The Skills Required For an Effective Listening
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The Skills Required For an Effective Listening
Q1. The Differences between Hearing and Listening
Listening is a mental process of actively receiving a message to interpret it for accurate understanding to enable an effective response. In contrast, hearing is a process of involuntarily receiving random sounds from various sources without any intention of understanding it, keeping the memory, or acting on it. As Jaffe (chapter 4, page 42, 2ND paragraph), listening takes energy and focus, but hearing requires no effort. Besides, listening is a process starting with a known source of information, a meaningful sound encoding the message, hears that are ready to listen to decode the message, and finally, a response from the information recipient. Hearing, on the other hand, is random and without a plan of responding.
Q2. Do You Consider Yourself To Be A Mindful Listener? Why or Why Not?
I know myself as a good listener. I authoritatively say so with considerations to the defined meaning of listening that I have done above. Listening requires the willingness of the recipient to receive the information. Depending on the source of the said information, I remain willing to listen. I take notes of important points from the source to respond as fast as possible to ensure effectiveness. According to Jaffe (2012), Listening requires that the recipient remembers the information given for future reflection. This gives me the right to consider myself a mindful listener, for I keep the memory of all important information aspects.
Q3. The obstacle to mindful listening that I encounter most often? Two things I can do to overcome these obstacles? Be specific.
Among the various obstacles to good listening, I mostly encounter personal barriers with specifically stereotypes and prejudices. This involves grouping and classifying people intending to judge their information as either important or not important (Treasure, 2015). However, I have learned of several ways of overcoming this vice. These include setting goals, Use Attention-Directing Strategies, Preparation in Advance, and Improvement in comprehension skills. Specifically, I would employ the skill of preparation to help me get ready to focus on the message, not the appearance of the person giving it. I would set my goals before the reception of the message to guide me in the listening process.
References
Jaffe, C. Effective Listening. Page 42.
Treasure, J. (2015). Transcript of “5 ways to listen better” [Video]. TED: Ideas worth spreading. https://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_5_ways_to_listen_better/transcript?language=en
Listening is an active mental process in which you interpret messages to understand and respond to them.2. It takes motivation, effort, and concentration. Listening has at least five elements: (1) receiving sounds, (2) discriminating or distinguishing among them, (3) focusing attention, (4) assigning meaning to the sounds, and then (5) remembering the information. In contrast, something that goes in one ear and out the other is hearing.