Listening - Introduction and definitions - BCA - SY

Listening: A COMMUNICATION TOOL

1. Introduction

“We are given two ears but only one mouth; this is because God knew that listening was twice as hard as talking”

     

          Expressing our wants, needs, thoughts and opinions clearly and effectively is only half of the communication process, the other half is listening and understanding what others communicate to us. People need to practice and acquire skills to be good listeners, because all the speakers do not have the same way of conveying the information. Information should be sent by the speaker and receives by the active listener. One of the major problems in the communication process is lack of or inactive or ineffective listening. Everyone is involved in listening, but everyone is not listening to as seriously as required. Very often when we are speaking to someone we notice that he is not really listening, but only hearing. He is just waiting for us to finish so that he can say his piece.

    

        By this, there is a complete breakdown happens in the communication process. A poor listener can destroy the speaker’s desire to talk and that affects his confidence and ability to communicate.

    

       Effective listening is actively absorbing the information given by a speaker. It shows that the listener is listening and interested, and should provide the feedback so the speaker comes to know that his message was received. Effective listeners show that they have heard and understood. 

What is listening?

       In day-to-day life most of us are involved in listening. We generally think of communication, particularly in the case of verbal communication, to transmit ideas, facts, opinions, exchange information etc.

Listening is the receiver’s activity in communication. As the speaker has the responsibility to make effort to be understood, the listener also has the responsibility to be attentive and to make effort to understand the meaning of the speaker.

Here are two definitions of the listening by scholars:

  “The skill of listening has four components: clarification, paraphrasing, reflecting, and summarizing.” – Cormier

“Listening is a process of receiving, interpreting, and reaching to the message received from the communication sender.” – M V Rodriques

       Listening during a speech is not enough; you have to remember, what you have heard. You have to think over the communication received and, sometimes, note it down immediately after the communication has been completed.

Real listening is an active process that has three basic steps to follow:

1. Hearing: hearing just means listening enough to catch what the speaker is saying. If a listener can repeat the fact which the speaker has said then only we can say that the listener has heard what has been said.

2. Understanding: The next part of listening happens when you take what you have heard and understand it in our own way. When a listener analyzes the heard sentences or message, we can say that the message has been understood.

3. Judging: After getting sure that whatever the listener has understood, is what the speaker said, think about whether it makes sense, Do the listener believe what the speaker has said? This is called judging the message passed by the speaker. 

Questions for students:

Explain: "What is listening?" - by giving at least one definition.

Reference book: - Business Communication. Sathya Swaroop Debasish & Bhagaban Das. PHI Learning Private Limited. New Delhi.