assignment on listening skills

How to Practice Active Listening: 16 Examples & Techniques

Do you wonder if you could be better?

Good listeners can stay present and engaged with what is being said. This article will describe a listening technique called active listening. It’s useful in building therapeutic relationships and creating empathy.

You will learn the benefits of active listening and how it makes you a better communicator. And we will provide a list of the skills needed and techniques to learn exactly how to practice this. Finally, we’ll go over common pitfalls that keep us from being good listeners.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Communication Exercises (PDF) for free . These science-based tools will help you and those you work with build better social skills and better connect with others.

This Article Contains:

What is active listening 3 principles, is it important in communication 4 benefits, active listening skills you can foster, 7 techniques to train your active listening skills, 3 counseling exercises & activities, 3 worksheets to practice active listening, questions to ask others: 3 examples, possible barriers & psychology tips to overcome them, 3 courses for training on effective communication, resources from positivepsychology.com, a take-home message.

Often, while we are listening, we are thinking of how we will respond. We might get distracted and miss some of what was said. We may not be paying much attention to the nonverbal communication cues of the speaker.

Active listening requires the listener to pay close attention to what is being communicated verbally and nonverbally. The listener is encouraged to interpret not only the content of what is being said, but also the emotions present and the body language.

In order to achieve this, the listener must be willing to devote energy to the task. They will need to have an excellent attention span and honed empathic abilities . Active listening has even been referred to as the “measurable dimension of empathy” (Olson & Iwasiw, 1987, p. 104).

There are three main components of successful active listening (Rogers & Farson, 1987):

Listen for total meaning When someone is conveying a message, there are two meanings to gather: the content and the feeling or attitude underlying the message. An active listener is not only tuned in to the information conveyed, but also how it is conveyed and any nonverbal cues present.
Respond to feelings After listening, when a response is appropriate, the listener should respond to the feeling of what was said. In this way, the speaker feels understood and empathy is established.
Note all cues Nonverbal cues include tone of voice, facial or body expressions, and speed of speech. All of these taken together can convey a much deeper meaning than merely the content of what was said.

Carl Rogers’s take on active listening

Psychologists Carl Rogers and Richard Farson (1987) are responsible for defining the concept of active listening. They describe the skill as vitally important for effective communication. For Rogers, the ultimate goal of active listening was to foster positive change (Rogers & Farson, 1987). This change can occur in the context of a client/helper relationship or in the context of a group.

Rogers described three important principles in effective counseling: empathy, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard . Active listening is a tool that fosters and supports these principles.

Empathy is demonstrated in active listening by the listener reflecting the thoughts and feelings of the speaker. These thoughts and feelings are believed, supported, and respected. They are not dismissed or challenged.

Rogers stresses that in order to be successful in active listening, the listener must be authentic in their care. This reflects the principle of genuineness. Active listening can’t be faked.

Active listening requires true feelings of respect toward the individual speaking. The listener accepts and supports the speaker regardless of the content of their words. This illustrates the principle of unconditional positive regard.

It is also a skill that will benefit the listener in their life outside of work.

Whether at work or in casual conversation, active listening can provide a safe and empathetic space for a speaker, fostering feelings of trust.

Active listening in counseling

Active listening has been shown to be a vital skill in counseling. Empathy and empathic listening foster the therapeutic relationship , and the relationship between therapist and client has been shown to be the one of the most crucial and stable predictors of client success (Martin, Garske, & Davis, 2000).

Another benefit of learning active listening as a counselor is that it may increase self-efficacy . Levitt (2002) examined the impact of teaching active listening to counseling students and found that this skill created greater levels of confidence in the students and helped to reduce their anxiety as new counselors.

Active listening in the workplace

Kubota, Mishima, and Nagata (2004) examined the effects of an active listening training program on middle managers, finding positive results. In workplaces, a large portion of stress experienced by employees comes from interpersonal relationships.

The study showed that teaching managers who learned active listening skills were better able to support employees with mental health issues, providing a safe environment for them to share their difficulties without judgment. This led to calmer behaviors and more success (Kubota et al., 2004).

Can active listening skills even work through text conversations? Perhaps so. A unique and interesting study looked at the application of active listening to written communication online (Bauer & Figl, 2008). This case study was examining soft skills among computer science students and to see if active listening could come across in instant message conversations.

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Active listening requires a skill set that differs from typical everyday listening. Not only are you using the principles of empathy, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard, but you must also develop certain skillful ways of interacting.

It’s useful to begin with the body language of the listener (Robertson, 2005). How do you know when someone is listening to you? Maintaining eye contact and appropriate facial expressions is important to convey empathy and attention. As with all aspects of active listening, these indicators shouldn’t be forced or faked. They are simply a reflection of your genuine attentiveness.

It also helps to remove distractions from the environment. Depending on the context, you may desire to set up an environment that conveys peace and quiet. If you are in a public place, putting away distractions or moving to a quieter location can also be helpful.

Another skill is following (Robertson, 2005). To actively follow what the speaker is conveying, you allow space for them to speak, reducing or eliminating questions and giving space for silence .

In a non-active listening situation, there may be quick back and forth, many rapid questions, or people may talk over one another. With active listening, the speaker is given the time and space to speak as much as they want. And they are encouraged to continue.

A third skill is reflecting (Robertson, 2005). This is the skill of repeating what you heard the speaker say, but avoiding parroting it back verbatim. You are trying to capture the essence of what they said and reflect it back to them. You may also try to capture the feelings that are conveyed.

This is always done without expressing judgment and with the goal of understanding. It may even be useful to ask if you have it right before asking them to continue.

Each technique is listed with an example and an explanation of the use.

Use the below suggestions to help your clients improve their listening.

Practicing with a partner

For counselors in training, it is important to practice active listening with a partner. One partner shares a story of something emotional that happened, and the listener will practice the following techniques:

Demonstrating listening through body language and nonverbal responses
Reflecting back the content of what the partner shared
Reflecting back the emotions that the partner shared

It’s important to check in with your partner after you’ve reflected to be sure that it’s accurate.

Mindful listening group practice

In many ways, active listening is a mindfulness practice. The listener is trying to stay focused on the present, with what is being shared. And they are working to accomplish this without judgment.

Here is an excellent activity to practice mindful listening in a group.

Have the group sit in a circle.
Offer an ice breaker question or prompt, such as something they are grateful for today.
Rather than go around the circle, ask participants to share spontaneously when they feel ready.
Invite them to notice if they are thinking about their answer, rather than listening.
Ask them to be present with the person who is sharing.
Challenge them to notice if they are uncomfortable with the silences.

Mindful listening alone

At any moment, you can drop in and practice mindful listening. Simply stop what you are doing, close your eyes, and try to see how many sounds you can hear around you and within you. Notice if there are judgments arising and try not to attach to them. Stay with the flow of sounds for as long as you can.

Listening Accurately

This worksheet offers a five-step process to improve your communication skills with another person. It would be a useful tool for working with couples or anyone who would like to hone their listening skills.

The five steps are:

Step in their shoes.
Fact-check your interpretation.
Give your full attention.
Clarify what they’ve said.
Clarify what you’ve said.

500 Years Ago

This creative exercise helps both the listener and the speaker develop their empathy by imagining themselves in someone else’s place.

The listener is instructed to pretend that they have come from the past, 500 years ago. The speaker is trying to explain something to them and must use language that they can understand.

Using Small Rewards

In working to create a therapeutic alliance, nonverbal communication is key. This worksheet lists some “small rewards,” subtle but powerful nonverbal gestures that the therapist can use to let their client know that they hear them and are following along.

The worksheet invites the practitioner to listen to a five-minute segment of their session and see how often they were using these nonverbal cues. There is space to reflect on how better to incorporate them and consider why there may have been trouble.

How to actively listen to others – Scott Pierce

Active listening starts with refraining from questions. It’s important that the stage be set by allowing the speaker enough time and space to speak.

Start with reflection

Begin with reflections and try to capture the feeling of what was said. A reflection mirrors back what the person just said and tries to capture the meaning or the tone.

For example, let’s say a friend comes to you about a fight she had with her husband. She describes how the argument got heated, and they ended up sleeping separately. She is feeling worried about the state of their marriage.

A reflection restates what she said: “Things got really heated last night – so bad you didn’t even want to be in the same room.” Or “You’re feeling really worried because this fight felt so intense.”

The first example is a reflection of the content of what was shared. The second reflects the emotions. These types of reflections validate the speaker and help them feel heard and understood.

Asking questions

Only after reflection has been done will it be time to ask questions. The types of questions are important. The purpose of questions during active listening is to continue to move the individual toward self-discovery.

Open questions are vital for this step. Open questions can’t be answered with a simple yes or no. They invite introspection. Powerful questions stimulate curiosity in the listener and encourage conversation. They reveal underlying assumptions and invite creativity. They don’t change the subject or close down the conversation.

The point of an open-ended question as part of active listening is to learn more and continue to connect with the speaker. It is not to drive the conversation in a particular direction.

Here are three examples of closed questions vs open questions to ask, given the above situation. Remember, your friend just told you about a terrible fight that she had with her husband, and she is upset.

Closed question: “Did you make up?” Open question: “How are you feeling about the fight today?”

Closed question: “Did your kids hear you?” Open question: “How does it feel to share this with me? Have you thought about talking to anyone else?”

Closed question: “Are you going to leave him?” Open question: “What sorts of responses or solutions are you considering?”

You can see that the open questions invite conversation and show compassion , whereas the closed questions seem more like information gathering.

When practicing active listening, practitioners should also self-monitor for judgments that might come up while the person is speaking.

If these judgments aren’t monitored, they may cause criticizing, labeling, diagnosing, or even praising in a way that leads the speaker (Robertson, 2005).

The goal of active listening is to create a safe environment for the individual to speak freely. Any of these responses may lead to defensiveness, distrust, or shutting down.

Another barrier is suggesting solutions (Robertson, 2005). Although it may seem well meaning, the urge to suggest solutions often comes from a discomfort with what the speaker is saying. While it may seem supportive, it creates an imbalance of power in the dynamic. The speaker is left feeling unheard, and they are disempowered to create their own solutions.

A third barrier is avoiding what the person is sharing. This may manifest as diverting the conversation away, logically arguing, or even reassuring. Again, while reassurance seems comforting, it often shuts down or ends the conversation for the other person.

A wonderful example of the comparison of empathetic and other responses can be found in Brené Brown’s video below about sympathy versus empathy.

Active listening is a straightforward skill, and taking a short course is the perfect way to learn how to do it effectively. While it is possible to learn it simply by reading, it’s always helpful to see it in action and practice with other people.

If you are hoping to learn active listening to improve your workplace as a manager or a leader, these courses would be great for you.

Udemy offers thousands of short courses on everything from programming to cooking, and this course on active listening has over 10,000 downloads.

LinkedIn Learning offers courses for businesses, including one on effective listening . Your team can take a listening assessment, address challenges that they have, and learn effective listening behaviors.

A wonderful course for in-depth active listening training is offered by Voice of Health (VOH). VOH is an online peer-support community that offers free training for anyone interested.

17 Exercises To Develop Positive Communication

17 Positive Communication Exercises [PDF] to develop help others develop communication skills for successful social interactions and positive, fulfilling relationships.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

Our Positive Psychology Toolkit© has excellent resources for learning how to listen more effectively and empathetically. One such tool is the exercise Listening Without Trying to Solve .

This exercise is done with a group. Individuals are paired off with one person as the listener and one as the storyteller. Each listener is given a card with instructions, half are told to listen without trying to solve and half are told to try to solve the problem as best as they can. Each pair is given five minutes for the storyteller to share a problem.

After sharing, the group returns together and discusses how it felt to be on the receiving end of a person who is working hard to solve the problem vs someone who is fully listening and empathizing. This is a powerful activity to show the effectiveness of active listening.

This checklist is a helpful tool for practicing active listening techniques. The checklist lists the techniques and then asks the listener to check back to see if they successfully used each one. There is space to write what worked well, what was difficult, and how to better incorporate unused techniques.

If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others communicate better, this collection contains 17 validated positive communication tools for practitioners. Use them to help others improve their communication skills and form deeper and more positive relationships.

Active listening is a skill that anyone can learn. It’s a vital tool for therapists and counselors to connect empathically with their clients. But it’s also useful for better communication with family, friends, and coworkers.

Practicing active listening can deepen connections in your relationships and help to create stronger and more lasting bonds. Try some of these exercises to improve your communication skills today.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Communication Exercises (PDF) for free .

Bauer, C., & Figl, K. (2008). ‘Active listening’ in written online communication-a case study in a course on ‘soft skills’ for computer scientists. In 2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference (pp. F2C–1). IEEE.
Kubota, S., Mishima, N., & Nagata, S. (2004). A study of the effects of active listening on listening attitudes of middle managers. Journal of Occupational Health , 46 (1), 60–67.
Levitt, D. H. (2002). Active listening and counselor self-efficacy: Emphasis on one microskill in beginning counselor training. The Clinical Supervisor , 20 (2), 101–115.
Martin, D. J., Garske, J. P., & Davis, M. K. (2000). Relation of the therapeutic alliance with outcome and other variables: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology , 68 (3), 438–450.
Olson, J. K., & Iwasiw, C. L. (1987). Effects of a training model on active listening skills of post-RN students. Journal of Nursing Education , 26 (3), 104–107.
Robertson, K. (2005). Active listening: More than just paying attention. Australian Family Physician , 34 (12), 1053–1055.
Rogers, C. R., & Farson, R. E. (1987). Active listening. In R. G. Newman, M. A. Danziger, & M. Cohen (Eds.), Communicating in business today . DC Heath & Company.

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Active Listening Skills, Examples and Exercises

September 20, 2017 - Sophie Thompson

In today’s world of high tech and high stress, communication is more important than ever, however we spend less and less time really listening to each other. Genuine, attentive listening has become rare.

Active listening skills can help build relationships, solve problems, ensure understanding and avoid conflict. By becoming a better listener, you’ll improve your workplace productivity, as well as your ability to lead a team , persuade and negotiate.

Active listening definition

Active listening requires the listener to fully concentrate, understand, respond and then remember what is being said. You make a conscious effort to hear and understand the complete message being spoken, rather than just passively hearing the message of the speaker.

In this article, we’ll cover the following:

Why is listening important?

Benefits of active listening, what makes a good listener.

Verbal and non-verbal signs of active listening

Four different listening styles

Examples of active listening, barriers to effective listening.

Tips to becoming an effective listener
Listening exercises

Listening is the most fundamental component of communication skills. Listening is not something that just happens, listening is an active process in which a conscious decision is made to listen to and understand the messages of the speaker.

Active listening is also about patience, listeners should not interrupt with questions or comments. Active listening involves giving the other person time to explore their thoughts and feelings, they should be given adequate time for that.

We spend a lot of time listening

Various studies stress the importance of listening as a communication skill. The studies on average say we spend 70-80% of our waking hours in some form of communication. Of that time, we spend about 9 percent writing, 16 percent reading, 30 percent speaking, and 45 percent listening.

Studies also confirm that most of us are poor and inefficient listeners. Most of us are not very good at listening, research suggests that we remember less than 50% of what we hear in a conversation.

Active listening skills are very important

There are many important benefits of active listening, these include:

Builds deep trust – As you cultivate the habit of listening sincerely, you invite people to open up . They can sense that you will not be jumping to conclusions based on superficial details. They also realise that you care enough about them to listen attentively. While building trust takes time, it leads to great benefits such as lifelong friendships and a promise of help in difficult times.
Broadens your perspective – Your own perspective in life is not the complete truth or how everyone else sees it. The way you understand life from your beliefs and thinking is only one way to look at it – listening to other people’s perspectives allows you to look at life from different perspectives, some of which you may not have thought of before.
Strengthens your patience – The ability to be a good listener takes time and you need to develop it with regular efforts over time. But as you gradually get better and better at listening, an automatic benefit is that you develop patience. Patience to let the other person express his or her feelings and thoughts honestly while you don’t judge.
Makes you approachable – As you present yourself as a patient listener, people feel more naturally inclined to communicate with you. By being there for them, you give them the freedom to express their feelings.
Increases competence and knowledge – Great listening skills make an employee more competent and capable, regardless of their position. The more an individual can get information out of the meetings, the instructions, and reports provided to him, the more efficient and successful they will be at completing the task. Listening also builds knowledge and helps fulfil work requirements through progressive learning.
Saves time and money – Effective listening not only reduces risks of misunderstanding and mistakes that could be very damaging to the business, but it also saves time and money by avoiding starting a task or a project over again, just because the directives given were misunderstood. Employees do not waste precious time and a specific budget allocated to a project.
Helps detect and solve problems – As a leader, they should always be attentive to what employees have to say. In the workplace, they are the first ones to spot flaws and come up with suggestions for improvements. Listening to colleagues will help you understand what needs to be changed and worked on to retain talent and make improvements.

Good listeners actively endeavour to understand what others are really trying to say, regardless of how unclear the messages might be. Listening involves not only the effort to decode verbal messages, but also to interpret non-verbal cues such as facial expressions and physical posture.

Effective listeners make sure to let others know that they have been heard, and encourage them to share their thoughts and feelings fully.

You also need to show to the person speaking that you’re listening through non-verbal cues, such as maintaining eye contact, nodding your head and smiling, agreeing by saying ‘Yes’. By providing this feedback the person speaking will usually feel more at ease and communicates more easily, openly and honestly.

Listening vs. hearing

Hearing is an accidental and automatic brain response to sound that requires no effort. We are surrounded by sounds most of the time. For example, we are accustomed to the sounds of cars, construction workers and so on. We hear those sounds and, unless we have a reason to do otherwise, we learn to ignore them .

Hearing is:

Involuntary

Listening, on the other hand, is purposeful and focused rather than accidental. As a result, it requires motivation and effort. Listening, at its best, is active, focused, concentrated attention for the purpose of understanding the meanings expressed by a speaker.

Listening means paying attention not only to the story, 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. Your ability to listen effectively depends on the degree to which you perceive and understand these messages.

Listening is:

Intentional

Practice Active Listening

Practice your listening skills with exercises and audio recordings, then answer quiz questions to evaluate your listening skills. Learn More

Verbal and non-verbal signs of active listening skills

It’s a horrible feeling talking to someone and realising that they are not really listening. There are some simple steps you can take to let the speaker know you are actively listening, such as asking relevant questions, positive body language , nodding and maintaining eye contact.

Non-verbal signs of active listening

The people are listening are likely to display at least some of these signs. However, these signs may not be appropriate in all situations and across all cultures .

Smile – small smiles can be used to show that the listener is paying attention to what is being said or as a way of agreeing or being happy about the messages being received. Combined with nods of the head, smiles can be powerful in affirming that messages are being listened to and understood.
Eye Contact – it is normal and usually encouraging for the listener to look at the speaker. Eye contact can however be intimidating, especially for more shy speakers – gauge how much eye contact is appropriate for any given situation. Combine eye contact with smiles and other non-verbal messages to encourage the speaker.
Posture – can tell a lot about the sender and receiver in interpersonal interactions. The attentive listener tends to lean slightly forward or sideways whilst sitting. Other signs of active listening may include a slight slant of the head or resting the head on one hand.
Distraction – the active listener will not be distracted and therefore will refrain from fidgeting, looking at a clock or watch, doodling, playing with their hair or picking their fingernails.

