Public speaking chapter 3

Listening challenges listening apprehension

is the anxiety we feel about listening. Can be that we are worried about misinterpreting the message or are concerned about how the message affects us. The material may be confusing or you may be i

Reasons for listening

1. Appreciative listening-music, entertainment. 2. Discriminative listening- listening to infer what more a speaker might mean beyond the actual words spoken 3. Comprehensive listening-in the classroom- Goal is to listen, understand, remember and recall information. 4. Empathic listening-we listen to provide emotional support. 5. Critical listening-Understand and critically evaluate the meaning of a message. This type of listening requires more psychological processing then other types of listening.

Aurer

Attending, understanding, remembering , evaluating, responding

Active listening

Deliberate and constant process of attending to, understanding, remembering, evaluating and responding to messages.

Receiver apprehension

Fear of misunderstanding or misinterpreting or of not being able to adjust psychologically to messages spoken to others. As a speaker: -Be more redundant, offer clear preview statements of your main ideas, summarize when you're making transitions, summarize major ideas and use visual aides. As a listener: -Use a tape recorder or summarize mentally what a speaker says. Take accurate notes.

Better listening techniques

Listen mindfully Be aware of what you are doing when listening to others. Skilled listeners are mentally focused on the listening task. -Monitor you emotional reaction to a message. Heightened emotions can affect your ability to understand a message. How can you keep your emotions in check when you hear something that sets you off? a. Recognize when your emotional state is setting you off and affecting your rational thoughts. b. use the skill of self-talk to calm yourself down. c. focus on your breathing to calm down. -Avoid jumping to conclusions. Give a speaker time to develop and support their main point before you decide whether you agree or not. Be a selfish listener.

Better listening techniques

Listen with your eyes as well as your ears. Be attended to the unspoken cues of a speaker. 93% of the emotional content of a speech is conveyed by nonverbal cues. Accurately interpret nonverbal cues: -consider nonverbal cues in context. Consider the situation you and the speaker are in. -Look for clusters of cues-several cues, not just one, to increase the accuracy of your interpretation. -Look for cues that communicate liking, powers and responsiveness Eye contact, head nods, facial expressions, etc. can express whether someone likes us, the degree of power or influence, etc.

Speech rate vs thought rate

Most people talk at a rate of 125 words per minute but can listen to up to 700 words per minute. This difference allows you time to ignore a speaker periodically. Eventually you "Stop listening." As a speaker: -Be aware of your listeners' tendency to stop listening. Use message redundancy, clear transitions, be well organized and make major ideas clear. -Develop a well-structured message that uses appropriate internal summaries to help your listeners catch your messages. As a listener:

Outside distractions

Physical distractions can compete with the speaker; flickering lights, noise, heat, and/or sounds. As a speaker: -Be aware of anything that may sidetrack your listeners; attention. As a listener

Prejudice

Preconceived opinions, attitudes, beliefs about a person, place, thing or message. For example, disregarding a message by a speaker based on their political party or race/ethnicity. As a speaker: -Get the audience's attention at the beginning of the speech. Keep message focused on the audience's interests, needs, hopes and wishes. -If audience may be critical or hostile, use detailed and credible arguments. Strong emotional appeals are less successful than careful language, sound reasoning and convincing evidence. As a listener: -Keep your attention on the message rather than the messenger. -If you are prejudiced, you may be unaware of your preconceived notions

Time oriented listening

Prefer brief and hurried conversation and often use nonverbal and verbal cues to signal that their partner needs to be more concise. They tell people how much time they have to listen and check the time, interrupt others and encourage others to pick up their pace.

Listening

The process of receiving, attending to, constructing meaning from and responding to spoken or nonverbal messages. • 50% of the time we spend communicating involves listening. We only remember about • 50% of what we hear shortly after hearing it and only about 25% of it two days later. • 80% of corporations view effective listening as one of the most important skills needed in the corporate environment.

Hearing

The physiological process that occurs when the brain detects sound waves.

Barriers to listening information overload

We hear so much information that we get tired of listening. For example, the search overload on TV. -As a speaker in order to combat this: Include good balance between new information and supporting materials such as stories and examples. -As a listener: build redundancy in your message.

Personal concerns

Your own thoughts are among the biggest competition for your attention. As a speaker: -Use occasional wake-up messages -Use good eye contact, speak with appropriate volume and vocal variation and use appropriate gestures for emphasis. As a listener: -Stop the mental conversation you are having with yourself including worries, thoughts and day dreams.

Action oriented listening

focus on the ultimate point the speaker is trying to make. These listeners get frustrated and do not like it when people ramble. They anticipate and sometimes end the speaker's sentences for them.

Passive listening

habitual and unconscious process of receiving messages. "Automatic pilot." Not really interested or trying to multi-task are two reasons for thi