Listening

    Listening, this something that we do daily whether we are aware of it or not. My close friends always classify me as a good listener. Well I’m a timid person I am more towards a listener than a talker. Before I actually looked through my Human Communication text book I was actually not aware of the fact that they are many types of listening such as active listening,empathic listening and critical listening . Come to think about it we actually do engage ourself to these 3 types of listening. When we are listening to our friend telling us about how her parents who were married for 20 years recently got a divorce, in this situation when we are listening to our friend telling us about her parents divorce we are actually applying empathic listening . As a human being you feel sorry for your friend.

      Your best friend is telling you her plan about going on a vacation with you to Thailand. As you are listening to your best friends plan you are actually applying active listening which is listening with a purpose. Obviously when your best friend is telling you about her plan to go on a vacation with you in this situation when  you compare it to when you are attending an afternoon history class you will definitely pay more attention listening to your best friend talk than you history lecturer. In other words, you see the purpose in listening careful to what your best friend has to say than listening to what a history lecturer has to say since you hate history.

     When you come to think about it you can know whether a person is listening careful to what you have to say or simply just waiting for you to stop talking. Recently I had completed my first assignment for my public speaking class. We were supposed to give an evaluation on the speech of our choice. I noticed that when some of them presented their speeches by the audience restless body language you could tell that most of the audience is not listening to what the speaker has to say they are just constantly checking their watches and waiting to time to pass by quickly. By observing simple things like this you can tell whether someone is listening to you or not when you are speaking. If a person leans forward, maintains eye contact with you 85% of the time that shows that the person is actually pay attention and interested in what you have to say .

An example of active listening all the group members are listening carefully to what joey has to say about our assigment

This is an example of emphatic listening joey is listening to amelyn reading her break-up letter from her boyfriend


By:Priya Dashini