Dr. Sarwet Rasul

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Preview of the session

• What is listening?• Why listening is important?• Difference in hearing and listening• Perspectives on listening• Human aspects of listening• Language aspects of listening• Different listening contexts• Difficulties in listening• Listening strategies

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We can define listening as following:

Listening is the ability to accurately receive messages in the communication process. 

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Difference between hearing and listening

• Hearing – Physical process, natural, passive

• Listening – Physical as well as mental process, active, learned process, a skill

• Listening is the process of recognizing, understanding, andaccurately interpreting communicated messagesand responding to spoken and / or nonverbalmessages.

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• We spend a lot of our time listening

• Adults spend an average of 70% of their time engaged in some sort of communication, of this an average of 45% is spent listening compared to 30% speaking, 16% reading and 9% writing. (Adler, R. et al. 2001).

http://www.skillsyouneed.co.uk/

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• In fact most of us are not, and research suggests that we remember between 25 percent and 50 percent of what we listen to. That means that when you talk to your boss, colleagues, customers or spouse for 10 minutes, they pay attention to less than half of the conversation. This is dismal!

• Turn it around and it reveals that when you are receiving directions or being presented with information, you aren't hearing the whole message either. You hope the important parts are captured in your 25-50 percent, but what if they're not?

http://www.mindtools.com/

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Perspectives on learning to listen

• From people’s perspective

• From Language’s perspective

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Listening Activity:

• Take a pen and paper to do the activity• I am going to draw four pictures for you: 1. Inkpot. 2. Circle, 3,

Square, 4. Rectangle• Look at the four pictures drawn for you. • Now listen carefully to the instructions and do accordingly.

• In the box above each picture, label it appropriately as follows: circle, square, rectangle and ink bottle.

• Draw a slightly smaller circle inside the circle. • Put your signature in the top left-hand corner of rectangle.• Draw a vertical line through the centre of the square.• Now draw a horizontal line through the centre of the square. • Write the word stop backwards in the ink bottle.• Draw a horizontal line close to the bottom line of the rectangle. • Write the letter ‘O’ in the centre of the circle.

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• How was the experience of this listening activity?

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• Listening is one of the most important skills one can have.

• How well you listen has a major impact on your work effectiveness, and on the quality of your relationships with others.

• Clearly, listening is a skill that we can all benefit from improving. By becoming a better listener, we can add to our productivity. Better listening also adds to our ability to influence, persuade and negotiate.

• Listening is an important tool of learning as well.

• Think for a while about its importance in your context of virtual learning

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Active Listening

• The way to become a better listener is to practice "active listening."

• You need to make a conscious effort to hear not only the words that come from the mouth of the person, rather, more importantly, you need to try to understand the complete message being sent by the speaker

• Active listening means listening with attention and carefully.

• Active listening is a focused activity.

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Active Listening

as a Process

Receiving

Understanding

Responding

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Desire to be other directed

No desire to protect yourself

Desire to understand, not

critique

Desire to imagine the

experience of others

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Becoming an Active Listener

http://www.mindtools.com/

• There are five key elements of active listening. They all help you ensure that you receiving what the other person says, and that the other person knows you are listening to him or her:

• 1. Pay Attention • 2. Show That You're Listening• 3. Provide Feedback• 4. Defer Judgment• 5. Respond Appropriately

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1. Pay Attention

• Give the speaker your undivided attention, and acknowledge the message. Recognize that non-verbal communication also "speaks" loudly.

• Look at the speaker directly. • Put aside distracting thoughts. • Don't mentally prepare a rebuttal! • Avoid being distracted by environmental factors. For example, side

conversations. • "Listen" to the speaker's body language.

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2. Show That You're Listening

• Use your own body language and gestures to convey your attention. • Nod occasionally. • Smile and use other facial expressions. • Note your posture and make sure it is open and inviting. • Encourage the speaker to continue with small verbal comments like

yes, and uh hum.

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3. Provide Feedback

• Our personal filters, assumptions, judgments, and beliefs can distort what we hear. As a listener, your role is to understand what is being said. This may require you to reflect what is being said and ask questions.

• Reflect what has been said by paraphrasing. "What I'm hearing is," and "Sounds like you are saying," are great ways to reflect back.

• Ask questions to clarify certain points. "What do you mean when you say." "Is this what you mean?"

• Summarize the speaker's comments periodically.

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4. Defer Judgment

• Interrupting is a waste of time. It frustrates the speaker and limits full understanding of the message.

• Allow the speaker to finish each point before asking questions.

• Don't interrupt with counter arguments.

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5. Respond Appropriately

• Active listening is a model for respect and understanding. You are gaining information and perspective. You add nothing by attacking the speaker or otherwise putting him or her down.

