Active Listening Essay

392 Words2 Pages
5. 6. Work at listening. 7. Resist distractions. 8. Exercise your mind. 9. Keep your mind open. 10. Anticipate, summarize, weigh the evidence, and look between the lines Elements and Levels of listening: There are four elements of good listening: * attention--the focused perception of both visual and verbal stimuli * hearing--the physiological act of 'opening the gates to your ears' * understanding--assigning meaning to the messages received * remembering--the storing of meaningful information In addition to the four elements, there are also four levels of listening: acknowledging, sympathizing, paraphrasing, and empathizing. The four levels of listening range from passive to interactive when considered separately. However, the most effective listeners are able to project all four levels at the same time. That is, they demonstrate that they are paying attention and making an effort to understand and evaluate what it is they are hearing, and they complete the process by demonstrating through their responses their level of comprehension and interest in what the speaker is saying." What is Interactive Listening? Active listening is a communication technique that increases understanding and rapport between speaker and listener. Rather than passively listening to the speaker (or not listening at all), the active listener pays close attention to both verbal and body language, then repeats back the most important points of the speaker's message Active listening is extremely helpful in building rapport between yourself and a speaker, because by following the basic pattern of listening and then stating the important facts you show the speaker conclusively that you are paying attention to them.
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