A. Instructions: Write TRUE if the statement is true about listening strategies, and FALSE if otherwise. __________1. Top-down listening strategy is a listener-based strategy.
__________2. In top-down listening strategy, the listener relies on the language in the message.
__________3. Bottom- up listening strategy is a text-based strategy.
__________4. Bottom-up listening strategy concentrates on forms and structure. __________5. Predicting outcomes is an example of bottom-up listening strategy.
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Why go to Class?
Students don’talways want to go toclass. They mayhave required classes that they find difficult or don’t enjoy, orthey may feel overwhelmed by other commitments or feel tired if they have early morning classes. However, even if instructors allow a certain number of unexcused absences, youshould aim to attend everyclass session. Class attendance enhances class performance in the following ways:
- Class participation: If you don’tattend class, you can’tparticipate in class activities. Class activities are usually part of your final grade, and they can help you apply concepts you learn from lectures and reading assignments.
- Class interaction: If you rely on learning on your own [by doing the reading assignments outside of class, for example], you’ll miss out on classdiscussions with fellow students. Your classmates will often have the same questions as you, so going toclass enablesyou to learn from themand ask your instructor about topics you all find difficult.
- Interaction with the instructor: There is a reason why classes are taught by instructors. Instructors specialize in the subjects they teach, and they can provide extra insight and perspective on the material you’re studying. Going to class gives you the chance to take notes and ask questions about the lectures. Also, the more you participate, the more your instructors will come to know you and be aware of any help or support you might need. This will make you feel more comfortable to approach them outside of class if you need advice or are struggling with the course material.
- Increased learning: Even though you will typically spend more time on coursework outside of the classroom, this makes class sessions even more valuable. Typically, in-class time will be devoted to the most challenging or key concepts covered in your textbooks. It’s important to know what these are so you can master them—also they’re likely to show up on exams.
Let’s compare students with different attitudes toward their classes:
Carla wants to get through college, and she knows she needs the degree to get a decent job, but she’s just not that into it. She’s never thought of herself as a good student, and that hasn’t changed much in college. She has trouble paying attention in those big lecture classes, which mostly seem pretty boring. She’s pretty sure she can pass all her courses, however, as long as she takes the time to study before tests. It doesn’t bother her to skip classes when she’s studying for a test in a different class or finishing a reading assignment she didn’t get around to earlier. She does make it through her freshman year with a passing grade in every class, even those she didn’t go to very often. Then she fails the midterm exam in her first sophomore class. Depressed, she skips the next couple classes, then feels guilty and goes to the next. It’s even harder to stay awake because now she has no idea what they’re talking about. It’s too late to drop the course, and even a hard night of studying before the final isn’t enough to pass the course. In two other classes, she just barely passes. She has no idea what classes to take next term and is starting to think that maybe she’ll drop out for now.
Karen wants to have a good time in college and still do well enough to get a good job in business afterward. Her sorority keeps a file of class notes for her big lecture classes, and from talking to others and reviewing these notes, she’s discovered she can skip almost half of those big classes and still get a B or C on the tests. She stays focused on her grades, and because she has a good memory, she’s able to maintain OK grades. She doesn’t worry about talking to her instructors outside of class because she can always find out what she needs from another student. In her sophomore year, she has a quick conversation with her academic advisor and chooses her major. Those classes are smaller, and she goes to most of them, but she feels she’s pretty much figured out how it works and can usually still get the grade. In her senior year, she starts working on her résumé and asks other students in her major which instructors write the best letters of recommendation. She’s sure her college degree will land her a good job.
Alicia enjoys her classes, even when she has to get up early after working or studying late the night before. She sometimes gets so excited by something she learns in class that she rushes up to the instructor after class to ask a question. In class discussions, she’s not usually the first to speak out, but by the time another student has given an opinion, she’s had time to organize her thoughts and enjoys arguing her ideas. Nearing the end of her sophomore year and unsure of what to major in given her many interests, she talks things over with one of her favorite instructors, whom she has gotten to know through office visits. The instructor gives her some insights into careers in that field and helps her explore her interests. She takes two more courses with this instructor over the next year, and she’s comfortable in her senior year going to him to ask for a job reference. When she does, she’s surprised and thrilled when he urges her to apply for a high-level paid internship with a company in the field—that happens to be run by a friend of his.
Think about the differences in the attitudes of these three students and how they approach their classes. One’s attitude toward learning, toward going to class, and toward the whole college experience is a huge factor in how successful a student will be. Make it your goal to attend every class; don’t even think about not going. Going to class is the first step in engaging in your education by interacting with the instructor and other students. Here are some reasons why it’s important to attend every class:
- Miss a class and you’ll miss something, even if you never know it. Even if a friend gives you notes for the class, they cannot contain everything said or shown by the instructor or written on the board for emphasis or questioned or commented on by other students. What you miss might affect your grade or your enthusiasm for the course. Why go to college at all if you’re not going to go to college?