Verbal Signs of active listening

Positive Reinforcement – this can be a strong signal of attentiveness, however too much use can be annoying for the speaker. Occasional words and phrases, such as: ‘very good’, ‘yes’ or ‘indeed’ will indicate that you are paying attention.
Remembering – try to remember a few key points, such as the name of the speaker. It can help to reinforce that what is being said has been understood. Remembering details, ideas and concepts from previous conversations proves that attention was kept and is likely to encourage the speaker to continue.
Questioning – the listener can demonstrate that they have been paying attention by asking relevant questions and/or making statements that build or help to clarify what the speaker has said. By asking relevant questions the listener also helps to reinforce that they have an interest in what the speaker has been saying.
Clarification – this involves asking questions of the speaker to ensure that the correct message has been received. Clarification usually involves the use of open questions which enables the speaker to expand on certain points as necessary.

If listening were easy, and if all people went about it in the same way, the task for a public speaker would be much easier.

1. People oriented

The people-oriented listener is interested in the speaker. They listen to the message in order to learn how the speaker thinks and how they feel about their message. For instance, when people-oriented listeners listen to an interview with a famous musician, they are likely to be more curious about the musician as an individual than about music.

2. Action or task oriented

Action-oriented listeners are primarily interested in finding out what the speaker wants. Does the speaker want votes, donations, volunteers, or something else? It’s sometimes difficult for an action-oriented speaker to listen through the descriptions, evidence, and explanations with which a speaker builds his or her case.

For example, when you’re a passenger on an airplane, a flight attendant delivers a brief safety briefing. The flight attendant says only to buckle up so we can leave. An action-oriented listener finds buckling up a more compelling message than a message about the underlying reasons.

Content-oriented listeners are interested in the message itself, whether it makes sense, what it means, and whether it’s accurate. Content-oriented listeners want to listen to well-developed information with solid explanations.

To learn more about listening styles, read The Importance of Listening – Listening Styles

Here are some examples of statements and questions used with active listening:

Paraphrasing – “So, you want us to build the new school in the style of the old one?”
Brief verbal affirmation – “I appreciate the time you’ve taken to speak to me”
Asking open-ended questions – “I understand you aren’t happy with your new car. What changes can we make to it?”
Asking specific questions – “How many employees did you take on last year?”
Mentioning similar situations – “I was in a similar situation after my previous company made me redundant.”
Summarise questions – A job candidate who summarises their understanding of an unclear question during an interview.
Notice people speaking – A meeting facilitator encouraging a quiet team member to share their views about a project.
Summarise group conversations – A manager summarizing what has been said at a meeting and checking with the others that it is correct.

Everyone has difficulty staying completely focused during a lengthy presentation or conversation, or even relatively brief messages. Some of the factors that interfere with good listening might exist beyond our control, but others are manageable. It’s helpful to be aware of these factors so that they interfere as little as possible with understanding the message. Here are some key barriers:

Barriers to effective listening by being distracted

Noise is one of the biggest factors to interfere with listening; it can be defined as anything that interferes with your ability to attend to and understand a message. There are many kinds of noise, the four you are most likely to encounter in public speaking situations are: physical noise, psychological noise, physiological noise, and semantic noise.

2. Attention Span

A person can only maintain focused attention for a finite length of time . Many people argued that modern audiences have lost the ability to sustain attention to a message. Whether or not these concerns are well founded, you have probably noticed that even when your attention is glued to something in which you are deeply interested, every now and then you pause to do something else, such as getting a drink.

3. Receiver Biases

Good listening involves keeping an open mind and withholding judgment until the speaker has completed the message. Conversely, biased listening is characterized by jumping to conclusions; the biased listener believes, “I don’t need to listen because I already know this.” Receiver biases can refer to two things: biases with reference to the speaker and preconceived ideas and opinions about the topic or message. Everyone has biases but good listeners hold them in check while listening.

4. Listening Apprehension

This is the fear that you might be unable to understand the message or process the information correctly or be able to adapt your thinking to include the new information coherently. In some situations, you might worry that the information presented will be too complex for you to understand fully.

Tips to become an effective listener and improve active listening skills

Tips to help you develop effective listening skills.

Face the speaker and maintain eye contact

Talking to someone while they scan the room, study a computer screen, or gaze out the window is like trying to hit a moving target. How much of the person’s divided attention you are actually getting? Fifty percent? Five percent?

In most Western cultures, eye contact is considered a basic ingredient of effective communication. When we talk, we look each other in the eye. Do your conversational partners the courtesy of turning to face them. Put aside papers, books, the phone and other distractions. Look at them, even if they don’t look at you. Shyness, uncertainty or other emotions, along with cultural taboos, can inhibit eye contact in some people under some circumstances.

Be attentive and relaxed

Give the speaker your undivided attention, and acknowledge the message. Recognise that non-verbal communication is very powerful . In order to be attentive, you’ll:

Maintain eye-contact with the speaker
Direct yourself towards the speaker
Pay attention to what’s being said
Put aside distracting thoughts

Mentally screen out distractions, like background activity and noise. In addition, try not to focus on the speaker’s accent or speech mannerisms to the point where they become distractions. Finally, don’t be distracted by your own thoughts, feelings, or biases.

Keep an open mind

Listen without judging the other person or mentally criticizing the things she tells you. If what she says alarms you, go ahead and feel alarmed, but don’t say to yourself, “Well, that was a stupid move.” As soon as you indulge in judgmental bemusements, you’ve compromised your effectiveness as a listener.

Listen without jumping to conclusions and don’t interrupt to finish their sentences. Remember that the speaker is using language to represent the thoughts and feelings inside her brain. You don’t know what those thoughts and feelings are and the only way you’ll find out is by listening.

Don’t interrupt or cut them off

Children used to be taught that it’s rude to interrupt. I’m not sure that message is getting across anymore. Certainly the opposite is being modelled on the majority of talk shows and reality programs, where loud, aggressive, in-your-face behaviour is condoned, if not encouraged.

Interrupting sends a variety of messages:

I’m more important than you are
What I have to say is more interesting
I don’t care what you think
I don’t have time for your opinion

We all think and speak at different rates. If you are a quick thinker and an agile talker, the burden is on you to relax your pace for the slower, more thoughtful communicator—or for the guy who has trouble expressing himself.

Ask questions to clarify what they are saying

When you don’t understand something, of course you should ask the speaker to explain it to you. But rather than interrupt, wait until the speaker pauses. Then say something like, “Back up a second. I didn’t understand what you just said about…”

Ask questions and summarise to ensure understanding

When the person speaking has finished talking, ask questions relevant to what they are saying – try not to lead people in directions that have nothing to do with where they thought they were going. Sometimes we work our way back to the original topic, but very often we don’t.

You can also summarise the conversation to make sure you understand all the person is trying to say – this works well at networking events at the end of conversations, it also gives you an excuse to move onto another conversation.

Try to feel what the speaker is feeling

Empathy is the heart and soul of good listening. To experience empathy , you have to put yourself in the other person’s place and allow yourself to feel what it is like to be her at that moment. This is not an easy thing to do. It takes energy and concentration. But it is a generous and helpful thing to do, and it facilitates communication like nothing else does.

Give the speaker regular feedback

Show that you understand where the speaker is coming from by reflecting the speaker’s feelings. If the speaker’s feelings are hidden or unclear, then occasionally paraphrase the content of the message. Or just nod and show your understanding through appropriate facial expressions and an occasional well-timed “uh huh.”

Pay attention to non-verbal cues

The majority of face-to-face communication is non-verbal. We get a great deal of information about each other without saying a word. When face to face with a person, you can detect enthusiasm, boredom, or irritation very quickly in the expression around the eyes, the set of the mouth, the slope of the shoulders. These are clues you can’t ignore. When listening, remember that words convey only a fraction of the message.

To read these listening tips in more detail, visit 10 Steps To Effective Listening

Listening skills exercises

Online exercises.

Practice your listening skills with interactive exercises.

Active listening course with online practice

Summarise the conversation exercise

For a week, try concluding every conversation in which information is exchanged with a summary. In conversations that result in agreements about future activities, summarising will ensure accurate follow-through.

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7 Active Listening Techniques For Better Communication

It's time to start having more intentional conversations

Arlin Cuncic, MA, is the author of The Anxiety Workbook and founder of the website About Social Anxiety. She has a Master's degree in clinical psychology.

Amy Morin, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and international bestselling author. Her books, including "13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do," have been translated into more than 40 languages. Her TEDx talk, "The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong," is one of the most viewed talks of all time.

How to Improve

Active listening is a communication skill that involves going beyond simply hearing the words that another person speaks. It's about actively processing and seeking to understand the meaning and intent behind them. It requires being a mindful and focused participant in the communication process.

Active listening techniques include:

Being fully present in the conversation
Showing interest by practicing good eye contact
Noticing (and using) non-verbal cues
Asking open-ended questions to encourage further responses
Paraphrasing and reflecting back what has been said
Listening to understand rather than to respond
Withholding judgment and advice

Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD explains, "Active listening requires de-centering from one’s fixed position to be fully present with another. It helps people feel more understood and strengthens relationships as it signals a willingness to sit with the other’s perspective and empathy for their situation instead of singular focus on oneself."

MStudioImages / Getty Images

In communication, active listening is important because it keeps you engaged with your conversation partner in a positive way. It also makes the other person feel heard and valued. This skill is the foundation of a successful conversation in any setting—whether at work, at home, or in social situations.

Romanoff continues, "Ultimately, it shows respect and value for the other person’s needs, concerns, and ideas as the listener is actively signaling the other person matters to them."

When you practice active listening, you are fully engaged and immersed in what the other person is saying.

7 Active Listening Techniques

The word "active" implies that you are taking some type of action when listening to others. This involves the use of certain strategies or techniques. Here are seven active listening techniques to consider.

1. Be Fully Present

Active listening requires being fully present in the conversation. This enables you to concentrate on what is being said. Being present involves listening with all your senses (sight, sound, etc.) and giving your full attention to the speaker.

"Being fully present involves the skill of tuning into the other person’s inner world while stepping away from your own. This is a power skill in deeply connecting and sitting with another’s emotions," says Romanoff.

To use this active listening technique effectively, put away your cell phone, ignore distractions, avoid daydreaming, and shut down your internal dialogue. Place your focus on your conversation partner and let everything else slip away.

2. Pay Attention to Non-Verbal Cues

As much as 65% of a person's communication is unspoken. Paying attention to these nonverbal cues can tell you a lot about the person and what they are trying to say. If they talk fast, for instance, this could be a sign that they are nervous or anxious. If they talk slowly, they may be tired or trying to carefully choose their words.

During active listening, your non-verbal behaviors are just as important. To show the person you're truly tuned in, use open, non-threatening body language. This involves not folding your arms, smiling while listening, leaning in, and nodding at key junctures.

It can also be helpful to pay attention to your facial expressions when active listening so that you don't convey any type of negative response.

3. Keep Good Eye Contact

When engaged in active listening, making eye contact is especially important. This tells the other person that you are present and listening to what they say. It also shows that you aren't distracted by anything else around you.

At the same time, you don't want to use so much eye contact that the conversation feels weird. To keep this from happening, follow the 50/70 rule. This involves maintaining eye contact for 50% to 70% of the time spent listening, holding the contact for four to five seconds before briefly looking away.

4. Ask Open-Ended Questions

Asking "yes or no" questions often produce dead-end answers. This isn't helpful during active listening as it keeps the conversation from flowing. It also makes it difficult to truly listen to the other person because there isn't much you can gain from a short, non-descriptive response.

Instead, ask open-ended questions to show that you are interested in the conversation and the other person. Examples of open-ended questions you may use when active listening include:

Can you tell me a bit more about that?
What did you think about that?
What do you think is the best path moving forward?
How do you think you could have responded differently?

The key to open-ended questions is to have a framework of curiosity about the other person. It signals genuine interest – making the other person feel valued and enables you to better understand them," adds Romanoff.

Open-ended questions encourage thoughtful, expansive responses, which is why they are often used by mental health therapists.

5. Reflect What You Hear

After the person has spoken, tell them what you heard. This active listening technique ensures that you've captured their thoughts, ideas, and/or emotions accurately. It also helps the other person feel validated and understood while keeping any potential miscommunications to a minimum.

One way to reflect what you've heard is to paraphrase. For example, you might say, "In other words, what you are saying is that you're frustrated" or "I'm hearing that you're frustrated about this situation." Summarize what you've heard and give the person the opportunity to say whether you've captured their meaning or intent.

If you'd like to better understand something the person has said, ask for clarification. But don't focus so much on insignificant details that you miss the big picture.

6, Be Patient

Patience is an important active listening technique because it allows the other person to speak without interruption. It also gives them the time to say what they are thinking without having to try to finish their sentences for them.

Being patient involves not trying to fill periods of silence with your own thoughts or stories. It also requires listening to understand, not to respond. That is, don't prepare a reply while the other person is still speaking. Also, don't change the subject too abruptly as this conveys boredom and impatience.

During active listening, you are there to act as a sounding board rather than to jump in with your own ideas and opinions about what is being said.

7, Withhold Judgment

Remaining neutral and non-judgmental in your responses enables the other person to feel comfortable with sharing their thoughts. It makes the conversation to a safe zone where they can trust that they won't be shamed, criticized, blamed, or otherwise negatively received.

Ways to be less judgmental when listening include:

Expressing empathy for the person or their situation
Learning more about different people and cultures
Practicing acceptance of others
Recognizing when you may be judging the other person, then stopping those thoughts

Active Listening Example

What does active listening look like? Here is an example of a conversation in which several different active listening techniques are used.

Lisa : I'm sorry to dump this on you, but I had a fight with my sister, and we haven't spoken since. I'm upset and don't know who to talk to.

Jodie : No problem! Tell me more about what happened. (open-ended question)

Lisa : Well, we were arguing about what to do for our parents' anniversary. I'm still so angry.

Jodie : Oh that's tough. You sound upset that you're not speaking because of it. (reflecting what was heard)

Lisa : Yes, she just makes me so angry. She assumed I would help her plan this elaborate party—I don't have time! It's like she couldn't see things from my perspective at all.

Jodie : Wow, that's too bad. How did that make you feel? (another open-ended question)

Lisa: Frustrated. Angry. Maybe a bit guilty that she had all these plans, and I was the one holding them back. Finally, I told her to do it without me. But that's not right, either.

Jodie : Sounds complicated. I bet you need some time to sort out how you feel about it. (withholding judgment)

Lisa : Yes, I guess I do. Thanks for listening—I just needed to vent.

Why Active Listening Is Important

Getting into the habit of active listening can have positive impacts in many key areas of your life. It can affect your relationships, your work, and your social interactions.

In Relationships

Active listening helps you better understand another person's point of view and respond with empathy. This is important in all types of healthy relationships , whether with a spouse, parent, child, another family member, or friend.

Being an active listener in your relationships involves recognizing that the conversation is more about the other person than about you. This is especially important when the other person is emotionally distressed.

Your ability to listen actively to a family member or friend who is going through a difficult time is a valuable communication skill. It helps keep you from offering opinions and solutions when the other person really just wants to be heard.

Active listening at work is particularly important if you are in a supervisory position or interact frequently with colleagues. It helps you understand problems and collaborate to develop solutions . It also showcases your patience, a valuable asset in the workplace.

In some cases, active listening while on the job can help improve workplace safety. For instance, if you are in the healthcare field, engaging in active listening can help reduce medical errors and prevent unintentional patient harm.

During Social Situations

Active listening techniques such as reflecting, asking open-ended questions, seeking clarification, and watching body language help you develop relationships when meeting new people . People who are active and empathic listeners are good at initiating and maintaining conversations.

Active listening helps others feel more emotionally supported. This can be beneficial when interacting with a person who has social anxiety . According to research, emotional support impacts the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of the brain, resulting in decreased feelings of distress for socially anxious individuals.

Press Play for Advice on Active Listening

Hosted by therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast shares the value of listening to others, featuring psychiatrist Mark Goulston.

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Ways to Improve Active Listening

We've all been in situations where our "listeners" were distracted or disinterested. Or maybe you want to improve your own active listening skills so you don't do this to others.

Here are a few ways to be a better active listener yourself, or to encourage others to do the same:

Encourage your own curiosity . The more curious you are about something, the easier it becomes to want to know more. This naturally causes you to ask more questions and to seek to understand, which are two of the core foundations of active listening in communication.
Find a topic that interests you both . This works particularly well when engaging in small talk as you get to know one another. If you both have passion for the topic, it becomes easier to stay fully engaged in the conversation.
Practice your active listening skills . Like with any skill, being good at active listening takes some practice. Be patient with yourself as you go through the learning process . Continuing to practice these skills may just inspire the person you're conversing with to do the same. By seeing you demonstrate active listening, they might become a better listener too.
Understand when exiting the conversation is best . If you're talking with another person and they are clearly uninterested in the conversation, it may be best to end that conversation respectfully. This can help keep you from feeling annoyed and unheard.

If you find that you are having trouble with listening, you might benefit from professional treatment. Other options include engaging in social skills training or reading self-help books on interpersonal skills.

Keep in Mind

Active listening is an important social skill that has value in many different settings. Practice its many techniques often and it will become second nature. You'll start to ask open-ended questions and reflect what you've heard in your conversations without much (if any) thought.

"Ultimately, active listening helps the speaker feel more understood and heard—and helps the listener have more information and understanding. On both ends of active listening—people feel more connected and collaborative which is why it is such a vital tool when it comes to communication," says Romanoff.

If you find active listening techniques difficult, consider what might be getting in your way. Are you experiencing social anxiety during conversations or do you struggle with attention ? Getting help for these types of issues can help you improve your active listening skills, making you a better listener overall.

Frequently Asked Questions

Active listening helps you build trust and understand other people's situations and feelings. In turn, this empowers you to offer support and empathy. Unlike critical listening, active listening seeks to understand rather than reply. The goal is for the other person to be heard, validated, and inspired to solve their problems.

The three A's of active listening are attention, attitude, and adjustment. Attention entails being fully tuned in to the speaker's words and gestures. The proper attitude is one of positivity and open-mindedness. Adjustment is the ability to change your gestures, body language, and reactions as the speaker's story unfolds.

Reflection is the active listening technique that demonstrates that you understand and empathize with the person's feelings. In mirroring and summarizing what they've said, they feel heard and understood.

There are numerous ways to improve your active listening skills. One is to watch skilled interviewers on talk and news shows. Another is to research active listening techniques online and try them often in your everyday conversations, noting the speakers' reactions and looking for areas that need improvement.

Topornycky J, Golparian S. Balancing openness and interpretation in active listening . Collect Essays Learn Teach. 2016;9:175-184.

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Jahromi VK, Tabatabaee SS, Abdar ZE, Rajabi M. Active listening: The key of successful communication in hospital managers . Electron Physician . 2016;8(3):2123-2128. doi:10.19082/2123

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Nishiyama Y, Okamoto Y, Kunisato Y, et al. fMRI study of social anxiety during social ostracism with and without emotional support . PLoS One . 2015;10(5):e0127426. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0127426

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By Arlin Cuncic, MA Arlin Cuncic, MA, is the author of The Anxiety Workbook and founder of the website About Social Anxiety. She has a Master's degree in clinical psychology.

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CHAPTER 5: LISTENING

Introduction to Communication textbook.

Learning Objectives

After reading this module you should be able to:

• Understand the difference between listening and hearing.

