Ch: 3 Pick one concept from the assigned readings that you found useful or interesting and discuss it.
When we hear the word ‘listening’ many of us do not understand how many factors there are to fulfill the action of listening. With that said, I chose to pick the concept listening because I found it very interesting how this word and action is not fully used in everyday society. Many individuals believe they are good communicators, but with being a good communicator involve the action of listening. Our text book address four factors to being a good listener, they are “attending to the sensory stimuli that make up a message, making those stimuli meaningful by using our own experiences to interpret them, critically evaluating our interpretations, responding to the message, storing the message for future use” (Trenholm 45). Overall, it is clear we need to be active listeners to be clear communicators.
Also we must remember that listening is different then just hearing an individual’s message. For instance, hearing is more of a science relationship to being able to translate information to the brain, while listening is creating meaning to better understand the messages. Listening will always be a major factor in the growth of our society even with the new styles of communicating through electronics. We need to listen to be able to grow within our economy, friendship, family, school and etc.
Have a Fantastic Week!
Thanks,
Blondie
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5 comments:
Blondie,
Your comments about "listening" were right on. I also believe that many people do not understand how many factors it takes to truly listen to someone. Listening is not just hearing the words someone says, but is an entire process.
It's funny because I often get in arguements with my husband when I know I have told him to do something and he says he has heard and then later does not carry out whatever the action was. It turns out that while he has "heard" what I have asked him to do, he has not really "listened" and done it. However, I feel that when I hear him tell me something, I truly listen and carry out all the actions and emotions involved with truly listening to the other person.
His intention isn't to be mean, I just don't think his brain is programmed to truly listen and carry out whatever it is that he hears me say. So if I tell him to take out the garbage, he hears me say it, but does he really listen? I don't think so because he is busy focusing on that football game he is watching.
I thoroughly agree with you that we need to become better listeners. In a conversation many people think that they are listening when in fact all they are doing is hearing the words that are being spoken.
Listening takes great consideration and is a complex process that many of us do without thinking.
I would like to comment about how teachers are enabling children to be poor listeners in our schools and as a parent I would have to say, I have seen it first hand. I wasn't aware of this until I read it in our text and thought about it. Yikes!
Happy Blogging:)
Listening is hard to do! We can listen to all kinds of things but it all comes down to the processing. Are we understanding and really remembering what is said? One thing that I am working on is actually listening and remembering people's names when they introduce themselves. I hear them say their name but I couldn't tell you their name 5 seconds later.
If I get into a disagreement with someone I usually try to repeat what their argument is to make sure I am understanding and if it is totally bogus the other person gets to listen to what they just said. It also helps to diffuse the tension in the disagreement.
I definitely agree that people do not really understand the true concept of listening. It goes beyond sitting in front of a person as the speak or being able to recite the last thing the person said. Listening is a huge part of communication. Without listening there would be no connection between the sender and the receiver. To communicate successfully people must truly listen to each other by trying to interpret the meaning of a senders message and responding to that message. Many times people hear what a person says but doesn't take the time to interpret what they are really trying to say. Because they are reacting to what they are hearing, not the message it creates confusion, fights, and overall unsuccessful communication.
Listening is practically an activity itself. It is something that engages your mind as well as your body. I think the main difference between listening and hearing is that listening is a growing action that leads to progression or emotional movement of some kind, whereas hearing just focuses on sounds. I think that listening is an activity that has become more difficult in recent years. With the growth of technology, video and computer games, it is easy to focus on that and tune lots of things out. I definitely agree with you that truly listening leads to growing within the economy and relationships. Great post! :)
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