LISTENING

"Listening" is receiving language through the ears. Listening involves

identifying the sounds of speech and processing them into words and
sentences. When we listen, we use our ears to receive individual sounds
(letters, stress, rhythm and pauses) and we use our brain to convert these
into messages that mean something to us.
Listening in any language requires focus and attention. It is a skill that
some people need to work at harder than others. People who have
difficulty concentrating are typically poor listeners. Listening in a
second language requires even greater focus.
Like babies, we learn this skill by listening to people who already know
how to speak the language. This may or may not include native
speakers. For practice, you can listen to live or recorded voices. The
most important thing is to listen to a variety of voices as often as you
can.

SIX STAGES OF LISTENING PROCESS
Hearing, attending, understanding, remembering, evaluating, and
responding. these stages occur in sequence, but they generally
performed with little awareness an often rapid succession
HEARING - it refers to the response caused by sound waves stimulating
the sensory receptors of the ear; it is physical response; hearing is
perception of sound waves; you must hear to listen, but you need not
listen to hear (perception necessary for listening depends on attention
ATTENTION- brain screens stimuli and permits only a select few to
come into focus- these selective perception is known as attention, an
important requirement for effective listening;strong stimuli like bright
lights, sudden noiseare attention getters; attention to more
commonplace or less striking stimuli requires special effort; postural
adjustments are aided by physical changes in sensory receptor
organs; receptor adjustments might include tensing of the ears tympanic
muscle for better response to weak sounds
UNDERSTANDING- to understand symbols we have seen and heard,
we must analyze the meaning of the stimuli we have perceived;
symbolic stimuli are not only words but also sounds like applause and
sights like blue uniformthat have symbolic meanings as well; the
meanings attached to these symbols are a function of our past
associations and of the context in which the symbols occur; for
successful interpersonal communication, the listener must understand
the intended meaning and the context assumed by the sender.
REMEMBERING- it is important listening process because it means
that an individual has not only received and interpreted a message but
has also added it to the minds storage bank; but just as our attention is
selective, so too is our memory- what is remembered may be quite
different from what was originally seen or heard.
EVALUATING- it is a stage in which active listeners participate; it is at
these point that the active listener weighs evidence, sorts fact from
opinion, and determines the presence or absence of bias or prejudice in a
message; the effective listener makes sure that he or she doesnt begin
this activity too soon ; beginning this stage of the process before a
message is completed requires that we no longer hear and attend to the
incoming message-as a result, the listening process ceases
RESPONDING- this stage requires that the receiver complete the
process through verbal and/or nonverbal feedback; because the speaker
has no other way to determine if a message has been received, this stage
becomes the only overt means by which the sender may determine the
degree of success in transmitting the message.

LISTENING VS HEARING
Listening and hearing are both kinds of sense that are processed by the
brain through the ear. It is the most effective communication between
each other, hearing is already a capability we are born with, except if
you are deaf or mute or when you are a hearing-impaired individual.
Listening
Listening is the processing of sounds to understand the meaning behind
it. Listening requires your brain to work out every bit of sounds to form
words or sentences that you can understand. Most memories are
inculcated into our brain due to the reason that we listen carefully to
every sounds, words, and music that we hear. In order to understand
what the other person is talking about, we must listen to him.
Hearing
Hearing is an in born trait of any individual. When we are born, it will
take about a months time before we can hear an assorted of sounds. But
hearing is just receiving the sounds from the ear, most often we do not
process the sounds. We simply sense that our environment is noisy but
we do not know the cause behind the noise, which is hearing.
Difference between Listening and Hearing
Listening and hearing may be both sensed through our ears but beyond
that listening is very different to hearing. Hearing is just the perception
that there are several sounds going through your ear while listening is
parsing every part of the sound and understanding what it is meant.
Therefore, listening begets understanding while hearing does not. Aside
from this, listening requires attentiveness and concentration which
requires your brain to work. On the other hand, hearing is more like of a
sense. So when somebody gives you an oral instruction, it is always a
wise decision to listen and not only hear.
If you want to understand and learn knowledge always use your ears to
listen and not just to hear words.

