Chapter 7
Listening
CHAPTER OUTCOMES
•
Outline the listening process and goals for listening
•
List the advantages of listening well
− The affective component is your attitude toward listening to a person or message.
− The cognitive component requires selecting, or choosing one sound over others;
attending, where we decide to focus attention on communication; and understanding,
where we interpret and make sense of messages.
− The behavioral component requires remembering or recalling information and
o Passive listeners may also engage in confabulation, in which they fabricate and defend their
distorted memory about the messages they heard, unaware that their information is false.
•
The desired goal of listening fidelity is the degree to which the understanding of the listener
and the intentions of the producer match.
Active listeners make choices about selecting, attending, and so on, and are more competent
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o Analytical listening is used to explore all ideas before making judgments.
o Task-oriented listening is used to focus on clear and pertinent information quickly.
o Critical listening is used to find inconsistencies or errors.
o Competent listeners will adapt their listening goals to the person and situation.
•
The Value of Listening Well shows students how listening is essential to achieving success.
ability.
− Other physical aspects that may interfere with the listening process include attention
process information.
o Multitasking
help us understand the ways in which listening is empowering.
− Listening apprehension causes people to feel anxious or nervous about listening because
they may not like what they hear.
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• Self-absorbed Listening is when people listen for their own needs. That can include
listening to control communication, which is monopolistic listening. It may also
include attacking (negatively responding to someone else’s message) and ambushing
(strategically using another’s weakness against them).
o Pseudolistening is pretending to listen by mimicking listening cues. This kind of behavior
can cause us to miss important information.
•
Listening Contexts examines the ways in which the context of communication influences
o The Technology Listening Context
− Technology can be both helpful and hurtful to the listening process.
1. What does it mean for you to “listen well”? What kinds of behaviors do you engage in when
you are really trying to listen?
2. What do you think makes a good listener?
3. Do listening habits reflect gender? Do they change based on if the listening partners are the
same sex? Or if they’re of opposite sexes?
listening.
4. Do you ever try to listen while you are doing other things? How does that affect your listening
skills?
5. Why is it difficult to listen to a boring speech? Who holds the responsibility for making a
speech less boring—the speaker or the listener? Why?
6. Is there a situation in which you are apprehensive about listening? Describe situations where
7. Is it ever okay not to listen? When might that be? In what particular situations is it acceptable
not to listen?
1.
When Do You Listen?
2.
What Kind of Listener Are You?
3.
How Can You Listen to That?
4.
Where Do We See Listening?
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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Tuning Out
Goal: To have students understand that they are culturally programmed to automatically not
1.
Record fifteen minutes or so of a random television program—preferably one with
commercials—and play five minutes of it at the beginning of class.
2.
Don’t offer any explanation, just have the television on. Be sure that at least one set of
commercial breaks is part of the viewing. While the television is playing, take notes on
3.
After the prescribed viewing time is over, tell students to take out a clean piece of paper
that students may have unwittingly memorized the information in a particular commercial.
2. Operator
Goal: To have students see how content information changes when poor listening skills are
2.
One chair facing the classroom (for student volunteers)
Directions: This is the classic game of “Operator.”
2.
Keep one volunteer in the room; send the rest out in the hallway to wait. Seat the
volunteer who stayed in the room in a chair in front of the class, facing the class.
4.
After you finish reading, call in one of the students from the hallway. Have the first
5.
Once the first student volunteer has related the article to the second student, have the first
6.
Ask this last student to relate the article to the class. Finally, with all students in the room,
reread the article to the class.
3.
What Did You Hear?
1. Access to the internet, either during class or ahead of time
3. Blank paper and writing implements for students
Directions:
1. Have students listen to the speech and write their answers the following questions:
•
What is the thesis or main point of the speaker’s message?
•
What nonverbal cues helped you to determine the meaning of the speaker’s message?
4. Listening Through Barriers
Goal: To have students understand how barriers can affect listening
2.
Give one of the volunteers a short script of some sort.
4.
Have one student read the script on one side of the door while the other student listens
5. Identifying Listening
Goal: To have students be able to differentiate among different kinds of listening
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Materials: Clip from a news talk show and method of displaying it to students
Directions:
1.
Show a clip from a news talk show in which pundits are discussing a topic with each
other.
2.
Have students identify the different kinds of listening they see happening, such as
defensive, biased, hurtful, and so on.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What are the differences between hearing and listening?
3. What are the differences between active and passive listening? Which do you use most often?
5. Define critical listening.
6. How can effective listening help your career?
7. How can effective listening strengthen relationships?
9. One of the most frequently recommended suggestions for listening well is simply to stop
talking. Do you agree with that? Why or why not?
10. Define listening apprehension.
MEDIA
The King’s Speech (Weinstein Company, 2010)
comfortably between action-oriented, content-oriented, and people-oriented listening.
Use this film to have students discuss positive results that can be derived from effective
listening.
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The Queen (Miramax, 2006)
The Secret Life of Words (Focus Features, 2005)
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Walt Disney Pictures, 2010)
how bolts of electricity can make music. Use this scene as an opportunity to examine how
music is used as communication.
True Grit (Paramount, 2010)
Not to be confused with the 1969 John Wayne film of the same name, which was a far
less faithful adaptation of the Charles Portis novel from which this exciting Western was
Mattie, Cogburn moves closer to people-oriented listening. Discussing this film will help
demonstrate how people mix listening styles.
The Listening Project (Rickshaw Films, 2008)
Discuss this film with your students and ask how active listening can help them to learn
about other perspectives.