Page 77 - Essentials of Human Communication

56 Chapter 3 Listening in Human Communication

Table 3.2 Listening in the classroom
In addition to following the general guidelines for listening noted throughout this chapter, here are a few additional
suggestions for making your listening for understanding in the classroom more effective.
general Suggestions Specifically
Prepare yourself to listen. Sit up front where you can see your instructor and any visual aids clearly and comfort-
ably. Remember that you listen with your eyes as well as your ears.
Avoid distractions. Avoid mental daydreaming, and put away physical distractions like your laptop,
smartphone, or newspaper.

Pay special attention to the introduction. Listen for orienting remarks and for key words and phrases (often written on the
board or on PowerPoint slides), such as “another reason,” “three major causes,” and
“first.” Using these cues will help you outline the lecture.

Take notes in outline form. Avoid writing in paragraph form. Listen for headings and then use these as major head-
ings in your outline. When the instructor says, for example, “there are four kinds of
noise,” you have your heading and you will have a numbered list of four kinds of noise.
Assume relevance. A piece of information may eventually prove irrelevant (unfortunately), but if you listen
with the assumption of irrelevancy, you’ll never hear anything relevant.

Listen for understanding. Avoid taking issue with what is said until you understand fully and then, of course,
take issue if you wish. But, generally, don’t rehearse in your own mind your arguments
against a particular position. When you do this, you run the risk of missing additional
explanation or qualification.

Such listening can occur in a wide variety of situations. For example, when you dismiss a
valid argument or attribute validity to an invalid argument because the speaker is of a partic-
ular race, affectional orientation, age, or gender, you’re listening with prejudice.
However, there are many instances in which these characteristics are pertinent to your
evaluation of the message. For example, the sex of a speaker talking about pregnancy, father-
ing a child, birth control, or surrogate motherhood probably is, most would agree, relevant to
the message. So, in these cases it is not sexist listening to take the gender of the speaker into
Do you notice bias in your consideration. It is, however, sexist listening to assume that only one gender can be an author-
instructors? See “Teacher Bias?” at ity on a particular topic or that one gender’s opinions are without value. The same is true
tcbdevito.blogspot.com. How when listening through the filter of a person’s race, affectional orientation, or age.
might this type of research help
instructors and students alike?
LAck OF APPROPRiAte FOcuS

Focusing on what a person is saying is necessary for effective listening—yet there are many
influences that can lead you astray. For example, listeners often get lost because they focus on
irrelevancies, such as an especially vivid example that conjures up old memories. Try not to
get detoured from the main idea. Try to repeat the idea to yourself and see the details in rela-
tion to this main concept. As a speaker, try to avoid language or examples that may divert at-
tention from your main idea.
Another misplaced focus is often on the responses a listener is going to make while the
speaker is still speaking. Anticipating how you’re going to respond or what you’re going to say
(and even interrupting the speaker) prevents you from hearing the message in full. Instead,
make a mental note of something and then get back to listening. As a speaker, when you feel
someone is preparing to argue with you, ask him or her to hear you out: “I know you disagree
with this, but let me finish and we’ll get back to that.”

PReMAtuRe judgMent
Perhaps the most obvious form of premature judgment is assuming you know what the speaker
is going to say and that there’s no need to really listen. Let the speaker say what he or she is
Watch the Video “Fast Food”
at MyCommunicationLab going to say before you decide that you already know it. As a speaker, it’s often wise to assume
that listeners will do exactly this, so make clear that what you’re saying will be unexpected.