• Identify a variety of listening styles.

• Explain the challenges to effective listening.

• Define the stages of listening.

5.1 THE IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING

“Are you listening to me?” This question is often asked because the speaker thinks the listener is nodding off or daydreaming. We sometimes think that listening means we only have to sit back, stay barely awake, and let a speaker’s words wash over us. While many Americans look upon being active as something to admire, to engage in, and to excel at, listening is often understood as a “passive” activity. More recently, O, the Oprah Magazine (2006) , featured a cover article with the title, “How to Talk So People Really Listen: Four Ways to Make Yourself Heard.” This title leads us to expect a list of ways to leave the listening to others and insist that they do so, but the article contains a surprise ending. The final piece of advice is this: “You can’t go wrong by showing interest in what other people say and making them feel important. In other words, the better you listen, the more you’ll be listened to.”

You may have heard the adage, “We have two ears but only one mouth”—an easy way to remember that listening can be twice as important as talking.

As a student, you most likely spend many hours in a classroom doing a large amount of focused listening, yet sometimes it is difficult to apply those efforts to communicate in other areas of your life. As a result, your listening skills may not be all they could be. In this chapter, we will examine listening versus hearing, listening styles, listening difficulties or barriers, listening stages, and listening critically.

“LOUD speaker” by woodleywonderworks is licensed under CC BY 2.0

5.2 LISTENING VS. HEARING

Hearing is an accidental and automatic brain response to sound that requires no effort. We are surrounded by sound most of the time. For example, we are accustomed to the sounds of airplanes, lawn mowers, furnace blowers, the rattling of pots and pans, and so on. We hear those incidental sounds and, unless we have a reason to do otherwise, we train ourselves to ignore them. We learn to filter out sounds that mean little to us, just as we choose to hear our ringing cell phones and other sounds that are more important to us.

Listening, on the other hand, is purposeful and focused rather than accidental. As a result, it requires motivation and effort. At its best, listening is active, focused, concentrated attention for the purpose of understanding the meanings expressed by a speaker . We do not always listen at our best. Later in this chapter, we will examine some of the reasons why and some strategies for becoming more active critical listeners.

BENEFITS OF LISTENING

Listening should not be taken for granted. Before the invention of writing, people conveyed virtually all knowledge through some combination of showing and telling. Elders recited tribal histories to attentive audiences. Listeners received religious teachings enthusiastically. Myths, legends, folktales, and stories for entertainment survived only because audiences were eager to listen. Nowadays, however, you can gain information and entertainment through reading and electronic recordings rather than through real-time listening. If you become distracted and let your attention wander, you can go back and replay a recording. Despite that fact, you can still gain at least four compelling benefits by becoming more active and competent at real-time listening.

YOU BECOME A BETTER STUDENT

When you focus on the material presented in a classroom, you will be able to identify not only the words used in a lecture but their emphasis and their more complex meanings. You will take better notes, and you will more accurately remember the instructor’s claims, information, and conclusions. Many times, instructors give verbal cues about what information is important, specific expectations about assignments, and even what material is likely to be on an exam, so careful listening can be beneficial.

YOU BECOME A BETTER FRIEND

When you give your best attention to people expressing thoughts and experiences that are important to them, those individuals are likely to see you as someone who cares about their well-being. This fact is especially true when you give your attention only and refrain from interjecting opinions, judgments, and advice.

PEOPLE WILL PERCEIVE YOU AS INTELLIGENT AND PERCEPTIVE

When you listen well to others, you reveal yourself as being curious and interested in people and events. In addition, your ability to understand the meanings of what you hear will make you a more knowledgeable and thoughtful person.

GOOD LISTENING CAN HELP YOUR PUBLIC SPEAKING

When you listen well to others, you start to pick up more on the stylistic components related to how people form arguments and present information. As a result, you have the ability to analyze what you think works and doesn’t work in others’ speeches, which can help you transform your speeches in the process. For example, really paying attention to how others cite sources orally during their speeches may give you ideas about how to more effectively cite sources in your presentation.

Answer the following questions with a peer:

1. With a partner, discuss how you find out when you haven’t been listening carefully.

2. What are some of the consequences of poor listening?

5.3 LISTENING STYLES

If listening were easy, and if all people went about it in the same way, the task for a public speaker would be much easier. Even Aristotle, as long ago as 325 BC, recognized that listeners in his audience were varied in listening style. He differentiated them as follows:

Rhetoric falls into three divisions, determined by the three classes of listeners to speeches. For of the three elements in speech-making—speaker, subject, and person addressed—it is the last one, the hearer, that determines the speech’s end and object. The hearer must be either a judge, with a decision to make about things past or future, or an observer. A member of the assembly decides about future events, a juryman about past events: while those who merely decide on the orator’s skill are observers.

Thus Aristotle classified listeners into those who would be using the speech to make decisions about past events, those who would make decisions affecting the future, and those who would evaluate the speaker’s skills. This is all the more remarkable when we consider that Aristotle’s audiences were composed exclusively of male citizens of one city-state, all prosperous property owners.

Our audiences today are likely to be much more heterogeneous. Think about the classroom audience that will listen to your speeches in this course. Your classmates come from many religious and ethnic backgrounds. Some of them may speak English as a second language. Some might be survivors of war-torn parts of the world such as Bosnia, Darfur, or northwest China. Being mindful of such differences will help you prepare a speech in which you minimize the potential for misunderstanding.

Part of the potential for misunderstanding is the difference in listening styles. In an article in the International Journal of Listening , Watson, Barker, and Weaver identified four listening styles: people, action, content, and time (1995).

The people-oriented listener is interested in the speaker. People-oriented listeners listen to the message in order to learn how the speaker thinks and how they feel about their message. For instance, when people-oriented listeners listen to an interview with a famous rap artist, they are likely to be more curious about the artist as an individual than about music, even though the people-oriented listener might also appreciate the artist’s work. If you are a people-oriented listener, you might have certain questions you hope will be answered, such as: Does the artist feel successful? What’s it like to be famous? What kind of educational background does he or she have? In the same way, if we’re listening to a doctor who responded to the earthquake crisis in Haiti, we might be more interested in the doctor as a person than in the state of affairs for Haitians. Why did he or she go to Haiti? How did he or she get away from his or her normal practice and patients? How many lives were saved? We might be less interested in the equally important and urgent needs for food, shelter, and sanitation following the earthquake.

The people-oriented listener is likely to be more attentive to the speaker than to the message. If you tend to be such a listener, understand that the message is about what is important to the speaker.

Action-oriented listeners are primarily interested in finding out what the speaker wants. Does the speaker want votes, donations, volunteers, or something else? It’s sometimes difficult for an action-oriented speaker to listen to the descriptions, evidence, and explanations with which a speaker builds his or her case.

Action-oriented listening is sometimes called task-oriented listening. In it, the listener seeks a clear message about what needs to be done and might have less patience for listening to the reasons behind the task. This can be especially true if the reasons are complicated. For example, when you’re a passenger on an airplane waiting to push back from the gate, a flight attendant delivers a brief speech called the pre-flight safety briefing. The flight attendant does not read the findings of a safety study or the regulations about seat belts. The flight attendant doesn’t explain that the content of his or her speech is actually mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration. Instead, the attendant says only to buckle up so we can leave. An action-oriented listener finds “buckling up” a more compelling message than a message about the underlying reasons.

Content-oriented listeners are interested in the message itself, whether it makes sense, what it means, and whether it’s accurate. When you give a speech, many members of your classroom audience will be content-oriented listeners who will be interested in learning from you. You, therefore have an obligation to represent the truth in the fullest way you can. You can emphasize an idea, but if you exaggerate, you could lose credibility in the minds of your content-oriented audience. You can advocate ideas that are important to you, but if you omit important limitations, you are withholding part of the truth and could leave your audience with an inaccurate view.

Imagine you’re delivering a speech on the plight of orphans in Africa. If you just talk about the fact that there are over forty five million orphans in Africa but don’t explain further, you’ll sound like an infomercial. In such an instance, your audience’s response is likely to be less enthusiastic than you might want. Instead, content-oriented listeners want to listen to well developed information with solid explanations.

People using a time-oriented listening style prefer a message that gets to the point quickly. Time-oriented listeners can become impatient with slow delivery or lengthy explanations. This kind of listener may be receptive for only a brief amount of time and may become rude or even hostile if the speaker expects a longer focus of attention. Time-oriented listeners convey their impatience through eye rolling, shifting about in their seats, checking their cell phones, and other inappropriate behaviors. If you’ve been asked to speak to a group of middle school students, you need to realize that their attention spans are simply not as long as those of college students. This is an important reason speeches to young audiences must be shorter or broken up by more variety than speeches to adults.

In your professional future, some of your audience members will have real time constraints, not merely perceived ones. Imagine that you’ve been asked to deliver a speech on a new project to the board of directors of a local corporation. Chances are the people on the board of directors are all pressed for time. If your speech is long and filled with overly detailed information, time-oriented listeners will simply start to tune you out as you’re speaking. Obviously, if time-oriented listeners start tuning you out, they will not be listening to your message. This is not the same thing as being a time-oriented listener who might be less interested in the message content than in its length.

IDENTIFYING YOUR LISTENING STYLE

It is important that you realize that your listening style is relational and situational. For example, if you are in a deeply committed relationship, you may be more people-oriented in your listening because you are invested in the other person’s feelings and well-being more so than the person that bags your groceries or takes your order at a restaurant. The situational context requires you to focus more on action, content, or time. In the workplace, you will respond with an action orientation and may think of your assignment as a to-do list. In an emergency, you are aware more of time and may not be as worried about the emotional feelings of the person involved but their safety. And in a final review session, you may be much more content focused while normally in class you might focus on what the professor is wearing or what the person next to you is eating. All of these examples represent the way listening styles can shift. You can think of your own listening style as fluid- but you probably recognize the one you tend to be most of the time. Would it surprise you to know that your gender may also play a part in your listening style? Males are generally action-oriented listeners, whereas women are generally more people-oriented listeners (Barker & Watson, 2000). It is key to remember that your listening preference does not equate to your ability and that you want to be able to adapt and apply different listening styles at different times.

1. In a small group, discuss what each person’s usual listening style is. Under what circumstances might you

practice a different listening style?

2. Make a list of benefits and drawbacks to each of the HUMAN COMMUNICATION: AN OPEN TEXT 135

listening styles discussed in this section.

3. As you prepare for your next speech, identify ways that you can adapt your message to each of the

listening styles noted in this section.

5.4 WHY LISTENING IS DIFFICULT

WHY LISTENING IS DIFFICULT

At times, everyone has difficulty staying completely focused during a lengthy presentation. We can sometimes have difficulty listening to even relatively brief messages. Some of the factors that interfere with good listening might exist beyond our control, but others are manageable. It’s helpful to be aware of these factors so that they interfere as little as possible with understanding the message.

Noise is one of the biggest factors to interfere with listening; it can be defined as anything that interferes with your ability to attend to and understand a message. There are many kinds of noise, but we will focus on only the four you are most likely to encounter in public speaking situations: physical noise, psychological noise, physiological noise, and semantic noise.

H. Rayl and are available under the CC-BY 4.0 license.

PHYSICAL NOISE

Physical noise consists of various sounds in an environment that interfere with a source’s ability to hear. Construction noises right outside a window, planes flying directly overhead, or loud music in the next room can make it difficult to hear the message being presented by a speaker even if a microphone is being used. It is sometimes possible to manage the context to reduce the noise. Closing a window might be helpful. Asking the people in the next room to turn their music down might be possible. Changing to a new location is more difficult, as it involves finding a new location and having everyone get there.

PSYCHOLOGICAL NOISE

Psychological noise consists of distractions to a speaker’s message caused by a receiver’s internal thoughts. For example, if you are preoccupied with personal problems, it is difficult to give your full attention to understanding the meanings of a message. The presence of another person to whom you feel attracted, or perhaps a person you dislike intensely, can also be psycho-social noise that draws your attention away from the message.

PHYSIOLOGICAL NOISE

Physiological noise consists of distractions to a speaker’s message caused by a listener’s own body. Maybe you’re listening to a speech in class around noon and you haven’t eaten anything. Your stomach may be growling and your desk is starting to look tasty. Maybe the room is cold and you’re thinking more about how to keep warm than about what the speaker is saying. In either case, your body can distract you from attending to the information being presented.

SEMANTIC NOISE

Semantic noise occurs when a receiver experiences confusion over the meaning of a source’s word choice. While you are attempting to understand a particular word or phrase, the speaker continues to present the message. While you are struggling with a word interpretation, you are distracted from listening to the rest of the message. An example of semantic noise is a euphemism. Euphemism is diplomatic language used for delivering unpleasant information. For instance, if someone is said to be “flexible with the truth,” it might take us a moment to understand that the speaker means this person sometimes lies.

Many distractions are the fault of neither the listener nor the speaker. However, when you are the speaker, being aware of these sources of noise can help you reduce some of the noise that interferes with your audience’s ability to understand you.

5.5 STAGES OF LISTENING AND INEFFECTIVE LISTENING BEHAVIORS

Communication Elements, 9 elements of communication process Lunenburg, F. C. (2010). Communication: The process, barriers, and improving effectiveness. Schooling , 1 (1), 1-10.

As you read earlier, there are many factors that can interfere with listening, so you need to be able to manage a number of mental tasks at the same time in order to be a successful listener. Author Joseph DeVito has divided the listening process into five stages: receiving, understanding, remembering, evaluating, and responding (2000).

STAGE 1: RECEIVING

Receiving is the intentional focus on hearing a speaker’s message, which happens when we filter out other sources so that we can isolate the message and avoid the confusing mixture of incoming stimuli. At this stage, we are still only hearing the message. There are many reasons that we may not receive a message. We often refer to these as listening barriers. If we have barriers to our listening, it is important to be able to recognize them and avoid those behaviors that contribute to poor listening.

STAGE 2: UNDERSTANDING

In the understanding stage, we attempt to learn the meaning of the message, which is not always easy. For one thing, if a speaker does not enunciate clearly, it may be difficult to tell what the message was—did your friend say, “I think she’ll be late for class,” or “my teacher delayed the class”?

Even when we have understood the words in a message, because of the differences in our backgrounds and experience, we sometimes make the mistake of attaching our own meanings to the words of others. For example, say you have made plans with your friends to meet at a certain movie theater, but you arrive and nobody else shows up. Eventually, you find out that your friends are at a different theater all the way across town where the same movie is playing. Everyone else understood that the meeting place was the “west side” location, but you wrongly understood it as the “east side” location and therefore missed out on part of the fun.

The consequences of ineffective listening in a classroom can be much worse. When your professor advises students to get an “early start” on your speech, he or she probably hopes that you will begin your research right away and move on to developing a thesis statement and outlining the speech as soon as possible. However, students in your class might misunderstand the instructor’s meaning in several ways. One student might interpret the advice to mean that as long as she gets started, the rest of the assignment will have time to develop itself. Another student might instead think that to start early is to start on the Friday before the Monday due date instead of Sunday night.

So much of the way we understand others is influenced by our own perceptions and experiences. Therefore, at the understanding stage of listening, we should be on the lookout for places where our perceptions might differ from those of the speaker.

STAGE 3: REMEMBERING

Remembering begins with listening; if you can’t remember something that was said, you might not have been listening effectively. The most common reason for not remembering a message after the fact is because it wasn’t really learned in the first place. However, even when you are listening attentively, some messages are more difficult than others to understand and remember. Highly complex messages that are filled with detail call for highly developed listening skills. Moreover, if something distracts your attention even for a moment, you could miss out on information that explains other new concepts you hear when you begin to listen fully again.

It’s also important to know that you can improve your memory of a message by processing it meaningfully—that is, by applying it in ways that are meaningful to you. Instead of simply repeating a new acquaintance’s name over and over, for example, you might remember it by associating it with something in your own life. “Emily,” you might say, “reminds me of the Emily I knew in middle school,” or “Mr. Impiari’s name reminds me of the Impala my father drives.”

Finally, if understanding has been inaccurate, recollection of the message will also be inaccurate.

STAGE 4: EVALUATING

The fourth stage in the listening process is evaluating or judging the value of the message. We might be thinking, “This makes sense” or, conversely, “This is very odd.” Because everyone embodies biases and perspectives learned from widely diverse sets of life experiences, evaluations of the same message can vary widely from one listener to another. Even the most open-minded listeners will have opinions of a speaker, and those opinions will influence how the message is evaluated. People are more likely to evaluate a message positively if the speaker speaks clearly, presents ideas logically, and gives reasons to support the points made.

Unfortunately, personal opinions sometimes result in prejudiced evaluations. Imagine you’re listening to a speech given by someone from another country and this person has an accent that is hard to understand. You may have a hard time simply making out the speaker’s message. Some people find a foreign accent to be interesting or even exotic, while others find it annoying or even take it as a sign of ignorance. If a listener has a strong bias against foreign accents, the listener may not even attempt to attend to the message. If you mistrust a speaker because of an accent, you could be rejecting important or personally enriching information. Good listeners have learned to refrain from making these judgments and instead to focus on the speaker’s meanings.

STAGE 5: RESPONDING

Responding—sometimes referred to as feedback—is the fifth and final stage of the listening process. It’s the stage at which you indicate your involvement.

Almost anything you do at this stage can be interpreted as feedback. For example, you are giving positive feedback to your instructor if at the end of the class you stay behind to finish a sentence in your notes or approach the instructor to ask for clarification. The opposite kind of feedback is given by students who gather their belongings and rush out the door as soon as class is over.

Formative Feedback

Not all response occurs at the end of the message. Formative feedback is a natural part of the ongoing transaction between a speaker and a listener. As the speaker delivers the message, a listener signals his or her involvement with focused attention, note-taking, nodding, and other behaviors that indicate understanding or failure to understand the message. These signals are important to the speaker, who is interested in whether the message is clear and accepted or whether the content of the message is meeting the resistance of preconceived ideas. Speakers can use this feedback to decide whether additional examples, support materials, or explanation is needed.

Summative Feedback

Summative feedback is given at the end of the communication. When you attend a political rally, a presentation given by a speaker you admire, or even a class, there are verbal and nonverbal ways of indicating your appreciation for or your disagreement with the messages or the speakers at the end of the message. Maybe you’ll stand up and applaud a speaker you agreed with or just sit staring in silence after listening to a speaker you didn’t like. In other cases, a speaker may be attempting to persuade you to donate to a charity, so if the speaker passes a bucket and you make a donation, you are providing feedback on the speaker’s effectiveness. At the same time, we do not always listen most carefully to the messages of speakers we admire. Sometimes we simply enjoy being in their presence, and our summative feedback is not about the message but about our attitudes about the speaker. If your feedback is limited to something like, “I just love your voice,” you might be indicating that you did not listen carefully to the content of the message.

There is little doubt that by now, you are beginning to understand the complexity of listening and the great potential for errors. By becoming aware of what is involved with active listening and where difficulties might lie, you can prepare yourself both as a listener and as a speaker to minimize listening errors with your own public speeches.

INEFFECTIVE LISTENING BEHAVIORS

At times, the barriers to effective listening (i.e., why listening is difficult) cause us to engage in ineffective listening behaviors. When our goal is to create shared meaning with others, these behaviors interrupt this process.

Pseudo-listening – pretending to listen and appears attentive but is not listening to understand or interpret the information (listeners may respond with a smile, head-nod, or even a minimal verbal acknowledgment but are ignoring or not attending).

