Are You Listening Effectively?

Are You Listening Effectively?

*By Aziza Restu Febrianto

When you hear a particular sound or talk, it does not mean you are listening. Allowing words to pour into your ears is not listening. Listening is a kind of skills that most people likely neglect. And listening is one of the most important methods used in learning.

Listening is not just absorbing sound. To be a good listener, we have to be active. As we place ourselves close to the speaker or instructor, we would possibly be able to see and hear the information easily. The further away we are from him or her, the greater the chance of sound being distorted or interfered by normal room noises such as overhead projector, fans, heating blowers, or probably noises from outside the room.

We should also use thought speed. Our mind works many times faster than the speaker can talk. Some research studies shows findings that the rate of the brain is almost four times that of normal speech. It explains why daydreaming occurs very frequently during a lecture in class. Anticipate and focus on where the speaker is going with the lecture.

Another thing to do is looking for the important ideas. Most speakers introduce a few new ideas and provide explanations, examples or other support for them. Our job is to identify the main ideas. He or she may return to the same few ideas again and again. So, be alert to them.

Next, listen for the signals. Good speakers use signals to point out particular information they are going to say. Common used signals are:

• When mentioning an example: ‘for example’ ‘There are three reasons why …’
• To signal support material: ‘For instance’ ‘Similarly’ ‘in contrast’ ‘On the other hand’
• As they signal a conclusion or summary: ‘In conclusion….,’ ‘Finally…,’ ‘As a result….’
•  To signal importance: ‘Now this is very important…’ ‘Remember that…’

Lead rather than follow. Leading involves two steps:

• Read assignments given before we come to the meeting. If we read before we hear the lecture or speech, we will so much be more alert to main and important ideas.

• Set up questions to keep ourselves in the lead. But these are not questions we use to ask the speaker. The all questions are basically used as our plans for listening.

Take notes. In usual conversations, we tend to interpret, classify and summarize what is said. In classroom learning, we do this very effectively by keeping written notes. Note taking helps us listen by providing a sequence organization to what we hear. It is very difficult to listen to a lot of disorganized and unrelated bits of information altogether. Organization is the key for effective listening and remembering.