Listening

Active listening is the main key for understanding any kind of communication. Active listening means more than just hearing words. It means understanding what someone else is saying by making eye contact, body language and verbal responses.

Listening is ‘Not an attempt to understand something that is being said’ but ‘Just an attention to the activity of sounds’

Listening is important as it can be, because it is important for effectively communicating and the reason is that 50 percent or more of our time we spend is spent on only listening. Although most of the people spent a lot more time in learning to read and write. According to research by International Listening Association, we only remember 50 percent of what we hear after 2 minutes and about 20 percent of what we hear after 2 days.

Throughout the day, conversations flow all around us We talk to our family members, friends, colleagues, children, maids, shopkeepers and anyone in our vicinity but if we are honest to ourselves, we actually listen to very little. Listening is much more than just using the ears to hear the words. Listening to someone means giving them our undivided attention and that should involve our ears, eyes, mind and even our heart.

Active listening is listening with a purpose. It is more than just hearing which the act of perceiving sound is. When you hear a sound or noise, you are receiving aural stimuli. Listening goes beyond just registering that there is a sound in the environment. It involves receiving and interpreting the aural stimuli, and creating meaning from the sound.

I think to be effective in listening and responding, one should be actively involved in a conversation and display both verbal and nonverbal signs of paying attention to what is being said. I have found two articles that have provided ways of determining if a person is an active listener.

Listening: Is the ability to receive and interpret what other person wants to say. Sometimes without this ability the message can’t misinterpreted and can be a reason of frustration. (Listening Skills. (n.d.). Retrieved July 29, 2015.)

Listening by definition would be to give ones attention to a sound, however, in business we need to be active listeners providing responses that engage the person speaking and affirm we hear them. As managers we are often tasked with the skill of listening. Your subordinates will need to be heard and have important things to discuss. One example may be an employee discussing a safety issue. The ability to actively listen to the employee and provide feedback will assure the employee you have taken their concern and plan to act. I have found a website that offers training on the skill of listening called mindtools.com. One can utilize this website to improve the skill of listening.

In conclusion active listening is a skill that can be acquired and developed with practice, and being an active listener results in being a good listener. This meaning being mindful while listening, and not only hearing what is being said but also processing the information to find meaning. In order to do this you must observe body language and non-verbal messages. I feel I was effectively about to achieve being an active listener during the $cholarship Seminar event. By formulating a listening plan and being mindful while attending the event I was able to move through the four stages of active listening. I used the best position possible to be able to successfully see and hear the message. I prepared for the event in order to be able to mentally

For an individual to be a good communicator, they need to be an active listener.In active listening, a person is able to receive the message with clarity so that they know how to respond to it correctly (O'Hair, 181).

Undivided attention Skills: Active listening is about being included, truly tuning in and making inquiries. On the off chance that somebody is inclining far from the other individual, looking around or looking exhausted, he or she is not tuning in. Attentive people look at what they have listened.

Listening requires silence. Neutrally speaking, the silent and listening individual is passively learner and an active thinker. Listening comprehension establishes a systematic viewpoint in human mind making it to learn the rhythm of the words, statements, sentences, phrases, thoughts and ideas. It is a requisite to learn about the classification of Stressed and unstressed words.

Listening is more complex, and it encourages one to analyze and think about an idea, rather than to simply accept it (or “hear” it). Hearing is a skill that is beneficial for every aspect of life. As long as we have our ability to hear, we will always perceive different sounds, music, and voices. Listening, however, is beneficial to us in specific instances. It is important for us to attain good listening skills in education, the work force, and in our relationships with others in order to succeed. Good listening in education will bring about confident participation in class discussions; good listening in the workplace will lead to cooperation and good teamwork among colleagues; good listening in relationships is healthy and positive, for it is important to hear what an individual has to say in order to know how they feel.

Active listening is an attentive and interactive form of listening. One of the primary objectives of active listening is establishing and achieving empathy among all parties engaged in communication together. The words a person uses during communication are important, yet active listening includes listening to a person's words as well as interpreting and intuiting what a person feels and thinks. Active listening is a highly engaging activity. Active listening requires the person doing the listening to have a very keen awareness of all aspects of the communication. Active listening then is a sensory activity that challenges the listener to see, hear, sense, perceive, understand, feel, empathize, and reciprocate.

According to English.com (“What is Listening? | English Club,” n.d.), “Listening is receiving language through the ears. Listening involves identifying the sounds of speech and processing them into words and sentences”. Listening is the first of the four language skills which are: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing. It is usually the first language skill that we learn. The definition of listening skill is therefore the act of hearing attentively (“Define Listening Skills | TutorVista.com,” n.d.). We listen for entertainment, information, to understand and learn. Good listening requires self-awareness because the mind gets destructed easily. (“Active Listening,” n.d.).