Nature of

Listening

Definition of Listening

What is listening?

LESSON

1

Listening− defined as a process or an activity of paying

attention to what one hears and trying to understand or to get the meaning conveyed

or implied by the speaker.

Just like the other macro-communication skills (speaking, listening, reading, writing), listening can be required, learned, and practiced.

When we listen effectively, we really pay attention and think about what we hear, what we understand,

and what we remember.

We are successful in listening when we are able to comprehend what speakers mean when they use certain words in certain ways on certain

occasions.

According to experts, listening entails comprehending a

“speaker’s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning”.

−Howatt and Daking 1974 as cited by Yagang 1994

2.Guess

3.Use

There are specific listening skills called “enabling skills” that one needs to develop. Yagang cited Willis’ list of these micro-skills:

1.Predict

5.Retain

6.Recognize

4.Identify

8.Understand

9.Understand

7.Recognize

─ Predicting what people are going to talk about.

─ Identifying relevant points; rejecting irrelevant information.

─ Recognizing cohesive devices, e.g. including link words, pronouns, references, etc.

─ Understanding different intonation patterns and uses of stress.

─ Retaining relevant points (note-taking, summarizing).

─ Guessing at unknown words or phrases without panicking.

─ Using one’s own knowledge of the subject to help one understand.

─ Recognizing discourse markers e.g., Well; Oh, another thing is; Now, finally; etc.

─ Understanding inferred information, e.g., speakers’ attitudes or intentions.

The process of ListeningHow is listening processed?

LESSON

2

Listening according to experts is a dynamic, transactional, an active and complex process rather than stagnant, linear, passive and an easy one.

The process of listening can be illustrated as a series of stages:

Hearing

Identifying and

Recognizing

Auding

Brooks, 1993 as cited by Bulan and De Leon, 2002.

The listening Process[ Brooks Listening Model ]

HEARING IDENTIFYING AND RECOGNIZING AUDINGSPEECH SOUND

MEANING

Auditory Acuity

Masking

Auditory Fatigue

Mental Recognition

Association

Identification of

Words

Association Indexing

Noting Sequence

Forming Sensory Impressions

Appreciating

Brooks Listening

Model

HEARINGSPEECH SOUND

Auditory Acuity

Masking

Auditory Fatigue

Stage 1: Hearing

Hearing ─ this process happens when the ear receives the sound waves. The hearing of sound is affected by three important factors such as auditory acuity, masking and auditory fatigue.

Auditory acuity ─ The ears’ capacity to respond to various frequencies or tones at various levels of loudness of intensities.

Masking ─ This is evident when two competing sounds are present, for instance, the message that you intended to receive and the background noise fall within the same frequency.

Auditory Fatigue ─ The effect of continuous and prolonged exposure to sounds of certain frequencies such as dull, monotonous voice of a speaker, and exposure to noise sources. All of these may have damaging effect like hearing loss to a listener. An earplug is advised when the ears are exposed to such noise to prevent hearing loss.

IDENTIFYING AND RECOGNIZING

Mental Recognition

Association

Identification of

Words

Association

Identifying & Recognizing ─ this is the net stage in the listening process. At this point, “patterns and relationship” are identified and recognized. The quality of auditory analysis, mental reorganization, and association may affect this stage

Auditory analysis ─ The listener compares the sounds that are heard with the ones that are known to him/her in terms of their likeness and differences.

Stage 2: Mental reorganization ─ this is done by the listener when he/she uses a “system” in order to remember and structure the incoming sounds such as recoding and regrouping the sounds, syllabifying the word, and group number in batches.

Association ─ when making association, the listener is linking the sounds with his/her field of “experiences, memories, and backgrounds.”

Identifying & Recognizing

AUDINGMEANING

Auding ─ at this final stage of listening, the listener assigns meaning to the sounds using his “experimental background” and some thinking skills listed below, “assimilates the words and responds to them with understanding and feeling.”

Indexing ─ The thinking skill is arranging the material according to importance through searching of main ideas down to its subordinating ideas. This is also identifying the relevant from the irrelevant ideas. Furthermore, the listener arranges the parts of the message to come up with the whole idea.

Note sequencing ─ This time, the listener arranges the material in terms of time, space, position or some other relationship. This may not only help in assigning the meaning but also in recalling the details.

Forming Sensory Impression ─ The skills of using different senses to form “sensory images” or “visual impression” for added dimension to the meaning of the verbal message.

Appreciating ─ Finally, when auding, the listener must appreciate or respond to the “aesthetic nature of the message” especially when the material needs an “emotional response.”

Indexing

Noting Sequence

Forming Sensory Impressions

Appreciating

Stage 3: Auding

Why, When, and How

What is the purpose of listening?

