THE LISTENING PROCESS

The Importance of Listening

Listening is the most basic of the four
major areas of language development
Listening is the most frequently used
form of verbal communication (45
percent in listening)
On average, our level of listening is
only about 50 percent (Lyman Steil)

Hearing vs Listening
Hearing is the physiological process
of receiving aural and visual
stimuli and begins when the listener
takes in the sound of the speakers
voice. It is the passive phase of
speech reception since we can hear
without effort.
Listening is the active phase of
speech reception, a physiological
process guided and controlled by
the habits, attitudes and
conscious intentions of the
listener. He chooses from those
complex stimuli certain information
will be useful in formulating his
response.

Definitions of Listening
Hearing is the apprehension (to
become aware of through the senses)
of sound and listening is the
comprehension (to embrace or
understand a thing) of aural symbols,
then listening can be more accurately
defined as the attachment of
meaning to aural symbols.
(Nichols, 1954)
Baird and Knower (1968) refer to
listening as a term for a whole group

of mental processes which enable us

to interpret the meaning of messages;
it is a cognitive process that
involves perception,
comprehension and other mental
processes.
Wolvin (1988) defines listening as
the process of receiving,
attending to and assigning
meaning to aural stimuli
Brooks (1994) states that listening is
the combination of what we hear,
what we understand, and what we
remember

The Nature of Listening

1. Listening is a dynamic,
transactional process
listening, the reciprocal of
speaking, is an integral part of
the total communication
process
2. Listening is an active process
and not a passive one
DeVito (1982) stresses that
listening does not just happen,
you have to make it. It demands
physical energy which the
listener needs so that he can
focus on the message cues. It
requires mental energy so the
listener can participate actively
as decoder of the speaker
sources messages as well as
encoder of his return messages
or feedback. Listening is a ksill
that demands hard work and
needs our attention.
3. Listening is a complex process
The Stages of Listening (W.
Brooks 1993)

Listening consists of three stages:

hearing, identifying and
recognizing, and auding
1. Hearing the process of
reception of sound waves by
the ear. There are three
important factors which affect
the hearing of sound
a. Auditory acuity ability of
the ear to respond to various
frequencies or tones at
various intensities, referred
to as levels of loudness.
b. Masking when the
background noise received
by the ear falls within the
same frequency range as the
message one is intending to
receive. White noise results
when the competing or
extraneous sounds are
composed of all frequencies
c. Auditory fatigue results
from continuous exposure to
sounds of certain
frequencies
2. Identifying and recognizing
patterns and relationships
a. Mental reorganization
the listener uses a system
that will help him retain and

structure the incoming

sounds by recoding,
regrouping, or rehearsing
these sounds.
b. Association he links these
sounds with previous
experiences, memories, and
backgrounds
3. Auding - the listener
assimilates the words and
responds to them with
understanding and feeling.
There are five thinking skills
that the listener can engage in
a. Indexing arranging the
listening material
according to importance
b. Making comparison
c. Noting sequence
arranging the material
according to time, space,
position, or soe other
relationship
d. Forming sensory
impressions
translating the material
to sensory images.
e. Appreciating
responding to the
aesthetic nature of the
message and often
occurs when the message
demands an emotional
response

ATTENTION AND LISTENING

Attention is a key concept in effective
listening.
-

At refers to focuses while

tension pertains to the energy
that a listener needs to be able
to focus or int hise case,
perform his listening task.
Attention is a unified,
coordinated muscular set, or

attitude, which brings organs to

bear with maximum
effectiveness upon a source of
stimulation and thus contributes
to alertness and readiness of
response.
Duration of attention refers to
the length of time one is able to
attend to a given stimulus or
stimuli.
The duration of a single act of
attention was three to twentyfour seconds.
According to W. Scott, the
brevity of duration of attention
to the fact that our thinking is
done in spurts. There are
periods of attention followed by
periods of inactivity.
A stimulus can be attended to
for a long period of time but the
attention will be not be
uniformly strong all the time.
Laboratory experiments have
revealed that on the average
we can attend to four to five
objects visually ad five to eight
auditorily. Our attention span is
really limited and dependent on
the type of stimuli as well as the
person listening or attending.
Attention shifts from one stimuli
to another.

PURPOSES IN LISTENING
1. Appreciative listening
a. Purpose: For enjoyment
b. Examples: Music,
watching films, radio,
poetry
c. Strategies: Predicting,
visualizing, making
connections
d. Payoffs: Mental stability,
destressor, enlarges our
experience and

decreases the tension of

daily life
2. Empathic listening
a. Purpose: To provide
emotional support and to
share in the emotional
experience
b. Examples: Listening to a
friend sharing an
emotional experience
c. Strategies:
i. Stop (whatever it is
youre doing)
ii. Look
iii. Listen
iv. Imagine
v. Check
3. Comprehensive/efferent
listening
a. Purpose: to derive
information, facts, ideas,
and principles
b. Examples: Classroom,
listening to news, asking
for directions
c. Strategies: Taking down
notes, find areas of
interest, focus on the
message, adjust to the
speaker, listen for ideas,
and use spare time wisely
d. Payoffs: Increase our
knowledge level and
makes us efficient in
doing certain tasks
4. Critical Listening
a. Purpose: To make an
evaluation (to judge or
decide)
b. Examples: Listening to
political debates, picking
a college
c. Strategies: Determine the
speakers purpose or
ulterior motives, examine
persuasive appeals, learn
to listen to difficult
material, hold your

judgment, and keep your

emotions in check
d. Payoffs: A sound and
informed decision and
making better judgments
BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE LISTENING
1. Hastily branding the subject as
uninteresting or irrelevant.
2. Focusing attention on
appearance or delivery.

3. Avoiding difficult and

unpleasant material
4. Getting over stimulated by what
the speakers say
5. Listening primarily for facts
6. Trying to outline everything that
the speaker says