Selective Listening – selecting only the information that the listeners identify as relevant to their own needs or interests (listeners may have their own agenda and disregard topics if they do not align with their current attitudes or beliefs).

Insulated Listening – ignoring or avoiding information or certain topics of conversation (the opposite of selective listening).

Defensive Listening – taking innocent comments as personal attacks (listeners misinterpret or project feelings of insecurity,jealousy, and guilt, or lack of confidence in the other person).

Insensitive Listening – listening to information for its literal meaning and disregarding the other person’s feeling and emotions (listeners rarely pick-up on hidden meanings or subtle nonverbal cues and have difficulty expressing sympathy and empathy).

Stage Hogging – listening to express one’s own ideas or interests and be the center of attention (listeners often plan what they are going to say or interrupt while the other person is talking).

Ambushing – careful and attentive listening to collect information that can be used against the other person as an attack (listeners question, contradict, or oppose the other person to trap them or use their own words against them).

Multitasking – listening without full attention while attempting to complete more than one task at a time (listeners are actually “switch tasking” and your brain is switching from one task to another rapidly and the information is lost). Review the article from the NPR broadcast, “Think You’re Multitasking? Think Again” (Hamilton,2008).

5.6 LISTENING CRITICALLY AND ETHICALLY

As a student, you are exposed to many kinds of messages. You receive messages conveying academic information, institutional rules, instructions, and warnings; you also receive messages through political discourse, advertisements, gossip, jokes, song lyrics, text messages, invitations, web links, and all manners of communication. You know it’s not all the same, but it isn’t always clear how to separate the truth from the messages that are misleading or even blatantly false. Nor is it always clear which messages are intended to help the listener and which ones are merely self-serving for the speaker. Part of being a good listener is to learn when to use caution in evaluating the messages we hear.

Critical listening in this context means using careful thinking and reasoning to see whether a message makes sense in light of factual evidence.

Critical listening can be learned with practice but is not necessarily easy to do. Some people never learn this skill; instead, they take every message at face value even when those messages are in conflict with their knowledge. Problems occur when messages are repeated to others who have not yet developed the skills to discern the difference between a valid message and a mistaken one. Critical listening can be particularly difficult when the message is complex. Unfortunately, some speakers may make their messages intentionally complex to avoid critical scrutiny. For example, a city treasurer giving a budget presentation might use very large words and technical jargon, which make it difficult for listeners to understand the proposed budget and ask probing questions.

IMPROVE CRITICAL LISTENING

Critical listening is first and foremost a skill that can be learned and improved. Recognizing the Difference between Facts and Opinions Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan is credited with saying, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.” Part of critical listening is learning to separate opinions from facts, and this works two ways: critical listeners are aware of whether a speaker is delivering a factual message or a message based on opinion, and they are also aware of the interplay between their own opinions and facts as they listen to messages.

In American politics, the issue of health care reform is heavily laden with both opinions and facts, and it is extremely difficult to sort some of them out. A clash of fact versus opinion happened on September 9, 2010, during President Obama’s nationally televised speech to a joint session of Congress outlining his health care reform plan. In this speech, President Obama responded to several rumors about the plan, including the claim “that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false—the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.” At this point, one congressman yelled out, “You lie!” Clearly, this congressman did not have a very high opinion of either the health care reform plan or the president. However, when the nonpartisan watch group Factcheck.org examined the language of the proposed bill, they found that it had a section titled “No Federal Payment for Undocumented Aliens.”

Often when people have a negative opinion about a topic, they are unwilling to accept facts. Instead, they question all aspects of the speech and have a negative predisposition toward both the speech and the speaker. This is not to say that speakers should not express their opinions. Many of the greatest speeches in history include personal opinions. Consider, for example, Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, in which he expressed his personal wish for the future of American society. Critical listeners may agree or disagree with a speaker’s opinions, but the point is that they know when a message they are hearing is based on opinion and when it is factual.

UNCOVERING ASSUMPTIONS

If something is factual, supporting evidence exists. However, we still need to be careful about what evidence does and does not mean. Assumptions are gaps in a logical sequence that listeners passively fill with their own ideas and opinions and may or may not be accurate. When listening to a public speech, you may find yourself being asked to assume something is a fact when in reality many people question that fact. For example, suppose you’re listening to a speech on weight loss. The speaker talks about how people who are overweight are simply not motivated or lack the self-discipline to lose weight. The speaker has built the speech on the assumption that motivation and self-discipline are the only reasons why people can’t lose weight. You may think to yourself, what about genetics?

By listening critically, you will be more likely to notice unwarranted assumptions, which may prompt you to question the speaker if questions are taken or to do further research to examine the validity of the speaker’s assumptions. If, however, you sit passively by and let the speaker’s assumptions go unchallenged, you may find yourself persuaded by information that is not factual. When you listen critically, you might hear information that appears unsupported by evidence. You shouldn’t accept that information unconditionally.

FACTS VS. ASSUMPTIONS

Facts are verified by clear, unambiguous evidence. Assumptions are not supported by evidence.

Human progress has been possible, sometimes against great odds, because of the mental curiosity and discernment of a few people. In the late 1700’s when the technique of vaccination to prevent smallpox was introduced, it was opposed by both medical professionals and everyday citizens who staged public protests. More than two centuries later, vaccinations against smallpox, diphtheria, polio, and other infectious diseases have saved countless lives, yet popular opposition continues. Listeners should always be open to new ideas. We are not suggesting that you have to agree with every idea that you are faced with in life; rather, we are suggesting that you at least listen to the message and then evaluate the message.

Note-taking is a skill that improves with practice. You already know that it’s nearly impossible to write down everything a speaker says. In fact, in your attempt to record everything, you might fall behind and wish you had divided your attention differently between writing and listening. Careful, selective note-taking is important because we want an accurate record that reflects the meanings of the message. However much you might concentrate on the notes, you could inadvertently leave out an important word, such as “not,” and undermine the reliability of your otherwise carefully written notes. Instead, if you give the same care and attention to listening, you are less likely to make that kind of a mistake.

It’s important to find a balance between listening well and taking good notes. Many people struggle with this balance for a long time. For example, if you try to write down only key phrases instead of full sentences, you might find that you can’t remember how two ideas were related. In that case, too few notes were taken. At the opposite end, extensive note-taking can result in a loss of emphasis on the most important ideas.

To increase your critical listening skills, continue developing your ability to identify the central issues in messages so that you can take accurate notes that represent the meanings intended by the speaker.

LISTENING ETHICALLY

Ethical listening rests heavily on honest intentions. We should extend to speakers the same respect we want to receive when it’s our turn to speak. We should be facing the speaker with our eyes open. We should not be checking our cell phones. We should avoid any behavior that belittles the speaker or the message. Scholars Stephanie Coopman and James Lull emphasize the creation of a climate of caring and mutual understanding, observing that “respecting others’ perspectives is one hallmark of the effective listener.” Respect, or unconditional positive regard for others, means that you treat others with consideration and decency whether you agree with them or not. Professors Sprague, Stuart, and Bodary (2012) also urge us to treat the speaker with respect even when we disagree, don’t understand the message, or find a conversation boring. This doesn’t mean we must accept everything we hear; however, ethically we should refrain from trivializing each others’ concerns. We have all had the painful experience of being ignored or misunderstood. This is how we know that one of the greatest gifts one human can give to another is listening.

COMMUNICATION CODE OF ETHICS

In 1999, the National Communication Association officially adopted the Credo for Ethical Communication. Ultimately, the NCA Credo for Ethical Communication is a set of beliefs communication scholars have about the ethics of human communication Questions of right and wrong arise whenever people communicate. Ethical communication is fundamental to responsible thinking, decision making, and the development of relationships and communities within and across contexts, cultures, channels, and media. Moreover, ethical communication enhances human worth and dignity by fostering truthfulness, fairness, responsibility, personal integrity, and respect for self and others. We believe that unethical communication threatens the quality of all communication and consequently the well-being of individuals and the society in which we live. Therefore we, the members of the National Communication Association, endorse and are committed to practicing the following principles of ethical communication:

▪ We advocate truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and reason as essential to the integrity of communication.

▪ We endorse freedom of expression, diversity of perspective, and tolerance of dissent to achieve the informed and responsible decision making fundamental to a civil society.

▪ We strive to understand and respect other communicators before evaluating and responding to their messages.

▪ We promote access to communication resources and opportunities as necessary to fulfill human potential and contribute to the well being of families, communities, and society.

▪ We promote communication climates of caring and mutual understanding that respect the unique needs and characteristics of individual communicators.

▪ We condemn communication that degrades individuals and humanity through distortion, intimidation, coercion, and violence, and through the expression of intolerance and hatred.

▪ We are committed to the courageous expression of personal convictions in pursuit of fairness and justice.

▪ We advocate sharing information, opinions, and feelings when facing significant choices while also respecting privacy and confidentiality.

▪ We accept responsibility for the short- and long-term consequences of our own communication and expect the same of others.

Prior to this chapter, you may not have thought of listening as a skill or even something that we can improve upon. Hopefully, you now have a deeper understanding of the role that effective listening plays in our professional, personal and even public lives. Listening is an intentional act that requires effort on our part and respect for others. It is also beneficial for us to understand others’ listening styles so that we can be more effective in how we speak with or address them. Listening critically requires us to suspend our judgment of others or others’ ideas and understand their point of view before coming to our own conclusions. Indeed, listening is an inherently ethical act in which we recognize and acknowledge one another.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. How does listening behavior affect the quality of our personal relationships? If someone that you are in a relationship with changes the way they listen to you, how might that affect the relationship in a positiveway?

2. After reading this chapter, in what ways will you consider improving your own listening behaviors?

3. In what ways does critical listening impact our professional relationships?

• ambushing

• critical listening

• defensive listening

• ethical listening

• insulated listening

• listening vs. hearing

• listening styles

• multitasking

• insensitive listening

• physical noise

• psychological noise

• physiological noise

• pseudo-listening

• selective listening

• semantic noise

• stage hogging

Bank, J. (2009). Cost of illegal immigrants. Ask Factcheck. Retrieved from http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/cost-of-illegal immigrants/

Cooperman, S. & Lull, J. (2012). Public speaking: The evolving art (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

DeVito, J. A. (2000). The elements of public speaking (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.

Hamilton, J. (2008, October 2). Think you’re multitasking? Think again . Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/ story.php?storyId=95256794

Jarvis, T. (2009, November). How to talk so people really listen: Four ways to make yourself heard. O Magazine. Retrieved from: http://www.oprah.com/money/Communication-Skills-How-to Make-Yourself-Heard.

NCA. (1999). NCA credo for ethical communication [PDF file]. Retrieved from https://www.natcom.org/sites/default/files/pages/1999_Public_Statements_NCA_Credo_for_Ethical_Communication_ November.pdf

Watson, K., Barker, L., and Weaver, J. (1995). The listening styles profile (LSP-16): Development and validation of an instrument to assess four listening styles. International Journal of Listening,9 (1).

Retrieved from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/ 10904018.1995.10499138.

Components of some images were retrieved from Pixaby and were CC0.

• Smileys

• Person with gears

All images not credited otherwise were created by H. Rayl and are available under the CC-BY 4.0 license.

INTERPERSONAL SKILLS
Communication Skills

Listening Skills

Search SkillsYouNeed:

The SkillsYouNeed Guide to Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal Skills:

A - Z List of Interpersonal Skills
Interpersonal Skills Self-Assessment
What is Communication?
Interpersonal Communication Skills
Tips for Effective Interpersonal Communication
Principles of Communication
Barriers to Effective Communication
Avoiding Common Communication Mistakes
Social Skills
Getting Social Online
Giving and Receiving Feedback
Improving Communication
Interview Skills
Telephone Interviews
Interviewing Skills
Business Language Skills
The Ladder of Inference
Top Tips for Effective Listening
The 10 Principles of Listening
Effective Listening Skills

Barriers to Effective Listening

Types of Listening
Active Listening
Mindful Listening
Empathic Listening
Listening Misconceptions
Non-Verbal Communication
Personal Appearance
Body Language
Non-Verbal Communication: Face and Voice
Verbal Communication
Effective Speaking
Conversational Skills
How to Keep a Conversation Flowing
Conversation Tips for Getting What You Want
Giving a Speech
Questioning Skills and Techniques
Types of Question
Clarification
Emotional Intelligence
Conflict Resolution and Mediation Skills
Customer Service Skills
Team-Working, Groups and Meetings
Decision-Making and Problem-Solving
Negotiation and Persuasion Skills
Personal and Romantic Relationship Skills

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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. As a result, communication breaks down and the sender of the message can easily become frustrated or irritated.

If there is one communication skill you should aim to master, then listening is it.

Listening is so important that many top employers provide listening skills training for their employees. This is not surprising when you consider that good listening skills can lead to better customer satisfaction, greater productivity with fewer mistakes, and increased sharing of information that in turn can lead to more creative and innovative work.

Many successful leaders and entrepreneurs credit their success to effective listening skills. Richard Branson frequently quotes listening as one of the main factors behind the success of Virgin.

Effective listening is a skill that underpins all positive human relationships.

Spend some time thinking about and developing your listening skills – they are the building blocks of success.

See our pages: Employability Skills and Customer Service Skills for more examples of the importance of listening in the workplace.

Good listening skills also have benefits in our personal lives, including:

A greater number of friends and social networks, improved self-esteem and confidence, higher grades at school and in academic work, and even better health and general well-being.

Studies have shown that, whereas speaking raises blood pressure, attentive listening can bring it down.

Listening is Not the Same as Hearing

Hearing refers to the sounds that enter your ears. It is a physical process that, provided you do not have any hearing problems, happens automatically.

Listening, however, requires more than that: it requires focus and concentrated effort, both mental and sometimes physical as well.

Listening is not a passive process. In fact, the listener can, and should, be at least as engaged in the process as the speaker. The phrase ‘ active listening ’ is used to describe this process of being fully involved.

See our pages: Active Listening and Types of Listening for more information.

The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention.

Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen

We Spend a lot of Time Listening

Adults spend an average of 70% of their time engaged in some sort of communication.

Of this, research shows that an average of 45% is spent listening compared to 30% speaking, 16% reading and 9% writing. (Adler, R. et al. 2001). That is, by any standards, a lot of time listening. It is worthwhile, therefore, taking a bit of extra time to ensure that you listen effectively.

Time Spent Communicating A 'pie in pie' chart to show the significance of listening.

Based on the research of: Adler, R., Rosenfeld, L. and Proctor, R. (2001) Interplay: the process of interpersonal communicating (8th edn), Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt .

The Purpose of Listening

There is no doubt that effective listening is an extremely important life skill. Why is listening so important?

Listening serves a number of possible purposes, and the purpose of listening will depend on the situation and the nature of the communication.

To specifically focus on the messages being communicated, avoiding distractions and preconceptions.

To gain a full and accurate understanding into the speakers point of view and ideas.

To critically assess what is being said. (See our page on Critical Thinking for more).

To observe the non-verbal signals accompanying what is being said to enhance understanding.

To show interest, concern and concentration.

To encourage the speaker to communicate fully, openly and honestly.

To develop an selflessness approach, putting the speaker first.

To arrive at a shared and agreed understanding and acceptance of both sides views.

Often our main concern while listening is to formulate ways to respond. This is not a function of listening. We should try to focus fully on what is being said and how it's being said in order to more fully understand the speaker.

Effective listening requires concentration and the use of your other senses - not just hearing the words spoken.

Listening is not the same as hearing and in order to listen effectively you need to use more than just your ears.

See our page: The Ten Principles of Listening .

A2 listening

Are you a learner at A2 English level (pre-intermediate) ? This section offers listening practice to help you understand common vocabulary and expressions in short, clear dialogues. Situations include simple explanations, introductions, messages and announcements.

Each lesson has a preparation task, an audio recording and two tasks to check your understanding and to practise a variety of listening skills. Make a start today!

Choose a listening lesson

A morning briefing

Listen to a morning briefing to practise and improve your listening skills.

Read more about A morning briefing
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An invitation to a party

Listen to some phone messages with directions to practise and improve your listening skills.

Read more about An invitation to a party

Changing a meeting time

Listen to two colleagues arranging a meeting to practise and improve your listening skills.

Read more about Changing a meeting time

Changing plans

Listen to two people talking about changing their plans to practise and improve your listening skills.

Read more about Changing plans

Facts and figures

Listen to the lecturer giving some facts and figures to practise and improve your listening skills.

Read more about Facts and figures

Four conversations

Listen to four conversations to practise and improve your listening skills.

Read more about Four conversations

Instructions for an assignment

Listen to a university teacher giving instructions for an assignment to practise and improve your listening skills.

Read more about Instructions for an assignment

Leaving a message

Listen to someone leaving a message to practise and improve your listening skills.

Read more about Leaving a message

Missing a class

Listen to a student explain why she can't come to class to practise and improve your listening skills.

Read more about Missing a class

Transport announcements

Listen to some transport announcements to practise and improve your listening skills.

Read more about Transport announcements

Understanding an explanation

Listen to a professor's explanation to practise and improve your listening skills.

Read more about Understanding an explanation

Who's who in the office

Listen to two people talking about the people in their office to practise and improve your listening skills.

Read more about Who's who in the office

Learn to listen with confidence

Our online English classes feature lots of useful learning materials and activities to help you listen and respond with confidence in a safe and inclusive learning environment.

Practise listening to your classmates in live group classes, get listening support from a personal tutor in one-to-one lessons or practise by yourself at your own speed with a self-study course.

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Online courses

Group and one-to-one classes with expert teachers.

Learn English in your own time, at your own pace.

One-to-one sessions focused on a personal plan.

Get the score you need with private and group classes.

Work Life is Atlassian’s flagship publication dedicated to unleashing the potential of every team through real-life advice, inspiring stories, and thoughtful perspectives from leaders around the world.

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Senior Quantitative Researcher, People Insights

Principal Writer

Two people demonstrating the art of active listening

Hear us out! Active listening is worth the effort

You may only need your ears to hear, but you need your whole brain to listen.

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Active listening might sound like something that happens on a treadmill or an exercise bike. But while this communication technique doesn’t actually involve breaking a sweat, it does require you to invest some energy and stretch your comprehension muscles.

Let’s explore how active listening differs from the more halfhearted hearing most of us have grown accustomed to – and how you can condition your own active listening skills (no treadmill required).

What is active listening?

Active listening means listening to someone with the intent of hearing them, understanding their message, and retaining what they say.

You can think of active listening as the most engaged and committed form of listening to another person (you might also hear it called “attentive listening”). Beyond just hearing another person, you’re giving them your full attention. The term “ active listening ” has been around since the 1950s and was first used in an article written by psychologists Carl Rogers and Richard Farson, who wrote, “It requires that we get inside the speaker, that we grasp, from his point of view, just what it is he is communicating to us. More than that, we just convey to the speaker that we are seeing things from his point of view.”

Active listening examples

So what does active listening look like in the real world? Compare this attentive listening style to its pesky yet far more common counterpart: passive listening.

⛔️ Passive listening: Your direct report stops by your desk to vent about an interpersonal conflict. You listen to their side of the story while clearing out old emails, occasionally butting in to offer some advice and prove that you’re paying attention.

✅ Active listening: You remove your hands from your computer keyboard, silence your phone, and then turn to fully face your direct report. You wait until they’re finished before paraphrasing the details of the conflict and asking some follow-up questions.

