EFFECTIVE LISTENING
SKILLS
“If speaking is silver, then listening is gold.” -- Turkish Proverb
“If speaking is silver, then listening is gold.” -- Turkish Proverb
Before we get into the techniques of
effective listening, let’s define what we mean by the word “Listening.”
Listening is the process of receiving,
constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken and/or nonverbal messages.
Listening is an activity that most of us are
not really taught how to do effectively. We tend to be overly concerned with
the outgoing sounds, rather than the incoming signals. Listening is as
important, maybe even more important, than speaking. Without proper listening
skills it is difficult to communicate effectively with others.
We’ve all met the person who talks a mile a
minute and doesn’t really want to hear what others have to say. Is this person
actually communicating? The answer is NO. If you do all of the talking and
never listen, you will never really communicate very well with others.
In this unit we will investigate effective
listening skills, barriers to effective listening, and methods of improving our
own listening skills.