This document discusses listening skills and effective communication. It outlines the importance of listening as part of the communication process. There are different types of listening including discriminative, comprehensive, informational, critical, and empathetic listening. The steps of effective listening include focusing attention, actively understanding through questions and paraphrasing, remembering key points, and critically evaluating. Barriers to listening such as physical, psychological, technical, and social noise can interfere with effective communication. Good listeners are fully present, don't listen to respond, don't interrupt, and ask follow up questions.

1. LISTENING
SKILLS.
KINGS. F. KONDOWE

2. OUTLINE.
• Communication.
• Listening.
• Benefits of listening skills.
• Listening and hearing.
• Importance of listening.
• General types of listening.
• Specific types of listening.
• Steps of effective listening.
• Responding appropriately.
• Characteristics of good listeners.
• Barriers to effective listening.

3. COMMUNICATION
• Listening is part of communication because much of the
daily communication is conducted through speaking and
listening.
• Communication refers to the process of transferring
information from one entity (a sender) to another (a
receiver).
• It involves not only the spoken and written word but also
body language, personal mannerisms and style – anything
that adds meaning to a message.
• Communication is a two-way street.

4. TYPES OF COMMUNICATION
• There are 4 main types of communication, these are:
• Verbal: Communicating by way of spoken words.
• Nonverbal: Communicating by way of body language,
facial expressions and vocalics.
• Written: Communicating by way of written language,
symbols and numbers.
• Visual: Communicating by way of photography, art,
drawings, sketches, charts and graphs.

5. ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION
• In order to understand the communication process, we need
to break it down into elements:
1. Sender: The person who intends to convey the message to
others.
2. Message: This is the subject matter of the communication.
This may be an opinion, attitude, ideas, feelings,
suggestions etc.
3. Encoding: Since the subject matter is intangible, its further
passing requires use of certain symbols such as words,
actions or pictures. Conversion of message into these
symbols is encoding.
4. Receiver: Is the person who receives the message.
5. Channel: The route travelled by a message, the means it

6. ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION
1. Decoding: The receiver of message or symbols tries to
convert the same in such a way so that he may extract its
meaning to complete understanding.
2. Feedback: The response of the receiver-sender to each
other. Ensuring that the receiver has received the
message and understood it the same sense as sender
meant it.
3. Noise: The interference that keeps a message from being
understood or accurately interpreted.
4. Setting: The environment in which the communication
occurs.

8. LISTENING
• Listening is an important skill of language because much of
the daily communication is conducted through speaking and
listening.
• Listening refers to the ability to accurately receive and
interpret messages in the communication process.
• Listening is key to all effective communication. Without the
ability to listen effectively, messages are easily
misunderstood hence communication breakdown and the
sender of the message can easily become frustrated or
irritated.

9. BENEFITS OF GOOD LISTENING
SKILLS
• A great number of friends and social networks.
• Avoid conflicts.
• Higher grades at school and in academic work.
• Better health.

10. LISTENING AND HEARING
• Hearing (passive) refers to the sounds that enter your ears.
It happens automatically, provided you don’t have any
hearing problems.
• Listening (active), however, requires more than just that; it
requires focus and concentrated effort, both mental and
sometimes physical as well.
• Listening means paying attention not only to the story being
told, but how it is told, the use of language and voice and
how the other person uses his or her body. In other words, it
means being aware of both verbal and non verbal
messages.

11. IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING
• Listening serves a number of possible purposes, and will
depend on the situation and the nature of the
communication.
1. Helps to specifically focus on the messages being
communicated, avoiding distractions and preconceptions.
2. Helps one to gain a full and accurate understanding into
the speakers point of view and ideas.
3. Helps one to critically assess what is being said.
4. Helps to show interest, concern and concentration.
5. Helps one observe the non-verbal signals.

12. GENERAL TYPES OF LISTENING
• The two main types of listening are;
1. Discriminative Listening.
2. Comprehensive Listening.

13. GENERAL TYPES OF LISTENING…
1. Discriminative listening
• It is first developed at a very early age.
• Is the most basic type of listening and doesn’t involve the
understanding of the meaning of words or phrases but
merely the different sounds that are produced.
• It develops through childhood and into adulthood. As we
grow older and develop and gain more life experience, our
ability to distinguish between different sounds is improved.
Not only can we recognize different voices but also develop
the ability to recognize subtle differences in the way that
sounds are made.

