Listening – An Art

 

Listening –  An Art

Good speaking is a big quality but good listening is the bigger one. A good speaker must be a good listener otherwise he cannot speak effectively. Listening gives us wisdom, knowledge, and experience in an indirect way. It takes place in a daily routine in homes, in classrooms, in offices, in schools, and in different social groups. At a time, one speaks and many others listen. So, listening takes place more often. 

Good listening is listening carefully, when one is speaking try to forget about what you were going to say next. In this way, you can better understand whatever the speaker wants to say. We can be a good listeners by keeping in view these factors:

Make Eye Contact

Looking directly at the person who’s speaking is a clear way to indicate you’re paying attention to him or her. Looking away, even if you’re still listening, will make it seem like you’re distracted or not interested. It will disturb the speaker.

Make Appropriate Facial Expressions.

Nodding, tilting your head, smiling – all of these expressions show a response to what the speaker is saying, which indicates that you’re grasping the meaning, understanding what the speaker is trying to say, and are interested in what he or she’s saying.

Ask Questions.

Critical listening involves asking questions to get all the information. When you ask the speaker a question, it also drives the conversation and shows that you’re interested in clarification and understanding the issues. It is a very effective strategy. 

Don’t Interrupt.

Although it’s good to ask questions, try not to interrupt the speaker. Let the person complete his or her thoughts before responding or asking questions. In this way, we can give comfort feeling to the speaker.

Paraphrase.

When you restate, in your own words, what the speaker is saying, you prove that you’re listening carefully – after all, you wouldn’t be able to repeat anything if you weren’t paying attention.

Listening Can Be Of Different Types Like:

Careful listening:

The steps discussed above are of careful listening. These are very important and basic. Without these, we cannot listen to others in an effective way. 

Sympathetic Listening:

A good listener must not only be careful. It is possible that we listen to someone very carefully and try our best to fulfill the demands of it, but it cannot help out the speaker. So, to listen with care and with sympathy is a must. In this way, we can respond to the speaker in a better way. We can give him some suggestions to handle certain situations. Different options can help the speaker in some possible ways. This kind of attitude will work in an effective way to relax the speaker.

Empathetic Listening:

Empathy means the quality of the listener to try to feel by placing him/herself into the speaker’s shoes or situation. This quality is too effective for a listener and beneficial for the speaker. It is observed when the speaker tells his/her problem and the listener listens and might listen carefully but could not understand the problem fully and tries to give any suggestion or advice which is not relevant. This kind of response can irritate the speaker. If a listener tries to listen empathically, tries to fully understand the situation then suggests some remedy, it will work better. It is important to place him/herself in the place of the speaker and try to understand his/her feelings.

Listeners may also have the quality to respond to different types of talk in a relative way. If it is a usual and casual one, then he can listen in a light and casual way without responding seriously. In that case, if you try to respond very sympathetically or empathically, it can hurt the speaker. The above-suggested qualities can help in certain situations. A good listener can decide according to the demand of the situation very intelligently that how must he/she respond. In this way, we can perform an effective role in our society and surroundings.