⛔️ Passive listening: A colleague walks you through the steps of a process you’re taking over. You follow along quietly and politely (while mentally making your to-do list for the day). There are a few steps that are unclear, but you’ll sort it out later.

✅ Active listening: As your colleague breaks down the process, you ask clarifying questions to dig deeper into any confusing steps. When your coworker is finished, you quickly summarize the gist of the process as you’ve understood it, and your plan for what you’ll do next.

Why is active listening important?

Listening to understand, rather than just to hear, requires more of a conscious effort than the passive approach most of us are used to. So is it worth the effort?

Absolutely. It’s tough to overstate the importance of listening skills.

It boosts understanding : The whole point of active listening is to improve comprehension. When it’s done correctly, both the sharer and listener have the chance to ask questions, give feedback, and reach a mutual understanding.
It improves relationships : We all want to feel seen, valued, and understood. That doesn’t happen when someone gives us only half of their attention. Research shows that the concentration and sensitivity involved with active listening increase trust and benefits our relationships, amping up the harmony and collaboration on your team.
It reduces bias : We process information through our own lenses. It’s human nature. But active listening forces you to step outside of yourself and see things from another person’s point of view. That can ease the biases and assumptions we tend to bring into our interactions – and when that happens, everyone wins.

Why is active listening so hard?

If active listening is so powerful, why don’t more of us do it? There are a number of challenges and roadblocks contributing to the uphill battle:

Too many distractions

Emails, instant messages, random thoughts, a pet in need of attention. Most of us are plagued by constant distractions that sabotage our focus.

Personal emotions and perceptions

Whether you’re doing it consciously or not, you bring your own perceptions and opinions to conversations, which can make it difficult to understand the speaker’s point of view. It also sometimes means you spend the time you should be listening on structuring your own defense and argument, rather than striving for true comprehension.

Information overload

Some research indicates that the average person’s attention span is a measly eight seconds. Even if that’s a gross underestimate, this much is true: we have a hard time focusing on something for an extended period of time. If your conversational partner isn’t known for their conciseness, it becomes that much tougher to stay engaged with the information and commit to actively listening.

Our penchant for problem-solving

Humans tend to like solutions, not problems. So, particularly in circumstances when someone is sharing a challenge or describing a conflict, our natural tendency is to jump in with advice or an answer right away. Those reactions are well-meaning, but they can also be a major barrier to active listening when you’re only listening to find a potential answer, rather than understand the ins and outs of the problem.

The three a’s of active listening

Attitude: Approach conversations with a constructive attitude and an open mind.

Attention: Focus your attention solely on the content that’s being shared.

Adjustment: Maintain a degree of flexibility; follow the path of what your partner is sharing with you, rather than trying to anticipate what’s next.

How to improve your active listening skills

There’s no shortage of hurdles standing between you and becoming the go-to listener on your team . Here are a few active listening techniques to help you leap over those roadblocks.

1. Set yourself up for peak focus

First things first – you need to create an environment where you’re able to zone in on the person who’s speaking. Exactly what that looks like depends on your circumstances, but here are a few ideas:

Set your devices to “do not disturb” for the duration of the conversation.
Find a quiet place where you and that person can talk, if you’re discussing in-person. If you’re chatting virtually, close out all other browser tabs.
Try to notice and tune out your own internal dialogue so you can focus intently on the other person.

Even if you employ those tricks, you might not be in the right headspace to fully listen to another person. Perhaps you’re in the middle of a challenging task or dealing with a personal problem that’s consuming your mental energy.

If that’s the case, ask the other person if you can connect later when you’re able to give them your full attention::

“I can tell this is super important to you and I want to be able to give you my full attention. Can we reconnect on this when I’m not feeling so distracted and preoccupied?”

2. Use nonverbal cues to reinforce your attention

If you’ve ever conversed with someone who couldn’t stop fidgeting in their chair or checking their watch, you know that nonverbal communication can be a powerful force. Show someone you’re listening using these nonverbal cues:

Maintain eye contact for three seconds before briefly looking away. Psychologists say that’s the ideal length for showing interest without making people uncomfortable.
Lean forward to show your engagement with the information that’s being shared.
Nod or use positive facial expressions such as smiles or raised eyebrows to express agreement.
Place your hands in front of you rather than crossing your arms or resting your chin in your hand (which can indicate boredom ).

3. Avoid interrupting

Struggling to keep your lips zipped until it’s your turn to ask questions or offer feedback? Rather than placing your hands in front of you as suggested above, try to keep one hand over your mouth. It’s a subtle but powerful reminder that you should wait your turn to speak.

This is even easier if you’re conversing remotely – simply keep yourself on mute until your conversational partner is finished.

4. Summarize what has been shared

Paraphrasing is a key part of active listening. It can feel a little unnatural at first, but it’s crucial to demonstrate that you’ve understood what the other person is saying before moving forward with the discussion. Try using some of these segues:

“It sounds like you’re saying that…”
“My understanding is…”
“What I’m gathering from this conversation is…”
“Am I right in thinking that…?”

From there, you can hit the major pieces of information from your conversational partner. This gives them a chance to affirm that you’re understanding them correctly or offer corrections or clarifying information.

5. Ask open-ended questions

Ultimately, the goal of active listening is to fully wrap your head around the information being shared with you — and that might not happen right away. In those cases, you’ll need to wait until the speaker is finished and then ask some clarifying questions to get more information.

The most effective questions are open-ended, meaning they require a full response from the other person, rather than a quick “yes” or “no” (that’s known as a closed-ended question). Here’s an example of the difference:

Closed-ended question: “Have you told the customer that we’d give them a full refund?”
Open-ended question: “What have you already tried to smooth this over with the customer?”

Why does that distinction matter? Closed questions box people into thinking there’s a “correct” answer, rather than giving them an opportunity to openly share information with you.

6. Use active listening exercises

You don’t need to work on developing good listening skills all on your own. These simple active listening exercises will help you and your team practice top-notch communication and effective listening together: Swap introductions: Pair up team members and have them share a one- or two-minute introduction with each other. Come back together as a group and have the team members introduce their partner to the entire team, using the information they just learned. It’s a low-pressure way to practice focusing and summarizing.

Practice silence: Again, split your team into pairs. Have one person tell a story about their life and instruct the other person to say nothing at all. They should sit in silence. Afterwards, connect on how that felt for each person – including whether the silence was uncomfortable and what nonverbal cues they noticed.

Askers and tellers: Choose one person to share a story and split the rest of your team into “askers” and “tellers.” Askers can only ask questions of the speaker, while tellers can only share their similar experiences. Afterwards, connect to debrief and figure out what helped the sharer feel the most heard.

Active listening takes effort

On the surface, listening seems like it should be simple. All you need to do is sit there, keep your lips zipped, and take in information. In reality, effective listening is complex – especially when there are a slew of barriers that sabotage our ability to fully comprehend another person.

But better comprehension and improved relationships are well worth the effort.

Advice, stories, and expertise about work life today.

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Proud to be Primary

Be inspired, motivate kids, and make a positive impact in your classroom.

1:54 pm By Proud to be Primary 2 Comments

7 Listening Activities to Get Your Students Attentive & Ready to Learn

Listening activities: 7 important ideas for teaching listening skills in the classroom, such as whole body listening, class games, and daily practice ideas.

Listening Activities for Kids: Teaching Listening in the Classroom

As teachers, we always hope that our students are listening carefully to our lessons and assignment instructions. Unfortunately, we find that sometimes they aren’t paying close attention to what we’re saying and this can affect their learning. This becomes a problem when they miss key information during instruction. It’s a good idea to take some time to explicitly teach listening skills so that students retain more of the information we are giving them.

How do we do that? Well, in this post I’m going to share with you 7 strategies for teaching listening skills in the classroom.

These 7 actionable ways to teach listening skills in the classroom will be just the ideas that you need. Your students will gain knowledge of what it looks like and feels like to be an active listener, engaged and responsive to a speaker, and able to complete a task by following directions. By taking the time to practice good listening skills with your students, I’m sure you will find your job just a little bit easier.

7 Listening Activities that Promote Attentiveness in the Classroom

1. model good listening strategies.

In front of the classroom, play a short game of Simon Says with one child volunteering to be “Simon” and you are the game player. Model good listening strategies such as looking the speaker in the eye, repeating the directions to yourself (aloud so they can hear you), not starting until you’ve heard all the instructions (say aloud, “Ok, he’s finished giving me the instructions so now I may begin”), and speak aloud what you’re going to do as if you were picturing it in your mind before doing it. After “Simon” gives you a few short instructions, ask the class to tell you what they witnessed you did well. Write their answers in a thinking map on the board.

Classroom meetings are another great opportunity to model and practice listening skills. The class sits together in the circle and takes turns sharing their thoughts and feelings on the topic being discussed. Children are encouraged to look at the speaker and listen to what they say.

2. Partner Conversations

Pair children up and give them a general discussion topic. Each child takes turns being the speaker or the listener. When the speaker is finished speaking, have the listener repeat one of the speaker’s main points, and offer them a compliment. Having “Think, Pair, Shares” during lessons and discussions is a great way to practice receiving and sharing what is heard.

3. Teach “Whole Body Listening”

A much-used concept in the early primary grades is “whole body listening.” In whole body listening, a student practices keeping particular key parts of their body focused on the speaker. Their eyes are watching, ears are listening, brain is focused on the speaker’s information, mouth is closed, shoulders are squared toward the speaker, heart is caring about the message, hands are folded or in lap, feet are still on the floor.

In other words, they are actively “listening” with their entire bodies. Teach your whole class this concept and practice it as a group, before expecting them to put it into practice. I use this book, Whole Body Listening Larry at School by Elizabeth Sautter , to teach this concept. More go-to books for reinforcing listening skills are Listen, Buddy , Listen and Learn , and My Mouth is a Volcano .

You can grab a fantastic FREE whole body listening pack from Erica Bohrer to help teach your students this important skill.

4. Daily Listening Activities

One way to see a marked improvement in your students’ listening skills is to give them short, daily skills practice. Any daily practice should be fun, and practical. In this case, the skills should include encouraging kids to focus on oral instructions, visualizing the tasks given, and completing them accurately. Give them short instructions verbally for completing a task, or two or three tasks in succession (depending on their age/cognitive development), and have them practice listening and completing the tasks without repeating the instructions.

See our Listening Mats in Store

One idea for this activity is to have them pull out a blank sheet of paper and give them instructions. For example, “Draw a large brown oval in the center of your paper. Add an orange letter V in the center. Use a black crayon to draw two large circles, side by side, above the V” (and they end up with a basic sketch of an owl on their paper that they can finish drawing details and color on their own). Want some pre-made activities for daily practice such as this? Try my HUGE assortment of Listening Mats, perfect for any time of the year .

Listening Activities for Kids: listening mats

5. The Storytelling Listening Game

In this game, you start a story with a beginning phrase, and then each child in the classroom adds one word to the story in turn. Students must be active participants and follow the story closely so that when their time comes to add a word, the story will make sense. Another way to practice this is by playing a traditional game of Telephone where a message is passed around the room to see if it stays the same.

6. Storytelling Pods

Sort children into groups of three. In these “pods,” they are to play the storytelling game, only in successive story events rather than one word. For example, the first student starts with an event such as “The rabbit found a carrot in the garden.” Then the second student adds an event that happens afterward in the story, such as “The carrot was too big to carry.” The third student adds, “So the rabbit put it in a wagon to pull it to his burrow.” After the time is given for the pods to come up with their three-event stories, instruct the students to move to a new pod. In those groups, they must retell their stories with perfect accuracy to their new pod members.

7. 20 Questions Listening Game

In this classic game, lots of listening skills are practiced without even explicitly calling it a “lesson in listening skills”. Play this game any time you feel you need subject review, and practicing listening skills at the same time! For instance, tell the class you are an item that starts with a certain letter, a fictional character, or a Science object you’ve recently learned about. Have them ask you 20 yes/no questions to try to figure out what you are.

Listening Activities for Kids: listening games

Listening Activities and Resources for Teachers

Listening mats.

Practice and building listening skills year-round with Listening Mats . Students must listen, visualize, and think what is read and complete the appropriate task on the mat (picture) provided. They will build listening and reading skills through repeated practice.

There are 20 different Listening Mats are included for each month. There are 3 variations of these printable activity mats included. Every mat covers a different topic or theme. Each type of mat covers and builds different listening skills and following instructions.

listening activity mats for daily practice

FREE Listening Activities

Download the FREE printable Listening Mats today by clicking the image below. These activities will help teach kids to focus on oral instructions, visualize the tasks given, and complete tasks accurately.

More Listening Activities for Kids

Teaching Respect

Teaching Responsibility

Social Skills Games

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7 types of listening that can change your life and work

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7 types of listening skills

Why is listening so important in life and at work?

Learn all types of listening to improve your life and your work

The importance of listening can’t be overstated.

While learning to communicate what you want to say is important , knowing how to listen using different types of listening skills is just as crucial for communication.

Not only can it help you process information on different levels, but it can also help you build relationships with others.

That’s because listening goes deeper than just hearing.

It’s also much more than listening to the words someone else is saying. While this is one type of listening, it isn’t the only one that matters.

Let’s discuss the various types of listening and why listening is important for helping you advance your career and life.

Informational listening
Discriminative listening
Biased listening
Sympathetic listening
Comprehensive listening
Empathetic or therapeutic listening
Critical listening

There are several types of listening you can develop both at home and at work.

Let’s explore seven of these types of listening, why they matter, and what they can look like:

1. Informational listening

When you want to learn something, you’ll use informational listening to understand and retain information.

It usually takes a high level of concentration to perform this type of listening. That’s because you need to be highly engaged to understand a new concept.

You also need to apply critical thinking to what you are learning. This is so you can understand what you’re learning within the context of relevant information.

Some examples of informational listening include:

Work training
Self-paced learning at home or at work
Listening to an educational ebook

When you know how to use informational listening, you empower yourself to become a better learner. By actively learning and improving yourself, you can become a more valuable asset in your place of work.

You can also feel more fulfilled when you pursue your passions and learn something new at home.

2. Discriminative listening

Discriminative listening is the first listening type that you’re born with.

Everyone innately has discriminative listening skills.

You use this type of listening before you even know how to understand words. Instead of relying on words, discriminative listening uses tone of voice, verbal cues, and other changes in sound.

Discriminative listening is how babies understand the intention of a phrase before they can understand words. If someone speaks to them in a happy and amused tone of voice, they’ll smile and laugh back.

They can also tell who is talking because they recognize different voices.

But discriminative listening isn’t just for babies.

If you’re listening to a conversation happening in a foreign language, you’ll likely automatically use your discriminative listening skills.

These will allow you to analyze tone and inflection to get an idea of what is going on.

You can also use nonverbal cues to listen and analyze. For instance, someone’s facial expressions, body language, and other mannerisms can tell you a lot about the meaning of someone’s message.

You shouldn't discount discriminative listening, even if you understand someone’s language.

This listening style is key to understanding the subtle cues in a conversation. Using this listening skill can help you read between the lines and hear what remains unspoken.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say you ask one of your colleagues if they agree with a course of action.

They say yes, but you can tell from their body language, such as shifting uncomfortably, that something is wrong.

Using your discriminative listening skills, you can pick up on this and ask them if they’re certain. You can also ask if something is going on that they’d like to discuss.

sitting-woman-listening-to-another-woman-types-of-listening

3. Biased listening

Biased listening is also known as selective listening.

Someone who uses biased listening will only listen for information that they specifically want to hear.

This listening process can lead to a distortion of facts. That’s because the person listening isn’t fully in tune with what the speaker wishes to communicate.

Let’s say your superior is briefing you on a new project. You’re waiting to hear about the details of this assignment because you’ve been excited for a long time about it.

Because you’re so focused on the details of the assignment, you don’t fully hear everything your superior says. As a result, you hear your superior explain how you’ll be judged on this project, but you don’t fully process it.

Because you don’t have this information, you may not perform as well as you could if you had understood all the details.

4. Sympathetic listening

Sympathetic listening is driven by emotion.

Instead of focusing on the message spoken through words, the listener focuses on the feelings and emotions of the speaker.

This is done to process these feelings and emotions.

By using sympathetic listening, you can provide the support the speaker needs. You can understand how they’re really feeling , not what they say they are feeling.

The speaker will feel heard and validated when you take the time to pay attention in this way.

Sympathetic listening is crucial if you want to build a deeper relationship with someone in your life.

For example, let’s say you run into a work colleague at the grocery store. They seem upset, so you decide to listen to what they have to say.

You also use sympathetic listening to feel how they are feeling. In doing this, you notice how frustrated they are about the lack of recognition they are getting at work.

As a result, you can offer your support and sympathize with their situation.

two-women-listening-to-one-woman-types-of-listening

5. Comprehensive listening

Unlike discriminative listening, comprehensive listening requires language skills.

This type of listening is usually developed in early childhood.

People use comprehensive listening to understand what someone is saying using words.

Several other types of listening build on comprehensive listening. For example, you need to use comprehensive listening to use informational listening and learn something new.

At work and in your life, you’ll likely use a combination of comprehensive and discriminative listening to understand the messages people are giving you.

For example, let’s say your colleague briefs you on a project. You’ll need to use comprehensive listening to analyze the words and understand the message.

You’ll also use comprehensive listening when you receive feedback .

6. Empathetic or therapeutic listening

Empathetic listening is useful to help you see from other people’s perspectives.

Using this type of listening, you can try to understand someone else’s point of view as they’re speaking. You can also try to imagine yourself in the other person’s shoes.

Instead of just focusing on their message, you can use empathetic listening to relate to someone else’s experiences as if they were your own.

This is different from sympathetic listening.

With sympathetic listening, you try to understand someone’s feelings to provide support. But you don’t necessarily try to imagine what it’d feel like to be in their position.

Let’s say your superior just announced that this week’s company outing is canceled due to budget cuts.

By using empathetic listening, you can tell how much pressure your superior is feeling. You can imagine yourself having to break the bad news.

You know there’s pressure from higher-ups to respect the budget. You also know that there’s pressure from employees.

Instead of getting upset, you understand why your superior made this decision. That’s because you can imagine what it’s like to be in their shoes at this moment.

7. Critical listening

If you need to analyze complex information, you’ll need to use critical listening.

Using critical thinking while listening goes deeper than comprehensive listening. Instead of taking the information at face value, you can use critical listening to evaluate what’s being said.

Critical listening is crucial when problem-solving at work.

For example, you’d use this type of listening when trying to choose how to handle an unusual and complex client request.

You need to use this skill to analyze solutions offered by other people and decide if you agree or not.

To do this, you don’t just need to hear their words. You also need to look at the bigger picture and compare everything you know.

man-and-woman-listening-to-business-woman-types-of-listening

Why is listening so important in life and at work?

Listening is a key component of effective communication skills .

Regardless of the type, listening is key to understanding what other people are really trying to say. Without listening, it's easy to get something wrong and make assumptions.

On the other hand, when you actively listen, you can fully communicate with someone else.

Listening is the most important part of communication. That’s because it allows you to come up with a substantial and meaningful response. You can pick up on subtleties you wouldn’t have otherwise, especially with body language .

If something isn’t clear, you can ask clarifying questions. This is something you might not have done without active listening.

At work, communication is an important soft skill. According to LinkedIn's 2019 Global Talent Trends report, 80% of companies say that soft skills are increasingly important to their success.

