Business Communication Chapter 4 Homework Devito Interpersonal Messages Instructors Manual Ask

DeVito Interpersonal Messages, 4e Instructor’s Manual

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Chapter 4: Listening in Interpersonal Communication

Chapter Overview

This chapter defines listening, explains its benefits, explores its five stages, and

describes major barriers to its effectiveness. Further, it defines the four styles of

listening for different situations, and discusses some cultural and gender differences

that affect listening.

Listening may be viewed as a five-step process: (1) receiving, (2) understanding, (3)

Chapter Objectives

1. Define listening and its five stages, and use the suggestions to increase your own

listening accuracy at each stage.

3. Identify the four styles of listening, and select and use the appropriate style for the

specific situation.

4. Explain the major cultural and gender differences found in listening, and assess their

influence on interpersonal communication/listening.

Student Objectives

Content Objectives:

To explain the process of listening

To recognize the styles of listening available

To recognize the role of culture and gender differences in listening

Skills Objectives:

To listen more effectively during each stage of the process

DeVito Interpersonal Messages, 4e Instructor’s Manual

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Skills Evaluation

1. Objective: To listen more effectively during each stage of the process. Give

2. Objective: To listen more effectively during each stage of the process. Tell

3. Objective: To regulate your listening style on the basis of the unique situation.

4. Objective: To regulate your listening style on the basis of the unique situation

5. Objective: To regulate your listening style on the basis of the unique situation

6. Objective: To listen with sensitivity to cultural differences. Students should

7. Objective: To listen with sensitivity to gender differences. Students should role-

play in male/female pairs for evaluation of gender-differences sensitivity. They

should discuss two of the following topics for two to three minutes. Each person

chooses one of the topics:

(a) buying a new car or truck

(b) most important features when shopping for an apartment

Chapter Outline

I. The Stages of Listening

A. Receiving

B. Understanding

C. Remembering

DeVito Interpersonal Messages, 4e Instructor’s Manual

D. Evaluating

E. Responding

II. Listening Barriers

A. Distractions: Physical and Mental

III. Four Listening Styles

A. Empathetic Listening

B. Polite Listening

C. Critical Listening

D. Active Listening

2. Techniques of active listening

IV. Listening, Culture, and Gender

A. Culture and Listening

B. Gender and Listening

1. Rapport and report talk

3. Amount and purposes of listening

Teaching Strategies

 Instruct students to listen to an excerpt from author Jack Londo using the

 Invite students who came to the United States from other cultures with native

languages other than English to visit the class. Ask them to tell about confusing

situations due to the language differences. Have students prepare questions to

ask them about understanding in English-speaking classrooms.

 Students should list barriers they have experienced when listening to (1) difficult

material, such as a science lecture, (2) persons criticizing them, (3) boring lecture

material, and (4) angry people.

They should then discuss the barriers they find in common with people speaking

 Play excerpts from current movies and have students identify the purposes of

listening and the response styles in each.

DeVito Interpersonal Messages, 4e Instructor’s Manual

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 Ask students to write a brief paragraph about a problem or situation in which they

must make a decision. After reviewing their papers, choose two or three for

classroom demonstrations in which you listen to the students and use active

listening responses (being careful not to judge in responses).

Vignette

This introduction focuses on the false assumption that listening is easy and automatic.

In an advertisement to encourage mentoring, the Harvard Mentoring Project and the

Partnership for a Drug-Free America (http://www.mentoring.org) list three steps:

 Step 1: Listen.

 Step 2: Share what you know.

 Step 3: Repeat Step 1.

The ad continues, “It can be that easy to turn a kid’s life around.” (New York Times,

January 5, 2003, p. 30).

Comments: Despite the mentoring proponents’ optimistic language, the students will

Activities for Student Based-Learning

Listening for a Reason

Before class, in a nonchalant manner, read to your students an article that you find on

the Internet that includes several numbers and boring facts. Then, take out a $1 bill (or

more) and ask several questions concerning the article. If there is a student who can

correctly answer all the questions, then they get the $1 bill. Oftentimes, there is no one

in the class who can answer all questions, because people don’t usually listen unless

there is a reason. Discuss with your students the barriers to listening and how listening

can be improved.

The Telephone Game—option 1

Ask one student at the back of the class to come up with a sentence, such as “The sun

rises in the east and sets in the west,” or “You can’t kill two birds with one stone.” Then,

ask the student to whisper that phrase into another student sitting close to them.

DeVito Interpersonal Messages, 4e Instructor’s Manual

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The Telephone Game—option 2

Conduct an old-fashioned version of “Telephone.” Select a recent story from your local

newspaper that includes different facts and figures. Create a condensed version that is

7-8 sentences long that contains the factual information (names, dates, what happened)

Responding with Empathy

Here are ten possible responses to the “simple” statement, “I guess I’m feeling a little

depressed.” Assume that Apple and Orange are close friends—not best friends but they

are closer than acquaintances. You may assume that Apple and Orange are two

women, two men, or a woman and a man—select the genders as you wish.

For this exercise:

1. Identify why each of the ten responses is (probably) inappropriate and not empathic.

You may also want to consider the motivating factors that contribute to the varied

responses.

Ask yourself, “Why does someone respond as these Oranges did?”

APPLE: I guess I’m just feeling a little depressed.

______ ORANGE 1: I’ve been reading about depression and it’s all in your head. This

research —it was done at NYU—showed that the…

______ ORANGE 2: You depressed? Have you talked to Pat? Now that’s depression.

______ ORANGE 3: You’re not depressed; you’re just a bit sad. After all, that breakup

could not have been easy.

______ ORANGE 4: Well, then, you need to get out more; let’s go and have some fun.

______ ORANGE 5: What else is happening? Have you talked to Chris?

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2. Write what you’d consider an appropriate and empathic response. Consider why

your response is empathic. What does your response communicate that the

varied responses from Orange did not communicate?

Empathic/appropriate response:

______________________________________________________________________