• Be candid, open, and honest in your response. • Assert your opinions respectfully. • Treat the other person in a way that you think he or she would want

to be treated.

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Give Feedback

While Listening

Body Posture

Eye contact

Put open ended

questions

Restate what is said

Nodding head

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• So this was “listening” as a skill from human perspective

• Now let us move on to “listening” as a skill from the language perspective

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Purposes of listening in Academic context

• We listen to obtain information.

• We listen to understand.

• We listen to learn.

• We listen for enjoyment.

http://www.mindtools.com/

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DIFFERENT LISTENING SITUATIONS

• 1. Right now you are listening to me: A virtual lesson

• 2. Just before this you might be listening to something that a family member told

• 3. Or you might have listened to an announcement made from the local mosque

DIFFERENT LISTENING SITUATIONS

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FACTORS AFFECTING THE DIFFICULTY OF LISTENING SITUATIONSFACTORS AFFECTING THE DIFFICULTY OF LISTENING SITUATIONS

Situation Aids Difficulties

Station, airport, announcements

visual back-up, notice boards etcask a member of staff for help

no possibility for clarification distorted speech

listening to the radio

background knowledge, eg The News no possibility of clarification, no visual clues

participating In a conversationface-to-face

clarification from the speakervisual clues - speakers' expressionthe context of the situation

the need to plan. nextcontribution to the conversation while Listening

film, play or TV visual clues - speakers' expression, context of the situation

no possibility to clarify (unacceptable to ask audiences for help!)

meeting or seminar

knowledge of subject matterpossibility of asking for clarification

the need to plan your contribution while listening

taking part in aLesson

teacher should make himself comprehensiblevisual clues - black-board work

the possibility of being called on to answer, unexpectedlyunderstanding the contributions of students

talk or lecture background knowledge or expectationsvisual Glues - board work etc. provided by speaker

frequently the need to take notes, important information and writing, interrupting for clarification

Eavesdropping motivation (curiosity) you start by knowing nothing of what the conversation is about. You need to 'tune in’

Telephoneconversation

possibility of asking for clarification no visual cluesdistorted speech.

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DIFFICULTIES SPECIFIC TO LEARNERS OF ENGLISH

Difficulties specific to language learners

Strategies learners should try

Text linguistically difficult:eg (i) words in stream of speech hard for learner to recognize(ii) certain, structures unknown to learner (iii) certain words unknown to learner

Referring outside: eg using dictionary, asking for an explanation, repetition, etcHolding doubtful sections of what is heard in suspense and hoping that clarification will come later

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Listener is unfamiliar with how certain types of 'spoken text' are presented and organized in the foreign culture

Mustering all pre-knowledge and expectations before listening starts

Being alert to all the clues in the context or situation

DIFFICULTIES SPECIFIC TO LEARNERS OF ENGLISH

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Extensive and Intensive listening

Extensive listening:

• Listening to something in a relaxed way

• not concentrating on every word

• for sheer pleasure

example:

• The experience of listening to an interesting or amusing radio

programme, which poses no particular problems of language or

difficulty of concepts.

• Stories read aloud by the teacher or heard on tape.

• To hear a short poem or joke,

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• Intensive Listening:• The widely-used form of listening practice in modern

classrooms.• To pick up and remember a series of important

instructions, as in the case of the employee listening to his boss’s orders.

• To listen to a passage with the aim of collecting and organizing the information that it contains.

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• How would you listen to your virtual learning lessons?

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• Language learning depends on listening. Listening provides the aural input that serves as the basis for language acquisition and enables learners to interact in spoken communication.

• Language learners need to learn how they can modify their listening behavior to deal with a variety of situations, types of input, and listening purposes.

• Language learners need to learn which strategy works the best in which context

Listening and Language Learning: How to Improve?

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Top-down Listening Strategies

• We may call these strategies listener based learning strategies• The listener himself or herself explores background knowledge of

the topic• The listener tries to understand the context, the type of text, and the

language. • This leads to a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret

what he or she listens to. • Top-down strategies are: • listening for the main idea • drawing inferences • predicting summarizing

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Bottom-up Listening Strategies

• Bottom-up strategies can also be called text based listening strategies

• The main source of information is the text itself

• The text includes sounds, words, and grammar.

• Bottom-up strategies are:• • listening for specific details • recognizing cognates • recognizing word-order patterns

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Summary of today’s

• What is listening?• Why listening is important?• Difference in hearing and listening• Perspectives on listening• Human aspects of listening• Language aspects of listening• Different listening contexts• Difficulties in listening• Listening strategies

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Thank you very much!