Lesson-2

Listening
By Ms. Jahan Ara
Listening
 According to Cambridge dictionary: Listening is to give attention to someone or
something in order to hear him, her, or it.
 Listening is the active process of receiving and responding to spoken (and sometimes
unspoken) messages.
 Listening is 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.
 If there is one communication skill you should aim to master, then listening is it.
 In reality, listening is used far more than any other single language skill in normal daily
life.
 On average, we expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we
read, and five times more than we write (Rivers, 1981).
Listening Modes
 If we consider the roles we play in our listening interactions, we can
identify three specific communicative listening modes:
1. Bidirectional
 The obvious mode is two-way or bidirectional communication listening.
 Reciprocal speech chain of speaker/listener is easily observed.
 Two participants take turns exchanging speaker and listener role as they
engage in face-to-face or telephone verbal interaction.
2. Unidirectional
 The second mode is one-way or unidirectional communicative listening.
 The auditory input surrounds us as we move through the day.
 The input comes from a variety of sources: overheard conversations, public
announcements, recorded messages, instructional situations of all kinds, and
public performances.
 As we hear speakers but are unable to interact, we often talk to ourselves in a
reactive or self-dialogue manner as we analyze what we hear.
3. Auto Directional
 We think of this as self-dialogue communication in which we may not be
aware of our internal roles as both speaker and listener/reactor in our own
thought processes.
 Sometimes we recreate language internally and “listen again” as we retell and
relive communicative interludes.
 Sometimes we simply attend to our own internal language which we produce
as we think through alternatives, plan strategies, and make decisions - all by
talking to ourselves and listening to ourselves.
 Listening Process/Stages in Communication
Generally, five stages are involved in the listening process:
 1. Receiving The response caused by sound waves stimulating the sensory
receptors of the ear - receiving the words while we hear.
 2. Understanding Learning what the speaker means – the thoughts and
emotions.
 3. Remembering Adding the message to mind’s storage box - as our
attention is selective, what is remembered may be different from what was
originally heard.
 4. Evaluating Judging the message in some way – speaker’s intentions or
motives - even without conscious awareness.
 5. Responding Verbal and/or nonverbal feedback determines if a message
has been received and it also tells about the degree of success in
communication.
 Types of listening
1. Active listening
 It is more than 'hearing' someone's words –
 It involves the goal of understanding the views and feelings of the person speaking.
 Active listening is the act of fully hearing and comprehending the meaning of what
someone else is saying.
 Avoid getting distracted by your own thoughts. Instead, focus on the speaker and topic.
 Try not to interrupt the other person. let them finish and then respond.
 Use door openers these are phrases that show you're interested and keep the other person
talking. E.g. Tell me more, Go ahead. I’m listening, That sounds interested
 Show that you're listening with body language.
 If appropriate take notes during important conversations paraphrase what others have said
to make sure you're both on the same page.
 Active listening techniques such as: paraphrasing, summarizing, questioning, and
clarifying.
 2. Content listening
 Content listening, also known as comprehensive listening, informative listening or full
listening, is where the listener's primary concern is to understand and retain the speaker's
message.
 Informational listening is listening with the goal of learning, understanding, and grasping
information.
 Informational listening is considered a passive form of listening because the listener is not
judging, critiquing, or evaluating the message. They're just listening to understand it.
 For example, let's say Lane from the opening scenario is listening to a lesson about
evolution in her biology class. In order to successfully engage in informational listening,
Lane must keep her Catholic religious beliefs at bay in order to abstain from judgment and
critique of the message the teacher is trying to convey.
 Most of us participate in informational listening on a day-to-day basis. If we're lost, we
may stop for directions and will need to listen to the gas station attendant carefully. If we
get a new job, we need to listen to the information our boss gives us in order to grasp our
new responsibilities and roles.
 3. Critical listening
 When we attend a speaking event, we are usually there to hear the speaker's message. This
can be a lecture delivered by your favorite professor or a motivational speech by a famous
public speaker. In any event, we listen intently and try to absorb as much of what is being said
as possible.
 It is a process for understanding what is said and evaluating, judging, and forming an
opinion on what you hear.
 The listener assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the content, agrees or disagrees with the
information, and analyzes and synthesizes material.
 You can analyze the speaking situation, or the context in which the message is being sent.
 For example: If someone is telling us about how we can get rich quick, from buying and
selling real estate to selling stuff on the Internet. There are a million ways to make a million
dollars. However, if you listen to the message carefully, there is generally a catch. It may be
to purchase a set of CDs or to join a club. At that point, it becomes obvious that the speech is
less about you becoming a millionaire and more about the speaker selling his get-rich-quick
methods. That is the situation. And after analyzing the situation, you may decide not to quit
your day job.
4. Selective listening
 Selective listening is a type of listening that allows you to hear what you
want to hear.
 Selective listening allows an individual to focus on just the important
information, while ignoring the non-pertinent information.
 In reality, it isn’t possible to hear everything every time.
 However, not paying attention to important details may lead to
miscommunication.
 For example, when you visit a foreign country, you can find yourself
surrounded by people who speak a language you don’t understand. Your
selective listening will then kick in. You’ll instinctively tune out a lot of
the noises around you because you can’t understand them.
Problems in Listening
According to Goh (1999) the most common problems faced by
students in listening in the order of frequency are
quickly forgetting what is heard ,
 not recognizing the words they know,
understanding the message but not the intended message,
neglecting next part while thinking about meaning,
unabling to form a mental representation from words heard.
Problems in listening emphasized by Field (2003) are those:
Learners know the word, but get the wrong sense.
Problems in Listening
 Phonetic variation of a word mislead them.
 Learners know the word in written form but not the oral version.
 Learners have difficulty to catch the word from a connected speech such as a
dialogue.
Underwood (1989) organizes the major problems as follows:
 lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak ,
 not being able to get things repeated,
 the listener’s limited vocabulary,
 failure to recognize the “signals,”
 problems of interpretation,
 inability to concentrate,
 established learning habits.
Coping strategies
 The techniques that people use to handle problems are called coping
strategies.
 The learners implemented nine categories of strategy, which emerged
from four main themes.
 The primary themes were:
 1) cognitive strategy, which included positive thinking, note-taking, and
inferring to guess the meaning;
 2) metacognitive strategy, which included preparation, peer-seeking, and
self-evaluation;
 3) affective strategy, which included relaxation; and
 4) memory strategy, which included keywords and semantic mapping
utilisation.
 Listening Skills and sub Skills
Sub-skill Definition Example from everyday life

