Checklists On How To Improve Our Listening Skill
We are surrounded by so many sounds and so much information that is often difficult to listen. Many of us, because of this, become poor or lazy listeners, probably because we have never thought that listening, like reading, speaking and writing, is a skill that can and should be developed.
Like any other skill, listening has to be learned and practiced. It is a process involved with discrimination of sounds, understanding them, retaining the ideas conveyed and later using them in interacting with others.
We can enhance our skill in listening. Here are some guidelines.
- Know your purpose in every listening situation.
- Listen for ideas.
- Find area of interest.
- Judge content, not delivery.
- Resist distractions.
- Keep your mind work as you listen.
- Be flexible.
- Let your mind work as you listen. Reflect on the speaker's message.
- Predict the speaker's intent or purpose.
- Determine whether your interpretation of the speaker's ideas is the same as his.
- In evaluating what you hear, get the whole story first.
- Be alert to mistaken causal relations.
- Judge how much the speaker's biases are affecting his message.
- You should also be aware of your biases and attitudes.
- Analyze your listening errors and correct them.
To improve your listening skill, the following factors and attributes are useful.
- Adequate hearing ability.
- Absence of such problems as boredom, fatigue, prejudices against speaker.
- Awareness of the listening situation. Is it causal or intent listening?
- Interpretation of what is heard; ability to think and analyze while listening.
- Readiness or eagerness to listen.
- Ability to discriminate sounds and ideas.
- Ability to give meanings to sounds.
- Ability to evaluate the manner or tone of sound presentations - angry surprised? nonchalant? disturbed? confident? happy?