LESSON

3

People listen for multitude of reason and their reasons differ depending on the communicative situation they are into.

How one listens depends and is anchored on the speech event he/she is into and on his/her purpose is listening.

Here are some major reasons why people listen.

To be involve in

many social events

or occasions

It is a fact that man is a social being; thus he/she needs to interact, deal, and relate with

the people around him/her and engage in many different communicative events.

To get information

A person listens for information because he/she wants to get, learn, increase his/her ideas or knowledge about a thing, a person,

an event or a phenomena.

To respond to “controls” and

feelings

“Controls”, in this sense, refer to directions and instructions given by a person in school,

in the workplace, and elsewhere. We listen so that we could follow these directions and

instructions accurately. Thus would involve attentive listening in order to take notes of

the instruction and execute them as directed. In addition, we listen because we need to understand what a person feels and we do this with empathy. We empathize to others

mean to feel what they feel.

To enjoy and be entertained People wants to share good laugh with others

and exchange pleasure as in the case of cracking jokes or listening to music or

watching a movie.

Types of Listening

Which type of listener are you?

LESSON

4

The varied reasons that are mentioned above would bring us to several types of listening which can be determined by how one pays attention to what was said.

Experts classify listening into the following:

a. Passive listening

b. Active or attentive listening

c. Critical or analytical listening

d. Appreciative listening

Types of Listening

Passive listening – This is the same as hearing or just the process of receiving the sounds though the sound waves. In this type of listening, a listener simply hears the sounds but it does not do something about it. After he receives it, he/she wanders around the sound and does not pay attention to it.

Appreciative listening – The listener in this type of listening is simply deriving entertainment or pleasure from what he/she hears. The enjoyment may be derived from the tune, tempo or rhythm of the song he/she heras, or from the humor of the joke cracks by someone.

Active or attentive listening – this happens when a listener hears the sound, tries to understand it, remembers it, and most importantly acts on it intelligently. Active listening is called for when one has to listen to directions, instructions, informative talk such as lectures or oral reports.

Critical or analytical listening – When one has to decide whether to accept or reject what one has told. . This type of listening is very evident when viewing advertisements, listening to persuasive or political speeches and debates, and in doing problem solving situations.

Barriers to Effective Listening

What are the hindrances to effective listening?

LESSON

5

There are many hindrances to effective listening.

According to Bulan and De Leon (2003), these distortions are present in transmitting messages because

“listeners are influenced by their habits, attitudes and expectations which they bring to that listening event.”

Hence, they suggest that listener should pay attention to these hindrances and must do something about them.

The following summarizes these obstacles identified by Bulan and De Leon along with their suggestions on how to overcome them.

Barrier SuggestionSeek ways to make the subject matter interesting and useful to you.Hastily branding the subject as uninteresting or irrelevant.

Focusing attention on appearance or delivery.

Avoiding difficult and unpleasant material.

Getting over stimulated by what the speaker says.

Listening primarily for facts.

Trying to outline everything that the speaker says.

Faking attention.

Creating or yielding easily to distractions.

Engaging in “private planning”

Wasting the advantages of thought speed.

Judge the content, not the delivery.

Practice listening in a wide variety of situations.

Keep your emotions in check.

Focus on ideas.

Choose appropriate note-taking method and keep your notes brief and clear.

Don’t pretend to listen.

Fight or resist distraction.

Set aside unrelated personal problems or concerns.

Capitalize on the advantages of thought speed.

Guides to Effective Listening

At this point, turn you attention to some guideline that would make you achieve effective listening.

LESSON

6

The following solutions do not list or exhaust all the possible solutions; however, they could give you some ideas for

evaluating your own listening behaviours. The first six were suggested by Buerkel-Rothfuss (1985): whereas the last ones

by Bulan and De Leon (2002)

1. Listen actively.

2. Avoid hastly conclusions.

3. Use thinking time.

4. Listen for more than facts.

5. Listen rationally, not emotionally.

6. Focus on more than just the speaker.

7. Listen with empathy.

8. Listen for total meaning.

9. Listen with an open mind.

10. Give effective feedback.

11. Listen critically.

Buerkel-Rothfuss (1985): Bulan & De Leon (2002)

““Listen for GOD’s voice in everything

you do and everywhere you go, He’s the one that will keep you on track”

Proverbs 3:6

REFERENCES:

◎ Purposes of listening. (n.d.). Retrieved June 27, 2016, from http://www.slideshare.net/HafsaQureshi1/purposes-of-listening

◎ Models of Listening. (n.d.). Retrieved June 27, 2016, from http://www.slideshare.net/TwoistingTomatoFries/models-of-listening-49274876

◎ Mercado, A. D. & Yosa, M. (2011). Workbook in English 3: Speech Communication.