1 Predicting Thinking about what you are You are listening to your parents planning
going to hear, based on what a family trip. You think about where you
you know about the speaker, have been before and what your family
the topic and the context. like to do. You begin to imagine where you
think the next trip will be!

2 Listening Understanding just the general You are walking in a park and you
for gist topic of what you hear overhear friends talking. One of them is
talking about a recent family event. You
don’t notice or remember all the details or
words, but it sounded like it was a very
happy event.
 Listening Skills and sub Skills
Sub-skill Definition Example from everyday life

3 Listening for Identifying specific You are waiting at the train station, listening
key information words or phrases in what to the announcement with information about
you hear which platform to go to. You listen carefully
because you don’t want to go to the wrong
platform and miss your train.

4 Listening for Understanding the It’s your birthday soon and you want to go to
detailed content of what you hear the cinema with your friends. You ask your
understanding in depth, especially the friends which films they would like to see and
opinions and attitudes of listen carefully to what they say before you
the speaker(s). decide.
References
 Yavuz, F., Degirmenci, N., Akyuz, S., Yılmaz, H., & Celik, O. (2015). Problems and activities in
listening skills in EFL classrooms; From tradition to a more comprehensible input. Procedia-
Social and Behavioral Sciences, 197, 930-932.
 GCFLearnFree.org. (2019, Jan 29). Active Listening [Video]. YouTube. URL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzsVh8YwZEQ
 https://study.com/academy/lesson/informational-listening-definition-skills.html
 https://study.com/academy/lesson/critical-listening-thinking-evaluating-others-speeches.html
 Oteir, I., & Al-Otaibi, A. N. (2020). COPING STRATEGIES ON LISTENING ANXIETY OF
SAUDI EFL LEARNERS: A QUALITATIVE CASE STUDY. British Journal of English
Linguistics, 8(2), 16-34. https://www.eajournals.org/wp-content/uploads/Coping-Strategies-on-
Listening-Anxiety-of-Saudi-EFL-Learners.pdf
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzsVh8YwZEQs