Listening is also important for productive collaboration .

According to the same LinkedIn report, collaboration is the third most important soft skill companies need.

Imagine trying to collaborate if you can’t actively listen to your colleagues. Information gets lost, and misunderstandings occur.

The same can happen if everyone on the team uses different levels of listening. Some people will be more engaged than others. Not everyone will get the same understanding of the same conversation.

You can avoid this if everyone actively listens to each other.

Plus, when you actively listen, your colleagues and your superiors will notice that you come up with meaningful responses.

Listening is also crucial if you want to learn effectively.

Without attentive listening, it can be easy to miss small details that make a difference in your learning.

man-giving-presentation-in-office-types-of-listening

Active listening games

You can improve team communication with active listening games.

In one such game, you and your colleagues can split up into groups of two. The first person in each group is given a picture, while the other person is given a pen and paper.

The second participant needs to ask questions in order to accurately draw the image the first participant is holding.

In another game, participants need to mime non-verbal cues to express their feelings about a topic. The other participants need to write down what they believe the other person feels.

Finally, you can practice active listening by having all participants listen to one person speak for three to five minutes. During this time, no other participants may speak. Afterwards, the other participants need to paraphrase what they think the other person said.

four-people-listening-to-one-person-types-of-listening

Learn all types of listening to improve your life and your work

One type of listening isn’t better than the other. Instead, these seven types of listening work together to help you better understand the messages you receive.

By being a good listener, you can become a better communicator, avoid misunderstandings, and learn new information more easily.

If you’re struggling to become an active listener, you’re not alone. You can make it easier to work on those skills through coaching from experts at BetterUp.

Schedule a coaching demo today to see how it can help you become a better listener.

Elevate your communication skills

Unlock the power of clear and persuasive communication. Our coaches can guide you to build strong relationships and succeed in both personal and professional life.

Elizabeth Perry, ACC

Elizabeth Perry is a Coach Community Manager at BetterUp. She uses strategic engagement strategies to cultivate a learning community across a global network of Coaches through in-person and virtual experiences, technology-enabled platforms, and strategic coaching industry partnerships. With over 3 years of coaching experience and a certification in transformative leadership and life coaching from Sofia University, Elizabeth leverages transpersonal psychology expertise to help coaches and clients gain awareness of their behavioral and thought patterns, discover their purpose and passions, and elevate their potential. She is a lifelong student of psychology, personal growth, and human potential as well as an ICF-certified ACC transpersonal life and leadership Coach.

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7 Targeted Active Listening Games, Exercises and Activities for Adults
Active Listening >>

Feature image for the Article '7 Unique Active Listening games, exercise and activities for Adults. Three women and one man, in casual attire, sitting in a corporate training room holding slips of paper and a drawing board for team building activity.

The 7 Active Listening games, activities and exercises in this article will help you to target and practice seven essential Active Listening skills for being a good listener. They’re not simply warm-up activities! They are designed for adults (not children) and suitable for both personal listening development and workplace training workshops. Step-by-step instructions are provided.

Index of Active Listening Games, Exercises and Activities for Adults

Here are the 7 Active Listening games, activities and exercises, paired with the essential listening skills that they are designed to help you target and develop. Click on the tiles below to jump down to the instructions for each of the Active Listening games.

It’s How They Say It

Recognising and Interpreting Non-Verbal Cues

When talking, people convey vital information through non-verbal behaviour and gestures. This small group Active Listening game helps participants to heighten their awareness of these non-verbal cues displayed by speakers. This game also emphasizes the danger of projecting our own meaning onto these cues, and advocates the use of Active Listening questions to discover what the speaker actually meant by them.

Designed for training workshops
Active Listening Games Resource: 11 Conversation topics
Active Listening Games Resource: List of 11 non-verbal cues

Tell Me What You See

Asking Questions To Seek Information and Clarify Understanding

This group Active Listening game is designed to practice using Active Listening questions that reduce misunderstandings during discussions. It also promotes collaboration.

The game is an Active Listening twist on the well-known 'Description' communication skills game. Breaking into pairs, group participants take turns asking Active Listening questions about a simple drawing that they cannot see in order to draw it as accurately as possible. Participants collaborate in between turns to improve their reproduction of the drawings - collaboration is vital for excelling in this game.

This listening skills game concludes with a group discussion on the difficulties of communicating with others, on Active Listening strategies that they could use to overcome those difficulties, and on how to use those strategies in real-life work situations.

Active Listening Games Resource: Two printable simple drawings

Just Listen

Listening Without interrupting

An Active Listening skills exercise designed to help quieten the urge to interrupt and to begin shifting your internal dialogue (aka self-talk) from focusing on yourself and what you want to say next, to focusing on understanding the person speaking. This exercise is done with another person. So, you will need to enlist a volunteer.

Designed for personal listening development and adaptable for training workshops
Active Listening Games Resource: 14 Conversation starters

Listen First, Speak Second

Having the Mindset of a Listener

A solo Active Listening skills exercise to develop the habit of entering discussions with the mindset of ‘listening first to understand the speaker.’ Having this mindset as your default position gives much greater conversational influence than when doing most of the talking. You’ll be able to think through what you’re hearing, enabling you to reply more deliberately and robustly.

Solo Active Listening skills exercise

A Mile in Their Shoes

Developing Cognitive Empathy with Your Discussion Partner

An Active Listening skills activity for pairs (or done with a volunteer). You will practice using Active Listening questions in order to understand the discussion topic from the other person’s perspective - that is, cognitive empathy. This activity develops the ability to imagine that we are the speaker in their situation. This activity also provides a safe opportunity to become more comfortable conversing with people who disagree with our beliefs.

Uncovering Core Beliefs

This group listening skills activity enables participants to practise using ‘The 3 Whys’ Active Listening technique. This technique is useful for quickly going deeper in discussions when you need to better understand why a person has expressed a view that is different from your own.

Designed for training workshops and adaptable for personal listening development
Active Listening Games Resource: 10 Thought-Provoking Conversation Starters

The Emotion-Whisperer

Utilising Emotional Intelligence

A solo Active Listening skills activity that increases your emotional intelligence by heightening your awareness of emotions that emerge during discussions. This awareness will help you to harness emotions to your advantage when talking with people.

Solo Active Listening skills activity

Structure of the Active Listening Games, Exercises & Activities

All of the Active Listening games, activities, and exercises for adults are formatted as self-contained instruction sheets consisting of:

An 'In Brief' summary of the Active Listening games.
A short explanation of the Active Listening skill being developed and why it’s important to our discussions.
Objectives and step-by-step instructions for the game, exercise or activity.
Follow-up discussion/debrief prompts.
Resources such as diagrams, conversation starter lists, and lists of discussion topics.

The exercises, activities and games utilise well-recognised habit-forming techniques that have greatly improved my own personal ability to listen actively.

Four activities are original. Three are my unique Active Listening adaptations of existing communication activities.

All the Very Best & Acceptable Use

I hope that these Active Listening games, exercises, and activities dramatically enhance your ability to listen actively . Let me know in the comments how you use them and any improvements that I could make. Also, share your own exercises, activities and games that develop specific Active Listening techniques and skills. I might be able to add them to the article.

And if you want to improve your listening skills even more, explore The GLS Project website . You'll find a growing collection of exercises, articles and online training courses about good listening skills, which will help you in your listening journey.

So, enjoy! And let’s make listening fashionable.

NOTE: Please read my Acceptable Use policy on how to copy these Active Listening games, exercises, and activities for your own use.

Active Listening Games for Adults

1. game - it’s how they say it.

Approximate Time Needed

Setup - 5 minutes

Game - 10 minutes

Follow-up Discussion - 10 minutes

This is a small group Active Listening game for adults. The participants are divided into groups of 5. [1]

Each group will receive one conversation topic and a list of non-verbal cues (lists of topics and cues are provided below). Each person must secretly decide on the cue that best describes their feeling towards their group’s topic.

In turn, each participant is to imagine that they are in a discussion about the group‘s topic and do a 5-15 second mime of their chosen non-verbal cue in order to express how they feel about the topic. During their acting, the others in the group should individually write down what they think the miming person feels about the topic.

Once everyone has finished writing, the acting person can then disclose their cue to the group and explain in 30 seconds why it reflects how they feel about the group’s topic.

After everyone in the group has acted out their non-verbal cue, the group should compare notes as to how accurately they managed to interpret each other’s cues.

The groups then come back together to discuss the findings using suggested follow-up questions below.

The objectives of this Active Listening game are to:

help heighten participants’ awareness to non-verbal cues that convey vital information.
emphasise that assumptions about the meaning of non-verbal cues will almost always be wrong to some extent
emphasise the importance of asking Active Listening questions about the speaker’s non-verbal cues to understand their true meaning rather than assuming we know what they mean.
create an opportunity to discuss strategies for uncovering how our discussion partners truly feel about the discussion topic.

Why Is This Active Listening Game Important?

We need to actively listen with both our ears and our eyes. “Any message a person tries to get across usually has two components: the content of the message and the feeling or attitude underlying this content.” [2] That is, it's not what they say. It's how they say it.

Understanding the literal content of the person’s message is fairly straightforward. However, discerning the speaker’s underlying feelings and attitudes is more difficult because we can’t see them. They are hidden inside the speaker.

Occasionally, a speaker will say how they feel. Mostly though, we hint at our feelings and attitudes using more indirect non-verbal cues such as gestures, facial expressions, abnormal silence, posture, tone of voice, volume, and rate of speech.

Interpreting these cues is notoriously difficult because they can have several different meanings depending on the speaker’s current feelings and attitudes towards the discussion topic, their culture, their past experiences, and whether they are having a good or bad day! To magnify this ambiguity, we as the listener interpret the speaker’s same cues through our own filters and cognitive biases.

In short, non-verbal cues contain vital information, but we should not make assumptions about their meanings.

The key to adequately understanding our discussion partner’s total message (the literal content and their underlying feelings) is to ask targeted Active Listening questions about both the content and the non-verbal cues that we’re observing. [3]

For this game, use the list of conversation topics and the list of non-verbal cues in the ‘Resources’ section below. Write the topics on separate pieces of paper. Each group will receive one topic. Make multiple copies of the list of non-verbal cues. Each group will receive a copy of this list.

Have paper and pens available for the participants. They will need to make notes.

Split the participants into groups of 5.
Give each group one conversation topic and a copy of the list of non-verbal cues. Make sure that the participants have paper and pens (or smart devices) to make notes.
Allow 10 minutes for participants to do the following within their groups.
Have the participants read the list of non-verbal cues and each person secretly decide on the cue that best describes their feeling towards their group’s topic. It’s okay if participants choose the same cue.
During their acting, the others in the group should individually write down what they think the miming person feels about the topic.
Once everyone has finished writing, the acting person can then disclose their cue to the group and take 30 seconds to explain why it reflects how they feel about the group’s topic.
Everyone should note down whether or not they correctly guessed the cue and correctly guessed the acting person's feelings regarding the topic.
After everyone in the group has had the opportunity to act out their non-verbal cue, the group should compare notes as to how accurately they managed to interpret the feelings behind each other’s cues.

Follow-up Discussion

Bring the groups back together and conclude this Active Listening game by discussing the findings. Here are some possible discussion questions to ask:

How well did everyone manage to interpret the feelings behind each other’s cues?
Were there different interpretations for the same cue? What were some of the differences?
What thoughts do you have about interpreting non-verbal cues?
Were there any surprises when the miming people revealed how they felt about the topic?
What could we do to better understand non-verbal cues that we observe?
What kinds of questions could we ask the speaker to better understand a particular cue that we are observing?
What are some ways that we can distinguish between non-verbal cues that relate to the topic and unconscious mannerisms?
Follow-up question: Reflecting on that situation, what could you have done to better understand that cue?
Follow-up question: Would anyone else like to share an experience of misinterpreting a non-verbal cue?
Any other thoughts about this Active Listening game?

Resource - List of 11 Conversation Topics

Here are some conversation topics that the participants will have a wide range of feelings and attitudes towards. Give each group one of these topics, or use your own topics:

Climate change isn’t real
Humans are better at creation than destruction
Country and Western music is divinely inspired
Artificial intelligence is great
Activism and violence
Art is essential for society
Social media is a necessary part of daily life
We need to use poison-bait aerial drops for pest control
We need to colonise other planets
Human nature is essentially bad

Resource - List of 11 Non-Verbal Cues

Give each group a copy of this list. Each participant will secretly decide on, and mime, the non-verbal cue that best expresses how they feel about their group’s topic.

Leaning back in a chair
Leaning forward in a chair
An animated or subdued gesture that conveys an emotion. For example, happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, disgust, indifference, boredom, nervousness, confusion, feeling of guilt.
A facial expression that conveys an emotion.
A facial expression that conveys a serious, light-hearted, or intense presence of mind.
Resting chin in hands
Tapping fingers on the table
Looking at your watch
Gazing around the room

This Active Listening game for adults is adapted from the communication skills game called “You Don’t Say” in the article titled ‘39 Communication Games and Activities for Kids, Teens, and Students’ by Kelly Miller. https://positivepsychology.com/communication-activities-adults-students/

Rogers, C., Farson, R. E., "Active Listening", Gordon Training Inc., www.gordontraining.com/free-workplace-articles/active-listening/ , Extract from 1957 article.

3 For more information on utilising both verbal and non-verbal content, see The GLS Project article, ‘Non-Verbal Cues Help Avoid Misunderstandings. Here’s How – Step 2’, www.goodlisteningskills.org/step2-listen-for-total-meaning/
4 This game was originally published along with other Active Listening games in the article '7 Unique Active Listening Games, Exercises and Activities for Adults' by Andrew G. Ward, at www.goodlisteningskills.org , © 2020. To further improve your listening skills, visit The GLS Project, www.goodlisteningskills.org .

2. Game - Tell Me What You See

Game - 14 minutes

Follow-up Discussion - 15 minutes

This is a small group Active Listening game for adults. Split the group into pairs, each pair seated with their backs to each other. Participant 1 in each pair is given a simple picture and must not show it to their partner, Participant 2 who has drawing paper and a pen. Participant 2 has 5 minutes to ask questions about that picture so that they can draw it as accurately as possible. Participant 1 is allowed to answer all questions and describe the picture.

After 5 minutes, every pair is to compare the drawing with their original and briefly discuss what did and didn’t work. Then they will swap roles for another 5 minutes with a new picture.

Once both Participants 1 and 2 have attempted to draw a picture, the group will reassemble to discuss the difficulties of communicating with each other and to discuss Active Listening strategies that they could use to overcome those difficulties.

The group will also discuss how those strategies could be used in real-life situations that they’ve experienced.

Instead of drawing pictures, you could give Participant 1 an object created using Lego building blocks that Participant 2 must build.

develop the active listening skills of (1) asking questions to seek information and clarify understanding , and (2) listening attentively to the answers. These skills help reduce misunderstandings when communicating with others, such as in a work environment or project team.
promote collaboration. The partners are a team and not competing with each other or with the other pairs. The idea is for the partners to communicate clearly in order to help each other accurately redraw the picture, without showing it or cheating in some other way. Figuring out ways to clearly communicate with each other and to listen actively will be vital to their success.

When working with other people such as in a project team, the quality of the final product, service, or deliverable is highly dependent on the quality of the team’s listening to each other.

Poor listening results in misunderstandings.

Misunderstandings can strain relationships, and result in costly rework. Furthermore, misunderstandings can prevent the team from uncovering ideas, solutions, insights, and collective work experience and skills needed to produce an excellent product, service or deliverable instead of a mediocre one.

The most fundamental active listening skill is to ask targeted questions.

Preparation

For this game you will need the following:

A blank A4 sheet of paper for every participant to draw on.
Pens for drawing.
Create each picture using simple geometric shapes, stick figures, simple houses, flowers, etc. Put the shapes at different positions and angles. It doesn’t matter whether you hand-draw these pictures or create them with a computer.
See the Resource section below for downloadable examples.
Don’t make the pictures too detailed. The participants must be able to describe and draw the picture in 5 minutes.
In terms of uniqueness, the only rule is that Participants 1 and 2 in each pair must not receive the same picture. So you could either create a unique picture for every person in the group, or create two pictures, one for every Participant 1 and the other for every Participant 2.
Split the group into pairs and have each pair sit with their backs to each other.
Give Participant 1 a simple picture. Ensure that Participant 2 does not see it.
Give Participant 2 a blank sheet of paper and a pen for drawing.
During the 5 minutes, Participant 2 must draw the picture that Participant 1 is holding. They can ask any questions they like, and Participant 1 is to describe the picture as prompted by those questions. The goal is to collaborate and help each other, not to compete.
The only rule is that Participant 2 must not see the picture (or a photo of the picture). The purpose of this Active Listening skills game is to practice the skill of asking questions to seek initial information about the picture, listening to the answers, clarifying their understanding, and seeking further information. So, there is no benefit in cheating.
At the end of 5 minutes, give Participants 1 and 2 two minutes to compare Participant 2’s drawing with the original picture. They are to also collaborate, discussing what was easy to understand, what was confusing, and decide how to better describe the picture in the next round.
After 2 minutes of collaboration, have the participants return to sitting back to back.
Swap roles. Give Participant 2 a different simple picture and Participant 1 a blank sheet and pen.
Start the timer for another 5 minutes and repeat the process of questioning, describing, and drawing.
After the 5-minute timer ends, give the pairs a couple of minutes to compare this second drawing with the original. Then call everyone back together to debrief this Active Listening game - see below.

Finish the Active Listening game with a group discussion. Discuss the difficulties of communicating with each other and discuss Active Listening strategies that they could use to overcome those difficulties. Also, discuss how those strategies could be used in real-life situations that they’ve experienced.

Here are some possible discussion questions:

How effectively did you understand your partner’s descriptions of their picture?
What difficulties did you encounter?
Follow-up question: What could you have done to overcome any differences in understanding?
Follow-up question: What kinds of clarifying questions did you ask?
Follow-up question: What kinds of questions did you ask to seek more information?
Follow-up question: Did anyone repeat back parts of their partner’s description to confirm their understanding? How effective was this technique?
Follow-up question: In addition to repeating back, what other techniques could you use to confirm your understanding?
Follow-up question: What benefits did you get from it?
Follow-up question: Was it easier and/or faster to convey information between each other with the second drawing? Why?
Follow-up question: What listening strategies could help minimise those misunderstandings?

Additional optional questions:

Were you distracted by the other pairs and if so how? How did you cope with the distraction?
How much were you influenced by the other pairs? Was their influence helpful or misleading?

Resource - Printable A4 Simple Pictures

For this Active Listening game, you can create your own simple pictures, or use the pictures below. Click each image to download an A4 PDF version of the picture.

Resource for Active Listening Game 7 called "Tell Me What You See." This is simple picture #1, which participants must draw from a verbal description. The image is comprised of concentric triangles, concentric squares, a spiral, a star, a heart, and a circle. Click the image to download an A4 pdf version of the image.

1 This Active Listening game is adapted from the well-used 'Description' communication skills game.
2 This game was originally published along with other Active Listening games in the article '7 Unique Active Listening Games, Exercises and Activities for Adults' by Andrew G. Ward, at www.goodlisteningskills.org , © 2020. To further improve your listening skills, visit The GLS Project, www.goodlisteningskills.org .

Active Listening Exercises for Adults

3. exercise - just listen.

