LISTENING

Whether be it boss or teacher or parents, they keep on saying us-

“hey listen to me carefully”. 

So what do they really want us to do?

They simply wants us to pay attention and understand their message in right sense. …Don’t they ?

It is said “hearing is through ears but listening is through mind.”

So, basically what do listening really need?

It simply needs:

• A patient effort to shut down all your premature evaluation and internal bias related stimulus and 

• Understand the intended message of the speaker rather than simply hearing to him. 

Most of the students are physically present in their class but they are mentally present elsewhere, so they just hear but do not listen to the teachings. Majority of people who is a part of mass, just hears the speaker.

Hearing is the ability of the ears to sense the sound (tone, peach variations, volume, pauses, speed of speaker and stress on words). Listening requires our concentration of mind and interpretation of the sound - to get the intended message. Therefore, it can be rightly said that, when a person understands what he hears, he is listening. 

Listening Process

When hearing transforms through complex process, it results in listening. So, Listening is not a simple process. In order to complete listening process, it must have following five steps:

1. Hearing : 

First of all the message is received from the sender. 

2. Understanding or Decoding : 

Then, the message is understood as per the receivers internal environment . 

3. Storing or Remembering : 

After decoding, the message is stored in the psychological sections of the receiver.

4. Evaluating or Analyzing: 

Then, the intended message is completely evaluated or analyzed.

5. Responding or Feedback : 

Finally, the feedback is sent by the receiver- as a response to the sender.

If any process breaks down in between, then listening process gets hampered. This results to the cons of listening.

Types of Listening:

Various philosophers has described the types of listening as per their understandings. They are briefly explained as follows: 

1. Critical Listening :

Under this, a listener makes a critical understanding by analyzing it at their different perception angle. Here, the receiver are generally skeptical. The receiver tries to evaluate and judge the sender on various grounds.

2. Selective Listening :

Under this method, the receiver filters few message among the whole message as per their level of interest.

3. Empathetic Listening :

Under this, a receiver puts himself in the place of sender and keeps listening. This makes sender easier to send their message.

4. Comprehensive Listening :

Under this, the Vocabulary and language skills make the receiver to understand the thoughts, ideas and messages of the sender.

5. Discriminative Listening:

Here, the receiver tries to understand the message by discriminating it on the basis of sound. For eg. Tone, peach variations, volume, pauses, speed of speaker, stress on words and the body languages)

6. Biased Listening:

Here, the listener listens only what he wants to hear. The receivers are very evaluative and a bit stereotype.

7. Appreciative Listening:

Here, the receivers appreciates when his favorite sender sends the message. For eg. Musics, speeches

8. Sympathetic Listening:

Here, we use our sympathy as a basis to understand the message. Emotional feelings plays a major role for listening.

9. Dialogic Listening:

John stewart and Milt Thomas has developed the concept of dialogic listening. This type of learning is done through words. Here, the receiver not only focus on listening but also tries to form a relationship during conversation.

10. Relationship Listening:

This is a type of listening whose main objective is to develop and spread relationship. Mostly seen within Peer groups, friends circle among peers, family members.

11. Informational Listening :

Here, the receiver mainly tries to understand the message given by sender by focusing upon the knowledge, skill and behavior of sender. The receiver listens to the tons of information day by day. For eg. Student receives information from teacher, family, surroundings and so on.

12. Therapeutic Listening:

It is a research based device that is used to help to the people who have poor sensory receptors. This method is generally used in theraphy.

13. Rapport Listening :

Here, the receiver tries to build some common ground of interest. This helps to understand the feelings, ideas and messages of each other. The receiver generally focuses upon the non-verbal language to understand the message.

14. Passive Listening:

It is listening without showing any reactions. Generally, the receiver do not show any interest to sender. The communication is generally one way and dominant. Queries are discouraged.

15. Active Listening:

Under this type, the receiver takes an active participation during listening process. It makes the speaker alive. Queries are encouraged.

16. Initial Listening :

Under this type of listening, as soon as the receiver receives the message, he starts to query the sender, without letting him to speak until the query is complete. Under this process the receiver keeps an eye to interrupt the sender frequently.

17. False Listening :

Under this type of listening, the receiver takes more time to understand and analyze the earlier message. Due to this reason he shows a false impression to the sender that he is listening to their message.


18. Content Listening : 

Under this kind of listening, the focus of listener is on the information provided by the speaker.


19. Full Listening :

Under this method, the receiver tries to understand all the messages of the sender and tries to find the meaning and intended sense of the message .

20. Deep Listening :

Here, the receiver makes a deep understanding of the message. The word spoken may have multiple meanings as per time and circumstances. This listener tries to break down the real meaning (even out of jargon used) tactfully.

21. Evaluative (critical, judgmental or interpretive) Listening:

Under this method, the main aim of listener is to evaluate, judge, criticize and pass comments to the sender.

22. Attentive Listening :

Under this method, the receiver attentively listens the message of sender.

23. Reflective Listening:

Under this method, a listener tries to reflect his understandings to other people.







Pic. Credit : www.lantanaliving.com