- While some students may say that you don’t have to go to every class to do well on a test, that is very often a myth. Do you want to take that risk?
- Your final grade often reflects how you think about course concepts, and you will think more often and more clearly when engaged in class discussions and hearing the comments of other students. You can’t get this by borrowing class notes from a friend.
- Research shows there is a correlation between absences from class and lower grades. It may be that missing classes causes lower grades or that students with lower grades miss more classes. Either way, missing classes and lower grades can be intertwined in a downward spiral of achievement.
- Your instructor will note your absences, even in a large class. In addition to making a poor impression, you reduce your opportunities for future interactions. You might not ask a question the next class because of the potential embarrassment of the instructor saying that was covered in the last class, which you apparently missed. Nothing is more insulting to an instructor than when you skip a class and then show up to ask, “Did I miss anything important?”
- You might be tempted to skip a class because the instructor is “boring,” but it’s more likely that you found the class boring because you weren’t very attentive or didn’t appreciate how the instructor was teaching.
- You paid a lot of money for your tuition. Get your money’s worth!
Ten Principles of Effective Listening
There are ten principles behind really good listening.
1. Stop Talking
Don't talk, listen.
If we were supposed to talk more than we listen, we would have two tongues and one ear.
Mark Twain
When somebody else is talking, it is important to listen to what they are saying. Do not interrupt, talk over them or finish their sentences for them. Right now, the most important thing that you can do is simply listen to them. As the saying goes, there is a time and a place for everything—and that includes both listening and speaking.
…a time to keep silence, and a time to speak…
The Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:7
Just listen: hear what they are saying, watch their body language, and think about their meaning.
When the other person has finished talking, you may need to ask them questions, or reflect back what you have heard, to clarify that you have received their message accurately.
There is more about these techniques in our pages on Clarification and Reflecting.
2. Prepare Yourself to Listen
Relax.
Focus on the speaker. Put other things out of your mind. The human mind is easily distracted by other thoughts, such as wondering what’s for lunch, or what time you need to leave to catch your train, or whether it is going to rain later.
When you are listening to someone, try to put other thoughts out of your mind and concentrate on the messages that are being communicated.
Our page on Mindful Listening explains that it is natural for your mind to wander. However, just as you would when meditating, the trick is to catch your mind as it starts to do so, and bring it back to the speaker.
The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention.
Richard Moss
3. Put the Speaker at Ease
Help the speaker to feel free to speak.
It is not always easy for someone to talk freely, especially if they find the topic is difficult, or it causes an emotional reaction. However, as a listener, there are actions you can take to make the speaker feel more confident. For example:
Nod and smile, or use other gestures or words to encourage them to continue;
Maintain eye contact but don’t stare;
Echo back their last few words, in a technique known as mirroring, which is part of reflecting; and
Summarise or paraphrase what they have said, finishing with a question [or a questioning tone] to encourage them to continue.
These techniques are part of active listening, and will show the speaker that you are listening and understanding what is being said. This, in turn, will make them more comfortable about speaking freely.
4. Remove Distractions
Remove as many distractions as possible so you can focus on what is being said.
The human mind is prone to being distracted. It is therefore important to ensure that you don’t give your mind too much opportunity for escape.
When you are listening to someone, it is a good idea to remove possible distractions. Put down your phone, or turn away from your computer screen. It is also a good idea to avoid unnecessary interruptions. For example, at work, you might leave your desks and go to a meeting room, leaving your phones behind.
Avoid behaviours like doodling, shuffling papers, looking out of the window, picking your fingernails or similar.
These kind of behaviours are unhelpful for both you and the speaker. They are likely to distract you from the process of listening, and making your listening less effective. They will also suggest to the speaker that you are not interested, which makes it harder for them to speak.
5. Empathise
Try to understand the other person’s point of view.
When you are listening, it is important to see issues from the speaker’s perspective: to empathise with them. This helps you to understand their point of view, and to understand their concerns.
The best way to do this is to let go of preconceived ideas.
By opening your mind to new ideas and perspectives, you can more fully empathise with the speaker. If the speaker says something that you disagree with, then wait. Keep listening to their views and opinions without comment, until they have finished speaking.
After all, your first impression could be wrong. Their argument could be more nuanced when you listen carefully to it in full.
You should only start to construct an argument to counter what is said, if necessary, once they have finished, and you have fully assimilated their argument.
See our pages: Empathic Listening and What is Empathy? for more.
6. Be Patient
A pause, even a long pause, does not necessarily mean that the speaker has finished.