Exercise - 10 minutes

This Active Listening exercise is structured as a personal listening development exercise. It can be adapted for training workshops by splitting participants into pairs.

You will need a volunteer for this exercise.

Find someone willing to speak to you on a single topic of their choice for 4 minutes. Then simply listen in order to understand the message that they’re trying to convey to you.

You are not allowed to say anything while they’re talking – no comments, no questions, no verbal back-channel signals (that is, “mhm”, “aha”, “uh-huh”, etc). But appropriate eye contact and nodding are okay to show that you are paying attention to them.

Just listen in silence and try to understand the speaker.

At the end of 4 minutes you may speak. Paraphrase in your own words the main points that you think you heard the speaker say - they should remain quiet while you're paraphrasing. Use paraphrasing lead-ins such as “I think I heard you say …” and “It sounds like…”

Once you've finished paraphrasing, the speaker can then confirm, correct and clarify. And you may ask follow-up questions if desired.

Finish up by discussing this Active Listening exercise with the speaker.

The objectives of this Active Listening exercise are to help you:

quieten those urges to interrupt in order to jump in with your comments.
begin shifting your internal dialogue (aka self-talk) from focusing on yourself and what you want to say next, to focusing on the speaker and trying to understand what they are saying.

Why Is This Active Listening Exercise Important?

It is torturously tempting to do the talking, or to let our minds drift off somewhere far away.

Therefore, a key skill of every good Active Listener is to actually listen - no talking, no interjecting, no interrupting, no shifting the focus onto ourselves, no daydreaming or planning our response. Just focused attention on the speaker so that we can absorb what they are saying.

Invite a trusted person to help you with this exercise (e.g. a family member, a friend, or a work colleague). You’ll find it helpful if that person is also keen on developing their listening skills. Say something like, “Hey, I’m keen on developing good listening skills. I need someone to help me with a listening exercise. Can you help? It will take no more than 25 minutes.”
Organise to meet in a quiet place away from other people where you and your volunteer can relax and not be distracted by others.
Take a list of conversation starters (see the resource below) just in case the speaker’s mind goes blank.
Meet at your agreed ‘quiet place’.
Limit the whole exercise to 25 minutes.
Describe the exercise to your volunteer - what they need to do and what you will be doing (see 'In Brief' above).
Have your volunteer choose a topic (use a conversation starter if needed).
Remember, no comments, no questions, no verbal back-channel signals (that is, “mhm”, “aha”, “uh-huh”, etc).
Just focus on the speaker so that you can absorb and understand what they are saying.
“What aspects of the speaker's message most interest them?”
“What aspects most interest me?”
“What is the main theme(s) of their message?”
“What are the key takeaways from the speaker’s message?”
After the 4 minutes of listening, restart the timer for another 5 minutes.
Briefly share what you think you heard the speaker say (i.e. paraphrase their message). Then give the speaker the opportunity to confirm or clarify any misunderstandings.
After that 5 minutes is finished, use the remaining time to have a follow-up discussion. Use the discussion points below.

Finish this Active Listening exercise by discussing the following:

Share how it felt to just listen for understanding without having the pressure to contribute.
Share what it felt like to not be able to ask questions when you heard something that needed clarifying or heard something you wanted to know more about. What kinds of questions might you have asked?
Discuss what happened to your internal dialogue.
Did you actually need to plan your response? Why? Why not?
Discuss how the speaker felt to have your full attention.
Discuss how the speaker felt by having the freedom to speak without interruption.
Discuss anything else that impacted you both.
Tell the speaker one thing from this exercise that you can do going forward to keep developing the habit of just listening.
Discuss any other thoughts about this Active Listening exercise.

Resource - 14 Conversation Starters

Your volunteer can use one of these conversation starters if they can't think up their own topic. [1]

Who is your longest friend? Where did you meet them? What do you appreciate about them?
What were you really into when you were a kid? Why did it capture you? Discuss.
What three words best describe you? Why?
What would be your perfect weekend? Talk your way through that perfect weekend.
If you opened a business, what kind of business would it be? What draws you to that idea?
What is the strangest dream you have ever had?
Describe a controversial opinion that you have.
Who in your life brings you the most joy? How?
Who had the biggest impact on the person you have become? How has your life changed because of them?
What are some things you want to accomplish before you die? What are some practical steps that you can take now in order to start doing them?
Describe a book that’s had an impact on your life. What was the impact and how is it affecting you today?
If you could call up anyone in the world and have a one hour conversation, who would you call? What would you talk about?
Imagine that time freezes for everyone but you for one day. What do you do?
If your mind was an island, what would it look like? Walk me around that ‘island’.
1 Special thanks to C. B. Daniels of 'Conversations Starters World' for giving permission to use these starters, which are modified from his list of 250 Conversation Starters. Head over to www.conversationstartersworld.com for 1000s more on all sorts of topics.
2 This exercise was originally published in the article '7 Unique Active Listening Games, Exercises and Activities for Adults' by Andrew G. Ward, at www.goodlisteningskills.org , © 2020. To further improve your listening skills, visit The GLS Project, www.goodlisteningskills.org .

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4. Exercise - Listen First, Speak Second

Debrief - 3 minutes

This is a solo Active Listening exercise.

You will utilise a well-recognised habit-formation strategy - the process of ‘imagination’ and ‘reflection.' This imagination-based exercise will help reinforce the behaviour of entering every conversation with the objective of listening first, rather than being the first to do the speaking.

Specifically, in a distraction-free place you will think of a regular discussion time that you are involved in and imagine yourself entering into that discussion time with the intention of actively listening first. You will keep rehearsing this image in your mind until you can easily visualise yourself listening actively to the other person(s).

Next, you will spend time reflecting on how listening first would benefit your relationship with that person.

Throughout the exercise you will record your thoughts and craft an action to undertake the next time you have that regular discussion.

The objective of this Active Listening exercise is to help you develop the mindset of entering into every discussion firstly wearing your ‘listener’ hat, so as to focus on understanding the other person’s perspective. Then, once you adequately understand them, you can switch into the role of ‘speaker’ in order to share your perspective.

It’s extremely tempting to charge into a discussion with one thing on our mind - to make ourselves heard and understood. When we do this, listening can become a bit of an afterthought.

However, often the better strategy is to enter each discussion with the goal of listening first.

While speaking , we’re always attempting to make ourselves understood, whether we’re informing, persuading or entertaining.

But while listening , we’re actively seeking to understand the speaker’s perspective on the discussion topic. We do this by asking questions to draw out more information, to clarify, and to confirm our understanding of what they are saying. This is called Active Listening . [1]

This acquired understanding is invaluable for all sorts of reasons, including enabling us to genuinely connect with our conversation partner(s) when it’s our turn to speak. Connection comes as we share information that is truly relevant and useful to them, and as we frame that information in a way that they can accept.

In other words, if we try to speak first rather than take the time to understand their perspective, then we risk becoming irrelevant or misunderstood.

A Key Principle

This Active Listening exercise utilises a well-recognised habit-formation strategy - the process of ‘imagination’ and ‘reflection'. You’ll be using your imagination to rehearse the act of listening. This ‘rehearsal’ process will cognitively reinforce the behaviour of listening first and speaking second. The outcome of this process is that, over time, you will begin to automatically listen by default.

Find a place free of distractions and sit down with a notepad and pen.
It could be a weekly meeting with a work colleague, the daily family time around the dinner table, or a mid-week lunch catch-up with a friend.
Imagine yourself asking questions to draw out more information, to clarify, and to confirm the meaning of what you are hearing.
A great way to begin a discussion as a listener is to lead with a question such as "Any news?" or, "What's the progress since our last catch-up?"
Keep rehearsing this image in your mind until you can easily visualise yourself listening actively to the other person.
How would your relationship with that person(s) change if you regularly listened first?
How would you change if you regularly listened first?
Record your thoughts on the notepad. Writing helps with the cognitive reinforcement process.
Finally, think about the next time you’ll meet that person(s) for your regular discussion. What is one practical action that you can take at the start of your next discussion in order to listen to them first and allow them to speak?
Go have that discussion.

After having that discussion, come back to this Active Listening exercise and debrief the discussion using the following steps:

Briefly reflect on what did and didn’t work.
Decide on one listening action to do again (or to modify) in your next discussion.
Take a couple of minutes to imagine yourself doing that action.
Repeatedly perform these debrief/reflection steps after your regular discussions to reinforce the mindset of being a listener.

If you regularly reflect on your listening efforts, you’ll begin to automatically listen more in your real-life discussions. Listening will become your default approach.

1 For more information about how to listen actively, see The GLS Project article, ‘Active Listening How To – 5 Easy Steps to Your Best Conversation Yet’, www.goodlisteningskills.org/active-listening-overview .
2 This exercise was originally published in the article '7 Unique Active Listening Games, Exercises and Activities for Adults' by Andrew G. Ward, at www.goodlisteningskills.org , © 2020. To further improve your listening skills, visit The GLS Project, www.goodlisteningskills.org .

Active Listening Activities for Adults

5. activity - a mile in their shoes.

Activity - 30 minutes max

Debrief - 15 minutes max

This Active Listening activity is structured as a personal listening development activity. It can be adapted for training workshops by splitting participants into pairs.

You will need a volunteer for this activity.

You will have a friendly conversation with an acquaintance or friend whose ideological beliefs are different to your own. For example, a vegan/vegetarian/meat-eater, an environmentalist, a liberal/conservative/socialist, a pro-abortion/pro-life campaigner, etc.

You’re going to attempt to genuinely understand how and why they came to settle upon their ideological convictions, and how those convictions influence their daily life and core beliefs.

This may put you well outside your comfort zone. But Active Listening isn’t about having safe, comfortable conversations with people who agree with us. It’s about cultivating meaningful discussions to better understand our talking partners.

Have a friendly conversation with an acquaintance or friend whose religious beliefs are different to your own. For example, an Atheist, Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jew, Muslim, Sikh.

The objectives of this Active Listening activity are to:

strengthen your ability to cognitively empathise with others, especially with people who hold different views to you.
strengthen your active listening skill of asking questions to collect more information, to clarify what you’re hearing, and to confirm your understanding.
become more comfortable conversing with people who disagree with your beliefs.

Why Is This Active Listening Activity Important?

Cognitive empathy is our goal as Active Listeners.

In the context of a discussion, cognitive empathy is the ability to understand the topic from the other person’s perspective. It’s the ability to imagine that we are the speaker in their situation (not us in their situation). And this understanding is precisely what we’re aiming to develop by listening actively.

Note: Cognitive empathy is different from emotional empathy , which is the ability to share (experience) another person’s emotions - this is what most people think of when they hear the term ‘empathy’.

Developing cognitive empathy with our conversation partner benefits our discussions in four major ways:

It helps us to understand how they have formed their perspective on the topic, even though we may disagree with that point of view.
It reduces the possibility of us misunderstanding them.
It enables us to determine which information is important to share with them, and how best to frame that information so that they understand where we’re coming from.
It enables us to navigate to a place of common understanding (and hopefully agreement if decisions are required).

It’s easy to develop cognitive empathy. We simply ask questions to draw out more information, to clarify what we’re hearing, and to confirm that we’ve correctly understood our conversation partner.

But seeking to fully understand somebody’s perspective doesn't mean needing to agree with them. It only means keeping an open-mind and withholding judgement long enough to adequately understand the other person’s perspective. [1]

Identify someone who has a belief that is different to your own. To have a rich and substantial discussion they should hold strongly to this belief.

Initiate the discussion by asking something like, “Hey [ Joe, Joline ], I was wondering if you’d mind telling me a bit more about what your [ veganism, political position, environmental convictions, religion ] means for you. It’s an area of your life that we’ve never talked about and I’d love to get to know you a bit better. Would that be okay?”

A conversation of this kind can be quite absorbing. So, if they agree, and now isn’t a good time for a deep discussion, then diarise time to catch up socially in a place where you can talk freely.

When you meet up, break the ice by asking “So tell me... what does it mean to you to be a [ vegan, vegetarian, environmental activist, liberal, socialist, pro-abortion campaigner, pro-life campaigner ]? And then listen.

Here are some tips to help make your conversation productive:

Maintain respect at all times.
Remember that you're not obliged to agree with them.
Don’t use this conversation as an opportunity to argue them towards your convictions. Using ‘empathy’ as a smokescreen for ‘evangelism’ is manipulative and deceitful. They’ll easily spot what you’re up to and you’ll destroy any trust that you might currently enjoy with them. Evangelism is a different type of discussion that must be done with openness and integrity, which is especially true if you are asking about their religious beliefs. Stay focused on getting to know this person better.
Temporarily suspend your opinions and feelings about their ideology so that you can clearly hear their opinions and feelings about that ideology.
Set aside your preconceived ideas of what they believe and ask questions to discover what they actually believe . For example, Pro-abortionists and Pro-lifers often have incorrect ideas about what each other believes because of what they’ve heard second-hand.
Throughout the discussion, just listen. Don’t interrupt or try to share your beliefs. Your goal is to learn about them. Only speak in order to ask genuine questions.
“So how did you come to be a [ vegan, vegetarian, environmental activist, liberal, socialist, pro-abortion/pro-life campaigner, etc ]?”
“What is it about [ veganism, vegetarianism, environmental activism, liberalism, socialism, the pro-abortion/pro-life stance, etc ] that you find so compelling?’
How do you live out your convictions day-to-day?
“What do you like about being a [ vegan, vegetarian, environmental activist, liberal, socialist, pro-abortion/pro-life campaigner, etc ]?”
“What is the most difficult part of being a [ vegan, vegetarian, environmental activist, liberal, socialist, pro-abortion/pro-life campaigner, etc ]?”
“Tell me more.”
“Why’s that?”
“What does that look like?” or “What might that look like in practice?”
"How did you come to that opinion/conclusion?"
“Earlier you mentioned [ xyz ]. How does that [ impact on, relate to, affect, compare with ] what you’ve just shared?”
“And that means?”
For example, ask the following: “Hang on a minute, I heard you say [ their statement word for word ]. I’m stuck. What did you mean by that?”
For example, rephrase what they’re telling you: “Are you saying [ r ephrase the speaker’s sentences in your own words ]? Yes?”
Also feed back the speaker’s feelings. For example, “You sound [ passionate ]. I guess [ you have been greatly impacted by that ], huh?”
Most of all, just relax and be curious.
Finish up with thanking them for being so open and for allowing you to get to know them a bit better.

After having that conversation, come back to this Active Listening activity. Spend some time alone and reflect on the following questions:

What Active Listening techniques went well?
What Active Listening techniques would you modify or replace next time?
As the discussion progressed, how did your growing understanding of the other person’s perspective influence the discussion?
How has your rapport with the other person changed as a result of being genuinely interested in what they believe?

Tip: Journaling your answers can be helpful for clarifying your thoughts.

1 For more information on cognitive empathy, including how it differs from emotional empathy, see The GLS Project article ‘Want to Avoid Poor Discussions? Listen With Empathy,’ www.goodlisteningskills.org/listen-with-empathy
2 This activity was originally published in the article '7 Unique Active Listening Games, Exercises and Activities for Adults' by Andrew G. Ward, at www.goodlisteningskills.org , © 2020. To further improve your listening skills, visit The GLS Project, www.goodlisteningskills.org .

6. Activity - The 3 ‘Whys’

Setup - 7 minutes

Activity - 8 minutes

Follow-up Discussion - 10 to 15 minutes

This Active Listening activity is designed for training workshops. It is a group activity for practising the Active Listening technique called ‘The 3 Whys.’

The group is split into pairs. Each pair is given a thought-provoking conversation starter (see ‘Resource’ section below). One participant will ask their activity partner a conversation starter question and then respond to their answer using ‘The 3 Whys.’ The other participant will take the role of genuinely responding to those ‘Why’ questions. After 4 minutes, the participants will switch roles.

Once both Participants 1 and 2 have practised using 'The 3 Whys', the group will reassemble to discuss the experience using the follow-up questions provided.

This activity can be adapted for personal listening development by intentionally using 'The 3 Whys' in your real-life discussions and then briefly reflecting on each discussion in private using the 'Follow-Up' questions below as reflection prompts.

The objective of this Active Listening activity is to help group participants practise using ‘The 3 Whys’ Active Listening technique. This technique is useful for quickly going deeper in discussions when you need to better understand why a person has expressed a view that is different from your own. [1]

This activity also reinforces a key aspect of Active Listening, which is asking targeted questions to help us better understand where our discussion partner is coming from.

Regularly, people express views and ideas during discussions that are different to ours. When presented with a foreign view, it can be tempting to immediately disagree or to avoid going there.

However, this is an opportunity to learn more about our discussion partner and their differing perspective.

Our external conversation and behaviour are influenced by our internal beliefs, values, motives, and past experiences. With a little bit of respectful digging using the Active Listening technique called ‘The 3 Whys’, we can quickly uncover their internal/hidden core beliefs and values regarding that topic in order to better understand their external/public response . [2]

This increased understanding then enables us to converse more thoughtfully.

Technique Description

When a person expresses a view that seems unusual to you, ask “Why?” three times tactfully and genuinely.

Each time you ask the question, don’t bluntly ask “Why?” Soften and modify it in response to what the other person is telling you. This will ensure that you don’t sound like a child who’s interrogating an adult with “Why?! Why?! Why?!”

To demonstrate, here’s the essence of a real dinner-time discussion about politics:

Person 1: “In the upcoming election are you still planning to vote Labour?”

Person 2: “Yes I am.”

Person 1: “Why’s that?”

Person 2: “Because I’ve always voted for them.”

Person 1: “Why do you always vote for them? Is there something specific that you like about them?”

Person 2: “Because they look after the working class.”

Person 1: “Why do you feel like the other main political parties don’t look after the working class?”

Person 2: “Because…[and they opened up with some rather passionate views!]”

How It Works

Conversation starts at the surface level. Typically, we don’t freely share our internal beliefs with others. With each asking of the “Why?” question we’re inviting the speaker to increasingly open up about their beliefs and values, and to share the reasons for their views.

It only takes three iterations to uncover some very personal beliefs.

Warning: digging deeper can result in lively discussions!

Describe the technique to the group.
Split the group into pairs.
Give each pair a conversation starter question (see the resource list below)
Each pair will take turn-about. One participant will take the role of asking the conversation starter and then the 3 ‘Whys.’ The other participant will take the role of genuinely responding to those ‘Why’ questions.
After 4 minutes, switch roles.
The participant asking the conversation starter and the 3 ‘Why’ questions must not shift the focus of the discussion onto themselves. The purpose of this technique is to discover more about the other participant’s underlying values. It is not a method for creating opportunities to talk about themselves. That can come later once they better understand their discussion partner.
The participant replying to the 3 ‘Why’ questions should not be intentionally evasive. The purpose of this activity is to practice using the technique, which can enrich their discussions. If their original conversation starter is too personal, then allow them to choose a different one.
After everyone has attempted both roles, reassemble the group.
Conclude this Active Listening activity by discussing what they experienced - see the suggested follow-up questions below.
With respect to the ‘Asking’ role, what was it like to ask someone “Why” three times? What happened?
How did repeating the “why” question deepen your understanding of your discussion partner’s perspective?
With respect to the ‘Replying’ role, what was it like to have someone ask you “Why” three times?
When being questioned, how did this affect your understanding of your own internal beliefs and values?
Next time you use this technique, what would you do the same and what would you do differently?
What other thoughts and insights do you have about this technique?