TYPES OF LISTENING
1. Discriminative Listening
2. Comprehensive Listening
3. Therapeutic Listening
4. Critical Listening and
5. Appreciative Listening.

1. Discriminative listening is where the objective is to distinguish
sound and visual stimuli. This objective doesn't take into account
the meaning; instead the focus is largely on sounds. In a basic level
class this can be as simple as distinguishing the gender of the
speaker or the number of the speakers etc. As mentioned before the
focus is not on comprehending; but on accustoming the ears to the
sounds. If one thinks s/he can see that this is where L1 listening
begins - the child responds to sound stimulus and soon can
recognise its parents' voices amidst all other voices. Depending on
the level of the students, the listening can be discriminating sounds
to identifying individual words.
2. Then there is Comprehensive listening where the focus is on
'understanding the message'. The writers consider this as the basis
for the next three types of listening. However, the problem can
come in the form of 'understanding'. Depending on many factors
(both individual and social) students can end up understanding the
same message in different, different ways. Lot of work in teaching
listening in the classroom has to happen here in facilitating the
students to develop their comprehension skills.
3. The third one - Therapeutic listening - is one kind of listening
where the listener's role is to be a sympathetic listener without
much verbal response. In this kind of listening the listener allows
somebody to talk through a problem. This kind of listening is very
important in building good interpersonal relations.
4. Critical listening is the fourth kind of listening where listeners
have to evaluate the message. Listeners have to critically respond
to the message and give their opinion.
5. The final one is Appreciative listening where the focus is on
enjoying what one listens. Here my students raised the point that
when they listen to English music, even if they don't understand,
they still enjoy thereby challenging the notion of comprehensive
listening as the basis for other three types of listening. Then we
reflected on the practice of listening to songs in the language lab.
Generally my students listen to the songs once and try to make out
the lyrics before listening a second time with the lyrics. Then they
recalled that they appreciated the song better during the second
time and were able to see the relation between how one would
enjoy something that s/he is able to make sense of

BARRIERS OF LISTENING
There is a famous proverb: Nature gave us two ears and only one
mouth so
we could listen twice as much as we speak. Good listening in
silence is essential to good conversation. But we are poor listener.
Most of us listen at only 25 percent efficiency. Following are some
reasons:
1. SELFISH BEHAVIOUR: The biggest problem in listening is that
we fail to focus on others. All of us desire to tell our ideas,
feelings, opinions, achievements and jokes. And we want to do so
at once without even waiting for the other person to stop. This
thing causes listening problem.
2. DISTURBANCE: Disturbance block the way of listening.
Disturbances may be external or internal. External disturbances
include noise, abnormal temperature, glaring light, background
music, poor dress of speaker, too many gestures etc.
Internal disturbances include daydreaming, nervous problems,
headache etc.
3. PREJUDICE: If you have good opinion about a person, you will
pay full attention to what
he says. But when you have certain prejudices against the speaker,
you will not like to listen to him or you will listen to him
carelessly. People so often see who is speaking. They forget what
is being said. As a result, they lose interest in the
spoken words because they do not like the speaker. Thus your
listening efficiency is affected.
4. THINKING SPEED: Most of us speak between 80 and 160
words a minute. Yet people can think at the rate of up to 800 words
per minute. That leaves time on the listeners hands. This lag time
may take listener away from the speaker.
5. HASTY GUESS: Very often we jump to the conclusions. We race
ahead to what we feel is the conclusion. We anticipate too much.
We arrive at the concluding thought quickly. Then we stop
listening.
6. HATED WORDS: We hate some people. In the same we hate
some words. Our attitude, biases, and feelings make us hate some
word. We turn out the speaker when he uses such words
repeatedly. This thing blocks the way of listening.
7. PRONUNCIATION: The way of delivering a message affects the
people. Poor delivery makes the people bored and uninterested.
The monotone can put listeners to sleep. Incorrect pronunciation
creates doubts about the qualification of the speaker.
8. SELECTIVE LISTENING: Another common fault in listening is
selective listening. When we listen selectively, we will listen only
what is of interest. The result in that we will not remember what
the speaker has said, instead, we will remember only what of
interest.