My Listening Assessment

When I think of listening I relate it to just hearing the message. I do not follow the process of listening that was taught in my communication class. Rather than receiving, recalling, rating, and responding, I often hear and skip right to responding. I do believe that because I don’t follow all the steps I forget easily or do not understand things completely, which leads to me either questioning later, or just winging it. I also realized that I have selective listening, because of lack of interest in some conversations I often block out part of the conversation, or lose focus and zone out until the end of the conversation. By then I know little of what was talked about and only respond to what I think is most important to me. Another bad habit I have when it comes to listening is my responding habits, I’m not sure how to respond to most

J.K was administered the Receptive vocabulary component of the WIAT III Listening Comprehension. She was asked to point to the picture that correspond to each administered word. This was done to assess her comprehension of single words. Her score was in the average range (standard score= 101). This indicated that J.K has a good understanding of spoken words.

I am glad that this class had taken part in the listening journal assignment as I was not sure what to expect. I was uncertain of my listening capabilities and have wondered what areas could use improvement. I do consider my interactions with people in hindsight, and I always hope that I did my best to listen and communicate with respect. I am fortunate to find out through the logs that I am above average while listening to others, in respect to the log analysis. I am further aware that this is because of a significant change in my life that took me from being self-focused to other-orientated. If this class had been over thirteen years before, my details on those logs would have been vastly altered.

A vital aspect of interpersonal communication is the style in which one listens. While every individual possesses their own preferred method of listening in communication, it can be enlightening to analyze our own strengths and weaknesses so as to maximize effectual communication. Within the confines of four main listening style categories, I have chosen those which best describe my own personal listening style.

My listening skills could be improved. I am sometimes too keen to ask questions when a person has not finished speaking and my need to plan and “put things into neat boxes” can feel imposing on people with different learning styles and very creative personalities. I also have a tendency to write extensive notes in meetings and 1-2-1’s in order not to miss anything and to record peoples responses correctly – this can, however, come across as my being disengaged from the conversation and “not taking on board what is said”.

How do people communicate? How do they listen? These are some of the questions that I will answer. I will also provide examples of verbal and nonverbal communication as well as explain how knowledge of nonverbal communication can help when communicating with others. I will also analyze my personal results for the Student Listening Inventory and explain what I do well and where I can improve.

I was sitting there as a 15 year old girl in an auditorium that was scared just because I was away from home for more then one night. Even though I was at church camp I was terrified, I was terrified that people would find out of past mistakes and doubt that I had. At this point in my spiritual journey I had many doubts in if God actually cared about me after I had messed up that many times. The first day I listened to men speak all day about how being catholic is a gift in itself and how with God everything else will fall in place. At this time in my life this all felt like a lie because I had tried praying and nothing was getting better. It wasn’t until the first women of the day got up on stage that I actually could listen and connect with the

Reflecting to when I was actively listening to the speaker I can see my three main strengths which are, Posture of involvement where I maintained an open position, I was relaxed which indicated I was listening to the speaker, I believe I had great eye contact, as I was not staring at the speaker, I was softly looking at the speaker and her hand gestures. As the speaker entered the room I asked her ‘If she was comfortable with the Surroundings/environment.’ Which is the skill of Non- Distracting Environment. The area that I need to further my learning development in is Appropriate Body Language as I reflect on this skill set

Working in a restaurant was one of the best learning experiences in developing personal and team oriented relationships with individuals of all backgrounds. Eleven years later I still used these gathered skills, now further sharpened, that are essential to my current job as a hair stylist. Aside from working with people of all ages, there are a number of skills that I find were most influencing into how I operate today. One of these skills was the effective quality of listening. One of the biggest problems in the work place today is that people are unaware or decline to effectively listen. Listening to people by vocal communication is one of many forms we translate information. Understanding body language, facial expression, tone of voice are all imperative attributes to effectively communicate. This is a strength that I take in pride in being knowledgeable towards. I’ve realized the priority of patience with many years of working one on one with individuals. One is unable to effectively move forward without understanding the perspectives of the people we communicate

In this assignment, we were administered the Watson-Barker Listening Test. During the course of this assessment I believe I did fairly well, and I actually believe I did better than I expected. The reason I did not expect to do well on this assessment is because I tend to have an issue with paying attention, especially if something is boring. I managed to score just as well or slightly better in all of the categories in comparison to the national averages. This was even after I lost focus for a small period of time during the duration of one of the sections. This assessment managed to help me in several ways by helping me evaluate what forms of listening I properly executed and which ones were executed poorly.

Communication and listening to your patients I believe is the first step in culture competence. When we, as nurses, treat a patient we have to keep the culture of the patient in mind. For example, making sure a patient who only eats kosher foods has kosher approved food on their tray before bringing it into the room or if a patient needs to pray or meditate at a certain time make sure they get the privacy to do so. Some of these are very easy to do and could make a world of difference to a patient.

Listening is a vital element of communication and it is very much different from hearing sense of human. A meaningful communication requires both a good listener and a speaker. However, the effect of a listening style may vary depending on the occasions and situations a listener is in. Sometimes, speaker exhibit ineffective style such as defensiveness, ambushing, pseudo-listening, stage hogging and selective listening in their communication tracks.

Poor listening is one of the most common habits for students. Now one may think this is something intentional, but it’s not. I speak for myself; one doesn’t realize that they are muting out the speaker. Often, this occurs due to the lack of interest or simply for the reason our minds are somewhere else. This is an awful behavior that I would like to change. Selective hearing can affect one’s academics due to missing important information and not focusing on key points being discussed. Poor listening is caused by boredom, which can lead to disrespect and discomfort to the speaker, signaling disinterest. Emotions also develop terrible listening habits. Our emotions override our consciousness causing a barrier to effective listening. However, bad listening habits can be improved within our daily routines. The strategy of listening is beneficial to the communication between you and the speaker.

I have some doubts about my listening effectiveness, and while my knowledge of how to listen does not have any gaps, my methods do.

The purpose of this memo is to evaluate my listening skills, assess my strengths and weaknesses, and describe how I can improve my skills. My listening self-assessment score of 36 indicates that, although my skill level is decent, I have room to improve significantly. I regularly attend professional meetings where either informational listening or critical listening is required. Despite this, I consider my listening skills subpar and am aware of my need for improvement. In understanding how I can improve, I must first assess my strengths and weaknesses.