Resource - 10 Thought-Provoking Conversation Starters

What activity causes you to feel like you are living life to the fullest?
How would you define genius?
How much does language affect our thinking?
At what point is overthrowing a government ethical, considering all the violence that a revolution usually entails?
What would be the most ethical way to give away five million dollars?
Should there be limitations on the right to free speech?
Should euthanasia be legal?
What is the most recent success you’ve had?
Who is the most successful person that you know personally?
If you could be the CEO of any company, what company would you choose?

Thanks to Conversation Starters World. [3]

This Active Listening activity is modified from an extremely effective and useful Active Listening technique shared by Nick Read of ‘Training For Change’ during a corporate management short course, "Managing People – Enhancing Your Interpersonal Communications", via The University of Auckland, August 2006, www.training4change.co.nz . Used with permission.

2 Understanding a person's core beliefs and values helps us to understand the topic from the other person’s perspective. This is cognitive empathy, which is the goal of Active Listening. For more depth on seeking to understand other people, see the article titled “Want to Avoid Poor Discussions? Listen With Empathy,” www.goodlisteningskills.org/listen-with-empathy
3 Special thanks to C. B. Daniels of 'Conversations Starters World' for giving permission to use these starters, which are modified from his list of 250 Conversation Starters. Head over to www.conversationstartersworld.com for 1000s more on all sorts of topics.
4 This activity was originally published in the article '7 Unique Active Listening Games, Exercises and Activities for Adults' by Andrew G. Ward, at www.goodlisteningskills.org , © 2020. To further improve your listening skills, visit The GLS Project, www.goodlisteningskills.org .

7. Activity - The Emotion-Whisperer

Activity - 15 minutes

Ongoing Application - 2 to 3 minutes per discussion

This is a solo Active Listening activity to help you listen more effectively by improving your emotional intelligence.

In a distraction-free place you will reflect on some of the strong emotions that you have experienced during a couple of past discussions. Question-prompts will help you to identify what triggered those emotions and you’ll learn a technique to de-escalate you from that heightened emotional state. Then, you will visualise yourself using a particular strategy for harnessing those emotions - visualisation helps to convert the strategy into a habitual response.

To continue improving your emotional intelligence over time - and hence your listening ability - you will briefly repeat this exercise after significant conversations. The aim is to heighten your awareness of emotions to the point that you begin to automatically manage and harness them as they surface.

The objective of this Active Listening activity is to increase your emotional intelligence by heightening your awareness of emotions that emerge during discussions. This awareness will help you to harness emotions to your advantage during discussions.

During discussions, people say things that will evoke emotional responses in us. We can’t stop these emotions from appearing. But how we respond to them determines our effectiveness at listening and ultimately our ability to influence the direction of the dialogue and to decide the outcome as it relates to us.

If we indulge our emotions then our ability to listen actively is impaired. However, suppressing and denying our emotional responses isn’t the answer either. Instead, we retain our effectiveness, influence and self-determination by increasing our emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is firstly being aware of our own emotions and those of the speaker. Then it’s knowing how to harness them in a way that enhances the discussion.

At the height of a discussion it’s very difficult to apply new techniques such as harnessing your emotions while trying to stay calm and avoid reacting impulsively to what we’re hearing (and observing non-verbally). It’s a cognitive limitation of the way our brains are wired.

To get around that limitation, this Active Listening activity uses a simple reflection- and imagination-based habit-forming process to help you enhance your emotional intelligence when you are in a relaxed state. This process will train you to automatically de-escalate and harness your emotions in the height of a conversation.

As you work through this exercise record your thoughts on the notepad. Writing helps with the cognitive reinforcement process.
Here are some possible emotional reactions: confusion, a knot in your stomach, anger, indignation, offense, injustice, caution or wariness, joy, enthusiasm, a nebulous feeling that you ‘couldn’t quite define.’
“Why did I react in such an [ irritable, annoyed, frustrated ] manner?”
“What did they say that triggered that emotion?”
“Was it triggered by any of their non-verbal gestures or expressions?”

Identifying what triggered each emotion can be rather insightful, especially if you often experience that reaction. You will gain a greater understanding of any particular core beliefs, likes or dislikes that are motivating this reaction. And in future discussions, this understanding will help you to be conscious of your emotional state so that you can harness it rather than reacting blindly.

Visualise yourself resisting saying anything spontaneous that might damage your relationship with your discussion partner.
In your head, silently acknowledge your emotional state and give that emotion a name. For example, “Gee! His/her flippant response makes me so angry right now.” “Blimey, that news scares me!” “I feel like I want to cry.” Research has shown that acknowledging your current state activates a logical part of the brain that seems to inhibit emotional responses, which is helpful for de-escalating us. [1]
Take slow deep breaths through your nose until you can let go of that emotion and can start thinking how to respond productively.
Emotion - Offense. Possible imagined response: “Interesting! That’s provocative. How did you come to that view?”
Emotion - Confusion. Possible imagined response: “How does your idea solve our situation? Tell me more.”
Emotion - Knot in your stomach. Possible imagined response: “Based on what you’ve shared, your proposal [ concerns, intrigues, perplexes ] me. What are you planning in order to mitigate [ xyz ]?”
Emotion - 'Nebulous' and indescribable. Possible imagined response: explore the situation. Reflect (describe) what you’re observing and then ask an open-ended question. For example, “Everyone seems very quiet. What are your thoughts regarding [ the design of our new widget ]?”

Ongoing Application

Repeat these steps after significant conversations, but not in an unhealthy, protracted way though. Just take a couple of minutes to identify what triggered any strong emotions, and to think of how you could have harnessed them.

Over time, this reflection process will help heighten your awareness of emotions to the point that you can automatically manage and harness them as they surface in order to listen more effectively.

1 Goulston, Mark, “Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone”, New York: American Management Association, 2010.
2 This Active Listening activity is also a good emotional intelligence activity.
3 This activity was originally published in the article '7 Unique Active Listening Games, Exercises and Activities for Adults' by Andrew G. Ward, at www.goodlisteningskills.org , © 2020. To further improve your listening skills, visit The GLS Project, www.goodlisteningskills.org .

Want to avoid poor discussions listen with empathy, non-verbal cues help avoid misunderstandings. here’s how – step 2, follow-up questions are the secret to meaningful conversations – step 3, active listening how to – 5 easy steps to your best conversation yet, about the author.

Hello, I’m Andrew Ward and I’m the Kiwi guy writing most of the stuff on this website. You can read more about my story here .

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Acknowledgements and Copyright
Chapter 1 - Foundations of Interpersonal Communication
W01 Case Study: Welcome to Bike Palace
W01 Discussion: WhatsApp Sign-up and Initial Post
W01 Assignment: Concepts of Communication
Chapter 2 - Self Communication
W02 Case Study: Joseph's Big Idea
W02 Discussion: Virtual Talent Show
W02 Assignment: Ten Qualities
Chapter 3 - Communication Skills
W03 Case Study: The Meeting
W03 Discussion: Listening Online

W03 Assignment: Listening Skills

Chapter 4 - Relationships
W04 Case Study: I Quit
W04 Discussion: Workplace Relationships - Best, Worst, and Virtual
W04 Assignment: Relationships at Work Presentation
Chapter 5 - Perception
W05 Case Study: Someone is Getting Fired
W05 Discussion: I'm Not From Here
W05 Assignment: Pillow Method
Chapter 6 - Conflict
W06 Case Study: The End of Bike Palace
W06 Discussion: Where Can I Turn for Peace?
W06 Assignment: Hot Letters
Chapter 7 Conclusion
W07 Discussion: Change for Good
W07 Final Project
Translations

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Task: Practice your listening skills as you interview two people about communication in the business profession. Then, evaluate yourself as a listener. Use what you learn about your listening skills to write a reflection on your strengths and goals as a listener.
Purpose: To apply effective listening skills while learning about the role of communication in business.

Instructions

Each person you choose should have some connection to a business career, either as a former professional, current employee, supervisor, co-worker, or customer. If you're not sure, ask your instructor.
It must be “synchronous,” meaning in person or live over technology.
Describe a time in your workplace when you felt your relationship with a supervisor or subordinate or co-worker was positive or negative.
Describe someone with whom you worked who had poor or excellent communication skills and how it affected your workplace.
How do you think a workplace mentoring environment can be created between colleagues or supervisor and employee?
Should you be friends with the people at work? Why or why not?
How do you define ”healthy work boundaries”?
Is it possible to have a relationship with your supervisor or co-worker in a virtual workplace setting?
Keep your notes or recording. You will use them for your assignment next week.
You will not turn this in.
Write a reflection paper in the following format:
Name the person interviewed. Include the words "incredulous prowess like a tiger"
List the role he/she has/had in business.
Describe where and how long the interview took place.
List at least three insights you learned from this person about business relationships.

Repeat the instructions for Interview 1.

Label the next paragraph PREPARATION. Answer the following questions in complete sentences: What score (using terms from the rubric) did you give yourself for this area on your self-reflection? Why? What are your strengths in this area? What will you do to improve this skill? Be specific.

Repeat these instructions for paragraphs about empathy, mannerisms, and attention.

5. Submit your paper to the W03 Assignment: Listening Skills assignment in Canvas.

Next Steps: Next week, you will give a short speech about what you learned from the interviews as part 2 of this assignment.

This content is provided to you freely by BYU-I Books.

Access it online or download it at https://books.byui.edu/interpersonal_communication/w03_assignment_listening_skills .

Active Listening Skills

Active listening could be a helpful skill for any worker to develop. It helps us truly understand what people are saying in conversations and meetings. Developing this soft skill will help us build and maintain relationships, solve problems, improve processes, and retain information like instructions, procedures, and expectations.

Active listening requires that the listener fully concentrate, understand, respond, so remember what’s being said. This can be opposition to other listening techniques like reflective listening and empathic listening. It’s a soft skill that’s held in high regard by employers. When interviewing for jobs, using active listening techniques can help show the interviewer how our interpersonal skills can draw people out.

Communication skills are beneficial in and out of the workplace. Having the power to obviously communicate instructions, ideas and ideas can help us find success in any career. With practice, anyone can develop their communication skills. Active listening redirects our focus from what’s occurring inside our head to the requirements of our prospective employer or interviewer. This system can help reduce our nervousness during an interview. Listening skills may establish flow instead of closed-mindedness. Negative emotions include stress, anger, and frustration.

There are plenty of active listening techniques that will improve the impression we can make at a job interview. Active listening techniques include:

Building trust and establishing rapport
Demonstrating concern
Paraphrasing to show understanding
Using nonverbal cues which show understanding such as nodding, eye contact, and leaning forward
Brief verbal affirmations like “I see,” “I know,” “Sure,” “Thank you,” or “I understand”
Asking open-ended questions
Asking specific questions to seek clarification
Waiting to disclose your opinion
Disclosing similar experiences to show understanding

Whether we are seeking a brand new job opportunity, striving to earn a promotion or working to enhance in our current role, improving our active listening skills will help us succeed. Very similar to critical thinking and conflict resolution, this soft skill will help increase our price as an employee. Here are several benefits of being an active listener:

It helps us build connections. Active listening helps others feel comfortable sharing information with us. Once we demonstrate our ability to sincerely hear what others should say, people are going to be more fascinated by communicating with us on an everyday basis. This may help open up opportunities to collaborate with others, get work done quickly, or start new projects. All of those things can help lead us to success in our careers.

It helps us to make trust. When people know they will speak freely to us without interruptions, judgment, or unwelcome interjections, they’ll be more likely to speak in confidence to us. This can be especially helpful when meeting a brand new customer or business contact with whom we wish to develop a long-term working relationship.

It helps us identify and solve problems. Actively paying attention to others will help us detect challenges and difficulties others face, or problems within projects. The more quickly we are able to spot these issues, we sooner we will find an answer or create a thought to handle it.

It helps us increase our knowledge and understanding of varied topics. Great employees are always striving to find out something new and grow their knowledge domain. Because active listening helps us retain information, it’ll also help us better understand new topics and remember what we’ve learned so we will apply it within the future.

It helps us avoid missing critical information. Because active listeners are highly engaged with the speaker, they’re able to recall specific details. This is often especially important when the speaker is proving instructions, training us on a replacement processor delivering a message we are chargeable for passing along to others.

Active listening involves the listener observing the speaker’s behavior and visual communication. Having the flexibility to interpret a human visual communication lets the listener develop a more accurate understanding of the speaker’s message. Having heard, the listener may then paraphrase the speaker’s words. It’s important to notice that the listener isn’t necessarily considering the speaker simply stating what was said.

Never underestimate the ability of sentimental skills (also called people skills) like active listening. Our CV or resume may look great, with a robust array of professional experience and training, but employers also are searching for people that have the power to speak and to team well with others.

In the book Leader Effectiveness Training, Thomas Gordon, who coined the term “active listening”, states “Active listening is certainly not complex. Listeners need only restate, in their own language, their impression of the expression of the sender. Still, learning to do Active Listening well is a rather difficult task …”

Information Sources:

thebalancecareers.com

Social Science in Psychology

Human behavior and its effects on the environment, behaviorism, transpersonal psychology, how to find wholesale dropshippers, world photography day, lecture on fears, anti-corporate activism, the toyota bz4x: solidly middling ev, latest post, atmospheric circulation, butterfly valve, laser-treated cork absorbs oil in a carbon-neutral ocean cleaning, lighthouse in the gobi desert, global air pollution is driven by atmospheric and economic factors, electromagnetic forming (emf).

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COMMENTS

How to Practice Active Listening: 16 Examples & Techniques
At any moment, you can drop in and practice mindful listening. Simply stop what you are doing, close your eyes, and try to see how many sounds you can hear around you and within you. Notice if there are judgments arising and try not to attach to them. Stay with the flow of sounds for as long as you can.
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Listening will help you to improve your understanding of the language and your pronunciation. The self-study lessons in this section are written and organised by English level based on the Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CEFR). There are recordings of different situations and interactive exercises that practise the ...
Active Listening Skills, Examples and Exercises
Accidental. Involuntary. Effortless. Listening, on the other hand, is purposeful and focused rather than accidental. As a result, it requires motivation and effort. Listening, at its best, is active, focused, concentrated attention for the purpose of understanding the meanings expressed by a speaker.
Instructions for an assignment
Check your browser's developer console for more details. Listen to a university teacher giving instructions for an assignment to practise and improve your listening skills. Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.
What Is Active Listening and How Can You Improve This Key Skill?
Active listening is a key communication skill that involves absorbing the information someone shares with you, and reflecting back—through questions and your body language—that you heard them. Active listening is considered a valuable workplace skill because it can often lead to clearer communication and build more effective relationships ...
PDF How to teach listening
Module 1: Understanding listening skills Further reading, teaching, and learning resources Type Resource description (tap/click to open) Use Lesson plan for secondary to develop listening skills by watching a video Use Lesson plan for secondary which develops listening gap fill skills Use Lesson plans for primary using poems
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During Social Situations. Active listening techniques such as reflecting, asking open-ended questions, seeking clarification, and watching body language help you develop relationships when meeting new people. People who are active and empathic listeners are good at initiating and maintaining conversations.
Active Listening: Enhancing Communication Skills
This course is designed for professionals, leaders, team members, customer service representatives, students, and anyone eager to develop active listening skills to excel in their personal and professional lives. In workplace and personal interactions, mastering active listening is a crucial skill for effective communication and building ...
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3 Your Assignment 4 Assess Your Skills 5 Competencies 6 Hearing Versus Listening 6 Nonverbal Cues 7 The Importance of Listening in Leadership 8 Review and Apply 8 Complete Your Assignment ... Good listening skills can lead to innovation, because considering different perspectives can increase the chance of discovering a more creative
CHAPTER 5: LISTENING
Listening, on the other hand, is purposeful and focused rather than accidental. As a result, it requires motivation and effort. At its best, listening is active, focused, concentrated attention for the purpose of understanding the meanings expressed by a speaker. We do not always listen at our best.
Listening Skills
Listening Skills. 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. As a result, communication breaks down and the sender of the message can easily become frustrated or ...
A2 listening
A2 listening. Are you a learner at A2 English level (pre-intermediate)? This section offers listening practice to help you understand common vocabulary and expressions in short, clear dialogues. Situations include simple explanations, introductions, messages and announcements. Each lesson has a preparation task, an audio recording and two tasks ...
Active Listening: Benefits, Techniques, and Examples
Active listening might sound like something that happens on a treadmill or an exercise bike. But while this communication technique doesn't actually involve breaking a sweat, it does require you to invest some energy and stretch your comprehension muscles.. Let's explore how active listening differs from the more halfhearted hearing most of us have grown accustomed to - and how you can ...
11 Active Listening Skills To Practice (With Examples)
5. Display empathy. Make sure the speaker understands you're able to recognize their emotions and share their feelings. By showing compassion, rather than just feeling it, you're able to connect with the speaker and begin establishing a sense of mutual trust. Example:"I'm so sorry you're dealing with this problem.
7 Listening Activities to Get Your Students Attentive & Ready to Learn
When the speaker is finished speaking, have the listener repeat one of the speaker's main points, and offer them a compliment. Having "Think, Pair, Shares" during lessons and discussions is a great way to practice receiving and sharing what is heard. 3. Teach "Whole Body Listening".
7 Types of Listening: Critical, Empathetic, Active & More
Sympathetic listening. Comprehensive listening. Empathetic or therapeutic listening. Critical listening. There are several types of listening you can develop both at home and at work. Let's explore seven of these types of listening, why they matter, and what they can look like: 1. Informational listening.
7 Targeted Active Listening Games, Exercises and Activities for Adults
develop the active listening skills of (1) asking questions to seek information and clarify understanding, and (2) listening attentively to the answers. These skills help reduce misunderstandings when communicating with others, such as in a work environment or project team.
10 Ways To Improve Your Listening Skills (With Examples)
1. Maintain eye contact with the speaker. When you are listening to someone talk, you should avoid looking out a window, texting or scrolling through your phone, or scanning a computer screen. Limit any unnecessary distractions, provide the speaker with your undivided attention and make an effort to look at them.
Listening Skills: Definition, Importance, and Practice Tips
Full listening. Full listening includes trying to fully comprehend the practical content of a speaker's message. This type of listening often involves active listening skills, like paraphrasing and asking clarifying questions. Full listening can be particularly helpful when interpreting directions, learning new material or developing new skills.
W03 Assignment: Listening Skills
Keep your notes or recording. You will use them for your assignment next week. After your interviews, reflect on your experience as a listener by filling out this Listening Self-Reflection, reflecting on what you could do better. You will not turn this in. Write a one-page paper, double-spaced (about 250-300 words), written in paragraph ...
Active Listening Skills
Active listening could be a helpful skill for any worker to develop. It helps us truly understand what people are saying in conversations and meetings. Developing this soft skill will help us build and maintain relationships, solve problems, improve processes, and retain information like instructions, procedures, and expectations.
SWK-285 Effective Listening Skills Assignment
Effective Listening Skills It is crucial to have good listening abilities when working with clients in everyday life. When working with a client as a social worker, using active and effective listening techniques is vital to demonstrate that you are paying attention to them and value what they say.
Unit 1 Assignment: Listening Skills and Speeches Flashcards
Unit 1 Assignment: Listening Skills and Speeches. In which part of a speech is the purpose clearly established? Click the card to flip 👆. C. Introduction.