Learning Skill: Developing Effective Listening

Listening is an art that very few of us care to nurture. But it is not only important in life to listen attentively, but is an excellent way of learning 

Listening is one of the primary learning skills. However, listening is not just confined to hearing words and sentences, verbal demonstrations, narratives or lectures. In fact, the realm of listening extends to the important aspect of knowledge assimilation.

The effectiveness of listening is determined and governed by a number of disparate factors like the attentiveness of the listener, the mood of the listener, and the preconceived perceptions of the listener. The effectiveness of listening can broadly be evaluated and classified as positive listening and negative listening.

Positive listening

Positive listening is also known as active or effective listening. When the attention of the listener is entirely focused on the ideas being communicated by the speaker it is known as active listening. The listener assimilates information without any personal bias, and actively participates in the ongoing learning process.

The other characteristics of effective listing include overlooking all types of distractions and keeping a positive body language.

Effective listeners habitually take notes of important ideas without losing their interest. They are alert and attentive, seek clarification whenever required, and in doing so absorb the information delivered.

Negative listening

Negative listening is also known as passive or ineffective listening. Negative listening can occur because of the listener being inattentive or distracted by personal and environmental reasons. Passive listeners often distract others and display a negative body language.

Furthermore, passive listeners are often those who are prejudiced or biased. All-in-all, negative listening forces the listener to partially assimilate information thereby missing the important points.

Developing effective listening

Effective listening is an art that can be mastered with practice. Active listening is necessary for gaining ideas and knowledge for one’s scholastic and personal development. It is also needed to improve one’s ability to better understand, help, and communicate with others.

The following are ways for developing the skill of effective or active listening:

1. Be attentive:
• Fully concentrate on the ideas conveyed by the speaker and not just on the words or sentences delivered
• Keep a positive body language and establish eye contact with the speaker

2. Avoid distraction:
• Do not be distracted in any way by the personality or the mannerisms of the speaker
• Ignore all types of distractions in your life or in the immediate environment
• Do not barge into an ongoing discussion, instead wait until others have expressed their views or it’s your turn to speak

3. Keep an open mind:
• Avoid bringing in preconceived biases into the discussion
• Do not form any opinion till the very end of the session

4. Seek clarification:
• In case it is difficult to understand ideas conveyed by the speaker, seek clarification by asking questions
• Try not to interrupt the speaker until the particular message or concept has been fully conveyed
• Before asking a question, if possible, paraphrase the problem point and then seek its clarification
• If required seek additional information from the speaker to clear doubts

Benefits of Effective Listening

The benefits of effective listening are many. For one thing, it makes the learning process more interesting. It also increases the ability to understand new concepts without any bias or preconception. And lastly makes recapitulation of ideas later on much easier as there is very little you forget when you give hundred per cent attention.