14. GENERAL TYPES OF LISTENING…
1. Discriminative listening
• This is fundamental to the understanding of what these
sounds mean.
• Being able to distinguish the subtleness of sound made by
somebody who is happy or sad, angry or stressed, for
instance, ultimately adds value to what is actually being said
and aids in comprehension.
• When discriminative listening skills are combined with visual
stimuli, the resulting ability to listen to body language
enables us to begin to understand the speaker more fully.
For example recognizing somebody is sad despite what
they are saying or how they are saying it.

15. GENERAL TYPES OF LISTENING…
2. Comprehensive listening
• Comprehensive listening involves understanding the
message or messages that are being communicated.
• In order to be able to use comprehensive listening and
therefore gain understanding the listener first needs
appropriate vocabulary and language skills.
• Using overly complicated language or technical jargon,
therefore, can be a barrier to comprehensive listening.
• It is complimented by non verbal cues such as tone of voice,
gestures and other body language.

16. SPECIFIC TYPES OF LISTENING
• The 3 main types of listening most common in interpersonal
communication are outlined below. These types are
defined by the goal of the listening.
1. Informational Listening.
2. Critical Listening.
3. Therapeutic or Empathetic Listening.

17. SPECIFIC TYPES OF LISTENING…
1. Informational listening
• Whenever you listen to learn something, you are engaged
in informational listening. This is true in many day to day
situations, eg listening to news.
• Although all types of listening are active, informational
listening is less active.
• When we are listening to learn or be instructed we are
taking in new information and facts, we are not criticizing or
analyzing.
• Informational listening, especially in formal settings like in
work meetings, is often accompanied by note taking.

18. SPECIFIC TYPES OF LISTENING…
2. Critical listening
• The goal is to evaluate or scrutinize what is being said.
• It is more active than informational listening and usually
involves some sort of problem solving or decision making.
• Whereas informational listening may be mostly concerned
with receiving facts and/ or new information, critical listening
is about analyzing opinion and making judgments.
• It means engaging in what you are listening to by asking
yourself questions such as, what is the speaker trying to
say? Or what is the main argument being presented?, how
does what am hearing differ from my beliefs, knowledge or
opinion?

19. SPECIFIC TYPES OF LISTENING…
2. Critical listening
• Many day to day decisions that we make are based on
some form of critical listening. Our opinions, values and
beliefs are based on our ability to process information and
formulate our own feelings about the world around us as
well as weigh up the pros and cons to make informed
decisions.
• It is often important, when listening critically, to have an
open-mind and not be biased by stereotypes or
preconceived ideas. You will become a better listener and
broaden your knowledge.

20. SPECIFIC TYPES OF LISTENING…
3. Therapeutic or Empathetic Listening.
• Empathic listening involves attempting to understand the
feelings and emotions of the speaker- to put yourself into
the speaker’s shoes and share their thoughts.
• Empathy is a way of deeply connecting with another person
and therapeutic or empathic listening can be particularly
challenging- it involves a deeper connection- a realization
and understanding of another person’s point of view.

21. SPECIFIC TYPES OF LISTENING…
3. Therapeutic or empathetic listening.
• Counsellors and therapists use therapeutic or empathetic
listening to understand and help their clients.
• This type of listening doesn’t involve making judgements
or offering advice but gently encouraging the speaker to
explain and elaborate their feelings and emotions.
• Showing empathy is desirable in many interpersonal
relationships- one may feel comfortable talking about their
feelings and emotions to you.

22. STEPS OF EFFECTIVE LISTENING
1. Attending- Focusing Attention.
• This is perceptual process of selecting specific stimuli from
the countless stimuli reaching our senses. The following
are the five techniques for deliberately focusing attention:
1. Try to eliminate physical impediments to listening, such as
turning down radio, understand your physical limitations
such as hearing impairment
2. Get physically and mentally ready to listen- poor listening
is as a result of lack of preparation to listen.
3. Make the shift from speaker to listener a complete one.
For example, in class it is easy to be a listener but in
conversation is not.

23. STEPS OF EFFECTIVE
LISTENING…
1. Attending- Focusing Attention.
1. Hear a person out before you react – do no stop listening
before a person has finished speaking i.e. gay rights.
2. Adjust to listening goals of the situation- is the listening for
pleasure or not- determine listening intensity.