Sometimes it takes time to formulate what to say and how to say it. Be patient and let the speaker continue in their own time. Never be tempted to interrupt or finish a sentence for someone. This is particularly important if the speaker has a speech impediment such as a stammer.
Stammering
People with a stammer—a hesitation in their speech that means that they tend to repeat the initial sound of a word—may have a sound to which they default when stammering. They may also have developed tactics that enable them to overcome their stammer, such as changing the word they planned to use.
It is therefore important that you do not try to guess what word they want to use from the first letter, or fill in for them—because you are quite likely to be wrong.
Our page on Patience has more information about how to develop the skill to wait when necessary.
7. Avoid Personal Prejudice
Try to be impartial.
Our personal prejudices can lead us to pre-judge someone’s words and meaning based on their habits or mannerisms. This prevents effective listening, because you have effectively already decided whether their words have value.
Don’t become irritated and don't let someone’s habits or mannerisms distract you from what they are really saying.
Everybody has a different way of speaking. For example, some people are more nervous or shy than others, some have regional accents or make excessive arm movements, some people like to pace whilst talking, and others like to sit still. These behaviours can be distracting for listeners.
However, try to focus on what is being said and ignore the style of delivery or the accompanying mannerisms.
Top Tip: Be Aware of Your Distractors
We all find some elements of delivery more distracting than others. For some, it may be a particular regional accent that is so fascinating in its tone that the words or meaning are lost in transmission. For others, arm waving may prove to be too interesting.
Be aware of the aspects of speech that you find particularly distracting.
When you are aware, you can take action to overcome your tendency to be distracted, and focus on the words and meaning again.
8. Listen to the Tone
Volume and tone both add to what someone is saying.
A good speaker will use both volume and tone to help them to keep an audience attentive. Equally, everybody will use pitch, tone and volume of voice in certain situations. Effective listening means using these non-verbal cues to help you to understand the emphasis and nuance of what is being said.
See our page on Effective Speaking for more about how you can interpret and use volume and tone when speaking.
9. Listen for Ideas – Not Just Words
You need to get the whole picture, not just isolated bits and pieces.
Words are the most basic elements of communication, but they do not occur in isolation. You may hear people say something like:
“Well, I understood all the words individually, but not really the overall sense.”
What they mean is that they were unable to grasp the idea behind the words.
Perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of listening is the ability to link together pieces of information to reveal the ideas of others.
However, with proper concentration, letting go of distractions, and improving your focus this becomes easier. It is also helpful to use techniques like clarification and questioning to help you make more sense of ideas.
10. Wait and Watch for Non-Verbal Communication
Gestures, facial expressions, and eye-movements can all be important in understanding someone’s full meaning.
We tend to think of listening as being something that happens with our ears—and hearing is of course important. However, active listening also involves our eyes.
Some experts suggest that up to 80% of communication is non-verbal. That includes hearing the volume and tone—but a substantial element of any communication is body language. This is why it is much harder to gauge meaning over the phone.
When listening, it is vital to watch and pick up the additional information being transmitted via non-verbal communication.
See our pages on Non-verbal Communication for more about this aspect of listening.
Further Reading from Skills You Need
Our Communication Skills eBooks
Learn more about the key communication skills you need to be a more effective communicator.
Our eBooks are ideal for anyone who wants to learn about or develop their interpersonal skills and are full of easy-to-follow, practical information.
In Conclusion
It takes more than hearing to listen effectively.
Following these ten principles should help you to develop better listening skills. This, in turn, will help to improve your interactions and relationships with others.
Types of Ineffective Listening
All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Just like happiness [or happy families], effective listening is fairly easy to describe. Our page on Effective Listening provides a model that is generally applicable to most situations. However, there are many, many different ways to listen ineffectively, and a huge number of barriers that may prevent or hinder listening.
However, we can also identify some particular categories of ineffective listening. John Stoker, an author and communications teachers, has identified seven different types. They are:
1. Evaluative listening
Evaluative listeners spend all their time evaluating what you are saying, and making judgements about it. You can spot an evaluative listener, because they will always respond with either agreement or disagreement [or possibly both, in the form of ‘yes, but…’].
The big problem with these listeners is that they are hearing everything from their own point of view. Everything is passed through a prism of their own experiences and opinions. This means that they often miss critical information simply because it does not fit with their view of the world.
The other problem is that speaker and listener can get into a negative spiral of argument and counter-argument. Instead of building on each other’s communication, they are engaged in knocking it down.
2. Assumptive listening
Assumptive listeners make assumptions about the speaker’s meaning or intention—and usually before the speaker has finished.
They may therefore finish other people’s sentences, or jump in with a response before the speaker has really finished. Engaging with an assumptive listener is hard work, because you constantly have to go back and explain your meaning again because they have interpreted it incorrectly.
