and Conducting interviews

Generally many people think that interviewing is a very simple activity , yet the fact remains that it is a very difficult task, which should be handled skillfully and for this purpose adequate preparation must be made.

Preparation for the interview includes

1.Content

2.Resume

3.Strategy

4.Environment

5.Timing of Interview

6. Seating arrangement

1.Content

1. The interviewer(the person who is conducting the interview) should plan the content of the interviews.

2. He should establish the purpose of the interview , learn about the key areas to be discussed.

3. Anticipate the psychological climate and determine the structure of the interview.

Content4. He should prepare the list of questions to

be asked in the interview.

5. He should verify materials on job application and study it thoroughly.

6. He must also inform the interviewee about the organization.

If the interview is to conduct a performance appraisal interview, he should communicate the employee and persuade him to improve his performance.

2.RESUME• Before conducting an interview, the

interviewer should read the Resume thoroughly.

• If the interviewer knows something about the candidate(it will be easy to ask questions) and both of them will feel comfortable.

• Both of them should have faith in each other. They should leave personal prejudices.

3.STRATEGY

• The structure of the interview should be decided.

• It is useful for acquiring large amount of detailed information.

• In such a situation, a questionnaire is prepared and questions are asked for that.

4.ENVIRONMENT

• The interview must be held in the office and any cafeteria near the office.

• Privacy and freedom from interruption are very important during the interview.

5.TIMING OF INTERVIEW

• It depends on the mood and motivation of the interview.

• During evening or morning

• Sundays or Weekdays

6.SEATING ARRANGEMENT

• It refers to the distance between the interviewer and interviewee.

• Some people feel uncomfortable sitting nose to nose during an interview.

• A distance of about five feet is considered quite comfortable in a two-person interview.

6.SEATING ARRANGEMENT

• In correctional and appraisal interviews, where the manage wishes to maintain psychological distance, he may sit across the table from the subordinate.

• There can be no hard and fast rule for seating arrangement.