24. STEPS OF EFFECTIVE
LISTENING…
2. Understanding – Listening Actively.
• Refers to the ability to decode a message by correctly
assigning a meaning to it.
• Failure to understand is a result of words in our vocabulary,
ie using French or Chinese.
• Understanding requires active listening, specific techniques
to ensure understanding
• Active listening includes:
a. Determining organization of the message, such as
purpose, goal, key ideas and details or supporting words.

25. STEPS OF EFFECTIVE
LISTENING…
2. Understanding – Listening Actively.
a. Attend to non-verbal cues- 65% of meaning of social
message may be carried non-verbally. Consider issues
like tone, facial expressions etc.
b. Ask questions- which help obtain the information needed
to understand – many of us are unwilling to ask
questions. Is it not foolish not to ask questions?
c. Silently paraphrase. A paraphrase is a statement in your
own words of your understanding of what someone else
said. Paraphrase can be done silently or aloud.

26. STEPS OF EFFECTIVE
LISTENING…
3. Remembering- Retaining Information.
• Remembering means retaining information in memory.
Techniques to remembering include rehearsals, constructing
mnemonics and note taking.
a. Rehearsal- act of mentally repeating material immediately on
receiving it. It ensures likelihood to remember information later.
b. Constructing Mnemonics: A mnemonic device is any artificial
technique used as a memory aid. One of the most common
ways of forming a mnemonic is to take the first letters of a list
of items you are trying to remember. For example BODMAS.
(Brackets, Of, Division, Multiplication, Addition & Subtraction).
c. Note taking: It is a powerful tool for increasing our recall of
information in a class setting. Note taking provides us with
written records that we can go back to; note taking makes you
active listener.

27. STEPS OF EFFECTIVE
LISTENING…
4. Evaluating- Listening Critically.
• Evaluating and critical listening consists of critically
analyzing the message we have understood in order to
determine how truthful, authentic or believable we judge it to
be ie persuasion to vote.
• Critical listening includes: separating facts from inferences
(conclusions) and evaluating the inferences that have been
made.
a). Separating facts from inferences.
• Facts are items of information, the accuracy of which can be
verified or proven, often by direct observation. By contrast,
inferences are conclusions or generalizations based on what
has been observed ie saw a TV repairer is a fact, TV

28. STEPS OF EFFECTIVE
LISTENING…
4. Evaluating- Listening Critically.
b). Evaluating inferences
• Critical listeners recognize and evaluate inferences. Three
questions when evaluating any inference:
1. Is there any factual information to support the inference?
2. Is the factual support relevant to the inference?
3. Is there known information that would prevent the
inference from logically following the factual statements?

29. RESPONDING APPROPRIATELY.
• This requires a degree of empathy with the speaker.
• Empathy relates to detecting and identifying another person’s
emotional state and responding appropriately. This is a shift
from receiver to sender.
• Ask open questions: To encourage speaker to speak more.
• Accurate reflecting (imitating): To reassure speaker that you
are listening.
• Use speaker’s key words: Shows you are listening.
• Remaining silent: Gives speaker time to process thoughts and
feelings.
• Avoid asking multiple questions: Confuses the speaker.

30. CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD
LISTENERS.
1. They are fully present.
• Being present means you are engaged in the current
moment. Instead of harboring on the past or anticipating
what they will say next, you are processing information as
its told to you. You avoid distractions.
2. They don’t listen to respond.
• Good listeners don’t focus on what they are going to
contribute to the conversation next. Instead, they listen to
process and understand.

31. CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD
LISTENERS…
3. They never interrupt.
• Its frustrating to speak and constantly get interrupted. You
might lose your argument or train of thought or even get
your whole point derailed and forgotten. Good listeners
understand this and simply listen until the speaker is
finished.
4. They ask follow-up questions.
• They ask relevant questions or try to get more details. If its
an emotional conversation, they provide support and ask
the speaker about their needs.

32. BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE
LISTENING.
• Listening is an important skill of language because much of
the daily communication is conducted through speaking and
listening. The problem, however, is that many people are not
able to listen effectively or for a long time due to loss of
concentration.
• This results into important information not being efficiently
transmitted between the source and the receiver, leading to
loss and frustration.

33. BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE
LISTENING…
• Two main causes of loss of concentration (Barriers to
effective listening) are;
1. Noise.
2. The difference between the speaking and listening speed.

34. BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE
LISTENING…
A. Noise.
• The term noise refers to anything that bars or reduces the
effective transmission of oral information.
• Some of these factors are beyond listeners control while
others are not.
• Noise is grouped into four categories:
a) Physical (generated from outside the listener)
b) Psychological (generated from within, mentally)
c) Technical (generated from the message itself)
d) Social-Cultural (generated from the attitudes, beliefs and
values in the society).

35. BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE
LISTENING…
1. Physical Noise.
• This is the distraction from the physical location.
a) Actual noise: This is the noise from the speaker
(sometimes) or other than the speaker’s, eg. listeners
talking, outside noise.
• Move to a different seat or closer to the speaker.
• Politely request the speaker to adjust his/her voice.
a) Channel: Message is carried in different channels and if
the listener cannot see the speaker or hear adequately,
effective listening cannot take place.
• Find a place where there is no network interruption.
• Sit where you can see the speaker.

36. BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE
LISTENING…
2. Psychological Noise
• This is anything that interferes with our mental attention.
a) Receiver: Distraction of this kind could be day dreaming about
something, hunger, being worried about something or negative attitude
towards the speaker.
• Self-talk can be used to force yourself back to attention. ‘Stop! Pay
attention now!’
b) Judgemental: This is the tendency to evaluate / judge immediately about
what the speaker is saying. As you become busy judging the speaker, the
mind automatically becomes not attentive.
• Avoid looking down upon the speaker.
• Develop a positive attitude by convincing yourself that the speaker will do a

37. BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE
LISTENING…
3. Technical Noise
• This is when the problem is coming from the message itself.
a) Source: a problem can come from the sender of the message. If
he uses a term that is unusual or unknown to the listener, a barrier
is created.
• Ask for clarity or nod for dissatisfaction.
b) Information overloaded: This is when listeners put too much
sensory
input to the massage.
• The best thing you can do to improve your memory is to pay
attention to the things you want to remember.
c) Inability to find main idea: Sometimes finding the main (important)
ideas is hard to do, especially when you are listening.
• Every lecture has a plan (Course outline) which indicates the

38. BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE
LISTENING…
4. Social / Cultural Noise
a) Egocentrism: Self perceptions and personal biases also
leads to noise. If we limit ourselves only to what we like we
will never learn to appreciate new experiences and we will
also not do well in college, nor will we be good citizens.
b) Ethnocentrism: Is another aspect of social noise where
just like egocentrism, we limit ourselves to the interests of our
ethnic or cultural group.
• Develop a positive attitude by convincing yourself that the
speaker will do a better job today.

39. BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE
LISTENING…
4. Social / Cultural Noise
c) Dogmatism, opinions we hold without questioning, is yet
another barrier (personal bias). Listening requires that we
understand and question our own opinions. Without knowing
our own positions we cannot compare and understand them
with other speaker’s opinions.
• This doesn’t allow us to be defensive either. It is a mere
negative reaction to another speaker’s ideas
• ‘A wise person hears once’ so when you ask for clarity then
you are a dull fellow; these attitudes are noise.
• Change your attitudes.

40. BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE
LISTENING…
B. Difference between the speaking and listening speed.
• Naturally people listen much faster than they talk; that is to
say, there is a big difference between the listening rate and the
speaking rate.
• It is known that a person can listen to 400 words a minute.
While this is so, the normal speaking speed is only 125 words
a minute.
• Few people speaking at supersonic speed go beyond the limit
of 150 words a minute. What all this means is that while
listening there will be many gaps when there is nothing to
listen to.
• Obviously, it is during such gaps that the listener loses
concentration as the mind starts to wander. It is often due to

41. BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE
LISTENING…
B. Difference between the speaking and listening speed.
• So, what can be done to solve this problem? The answer
lies in the principle of filling in the gaps created by the
disparity of listening and speaking speeds with activities.
• The useful activities are those that utilize the extra moments
to enhance listening. These activities include;
1. Maintaining eye contact and nodding.
2. Taking notes. Facilitates concentration. This involves
picking out salient points and jotting them down in short
but comprehensible form.

42. THE END