3. Self-protective listening
Here, the listener is so wrapped up in their own situation and/or emotional response to it that they simply have no brain-space to hear or concentrate on anything else.
In other words, they are NOT really listening at all, and they are certainly not engaging with what anyone else says. It is a moot point whether this should actually be described as ‘listening’ at all—except that these listeners will often be nodding and smiling, and generally looking like they are engaging with what is being said. However, when they come to respond, it will be obvious that they have not really heard or taken on board anything that is said.
These listeners often simply repeat their negative stories over and over again—and with increasing levels of negative emotion. The only way out is to break the spiral [see box].
A way out
Self-protective listeners may need help to break out of their ‘vicious spiral’. Transactional analysis offers some clues about how to do this, suggesting that they may be in ‘Child’ mode. This makes them turn inward, and want to avoid anything that might be threatening, like other ideas.
To help them, you will have to ‘hook’ their Child with sympathy, then find a way to engage the Adult.
There is more about this in our page on Transactional Analysis.
4. Judgemental listening
Judgemental listeners will constantly criticise what speakers are saying. This type of listening is similar to evaluative listening, but usually with more negativity and less opportunity to respond. These listeners often have preconceived ideas about the speaker [for example, bias or prejudice based on how they look, or their background]. This may prevent them from considering the speaker’s ideas with an open mind.
This type of listening tends to result in the speaker shutting down, and refusing to provide any more information. Being constantly criticised quickly becomes unpleasant.
5. Affirmative listening
Affirmative listening is more or less the polar opposite of judgemental listening. Affirmative listeners only ‘hear’ messages with which they agree. They therefore only listen for points that they can support, and not those that show different opinions.
Having an affirmative listener is at first quite pleasant. They tend to agree with you, which is nice. However, after a while, you realise that they only agree with some points—and possibly not very important ones—but refuse to engage with anything else.
The problem here is that these people only listen for themselves. They want their opinion to be validated—and have no real interest in anyone else. This quickly gets one-sided and tiresome, especially if you are genuinely interested in a debate that explores different perspectives.
6. Defensive listening
A defensive listener takes everything that is said as a personal attack.
These people therefore feel the need to defend themselves against everything, and to justify everything that they say. They often use the phrase ‘Yes, but…’, because they have no interest in building on any other communication—only to justify themselves. They also find it hard to explore other points of view, because anything different is a threat.
7. Authoritative listening
Authoritative listeners listen solely in order to advise. They always know best, and are always ready to tell you what to do.
You can often spot authoritative listeners by the use of the words ‘You should…’ or ‘You need…’ in their sentences.
A Common Thread?
You may have spotted that all these types of ineffective listening are related to the listener’s attitude. They may perceive a problem with the speaker, or simply have a ‘mental block’ about the subject.
Whatever the cause, their pattern of thinking is not conducive to genuine, effective listening.
It is affecting how they relate to other people, and the messages that they hear in other people’s communication. These attitudes may have many causes, such as
Preconceived ideas or bias
These mean that you are not open to other people’s ideas and opinions. Biases may be personal or cultural. For example, in some cultures, ideas are only considered acceptable from those in senior positions [and you may be interested in our page on Intercultural Awareness for more examples like this]. You may not trust the speaker on a personal level, and therefore find it hard to be open to their ideas on an intellectual level.
Previous experiences
These may affect your expectations about people and/or topics or situations. We are all influenced by previous experiences in life. We respond to people based on personal appearance, how initial introductions or welcomes were received and/or previous interpersonal encounters. This may affect how you approach an individual. You may also find that someone says something that reminds you of a previous experience, and you start to think about that instead of listening. The key here is to consider whether your previous experience is going to be helpful—and if not, set it aside.
Having a closed mind.
We all have ideals and values that we believe to be correct. It can therefore be difficult to listen to contradictory views. However, the key to effective listening and interpersonal skills more generally is the ability to open your mind, and take time to understand why others think about things differently to you—and then use this information to gain a better understanding of the speaker.
What’s So Important About Communication Skills?
The advent of the internet caused some observers to mourn the imminent death of personal written correspondence, but the reality couldn’t be further from the prediction. Communication with others through texts, social media, and email is increasingly important. With that, more messages means more potential for misunderstandings. Just think of the amplifying effect of social media. Something you used to say to only a few people can now be declared to thousands or millions with a few clicks. Technology has knit together the world in ways we wouldn’t have imagined just a few decades ago, but this interconnectivity also requires proficient language skills.
In this article, we talk about why communication skills in English are so important; we’ll also give you tips for meeting today’s communication demands, whether English is your first language or whether you are learning it as an additional language skill.
You’ll also learn about how National University can help you improve your English skills in our ESOL [English speakers of other languages] programs or with our offerings for English and communication majors.