2. The Listening Process
ï§ The listening process can be described as a
series of five steps:
ïș Receiving or hearing
ïș Understanding
ïș Remembering
ïș Interpreting
ïș Evaluating
ïș Responding
3. RECEIVING or HEARING
ï§ This involves the accurate reception of
sounds.
ï§ To hear you must focus attention on the
speaker, discriminate among sounds and
concentrate
4. UNDERSTANDING
ï§ This takes into consideration the thoughts
that are expressed as well as the emotional
tone that accompanies these thoughts.
ï§ It likewise includes establishing links
between what the listener know about the
topic and the new information given by the
speaker.
5. REMEMBERING
ï§ This is retaining messages for at least some
period of time.
ï§ What you remember is actually not what was
said but what you think was said.
6. INTERPRETING
ï§ When you interpret messages you do two
things.
ï§ First, you take into account the total communication
context so that you are better able to understand the
meaning of what is said from the speakerâs point of
view. Your ability to see a situation from the other
personâs perspective, requires that you pay attention
to emotional meaning and to the communication
context.
7. ï§ Second, effective listeners let their partners
know that they have been understood.
8. EVALUATING
ï§ You listen from a unique point of view and are
influenced by your perceptual filters â your
past experience, attitudes, personal values
and predispositions.
ï§ It is therefore impossible not to evaluate to
some extent, everything you hear.
ï§ Effective listeners should deliberately reduce
the influence of their own viewpoint until
they have first understood the speakerâs
ideas.
9. RESPONDING
ï§ This is when you send signals while the
speaker is talking to let him know that he is
understood and responding after the speaker
has stopped talking.
ï§ This stage marks the start of a new cycle
where the listener takes his turn as a speaker.