Active Listening Skills (Research Paper Sample)

Active Listening Skills
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Institution
Active Listening Skills
The art of active listening facilitates understanding between two parties in a communication. In any verbal interaction, people listen to understand, obtain information, and learn something out of it. Sometimes, listening to one talking becomes difficult. Studies have indicated that many people comprehend less than half of what they hear from someone talking (Manktelow & Carlson, 2013). This is because such people have communication skills deficit characterized by passive listening. In order to improve the amount of information one can retain after listening to someone else talking, it is necessary to adopt active listening skills Center for (CCL and Hoppe, 2011). This entails utilizing the skills that fosters self-awareness during verbal interaction. In order to facilitate an active listening, a person should identify various active listening skills necessary to enhance the effectiveness of the verbal communication.
Before the commencement of a verbal interaction, the listener should be prepared mentally by dedicating his/her focus to absorb as much as possible what is being said or talked about (SkillsYouNeed, 2014). In order to be properly prepared, one should avoid any source of distraction that may hamper the effectiveness of the communication. One should approach the communication process with an open mind to facilitate understanding of the intended message. Preconceived emotions or ideas about what the speaker would say, will act as a barrier to effective communication.
Paying attention is another active listening skill that incorporates non-verbal communication in the listening process to enhance effectiveness in the understanding of the speaker message (Battell, 2006). Paying attention entails maintaining an appropriate physical stance such as eye contact, a small smiling and incorporating nods of the head to show that one is listening and following what is being said. The listener should also pay attention to the speaker’s body language in order to understand the purpose and feeling behind the speaker’s talk. The listener should wait until the speaker finishes talking, before formulating any form of response. One should avoid any form of interruption that can affect the speaker’s communication.
Providing feedback is a good way of showing the speaker that one was listening (Cheon, and Grant, 2009). In some cases, the listener can respond with a question or comment during the talk, as a way to show one’s attention to the speech, but this should follow the speaker’s signal for the acknowledgement of your understanding. In order to provide an appropriate feedback, the listener should reflect on what has been said and avoid personal assumptions that can distort the intended message (Bryant, 2009). Responding emotionally to what the speaker has said, may be viewed as portraying one’s personal beliefs, and so should be avoided. In providing a feedback, one should be honest and present his/her opinion respectfully as way of treating the speaker, as he/she would have wanted to be treated. In case a listener needs to clarify some information from the speaker, this should be done appropriately by asking the speaker to expound on the issue in question. The listener should let the presentation or the talk runs its course and avoids driving it towards a specific conclusion.
Active listening skills are necessary for ...