Objectives Of Listening Skills

Objectives

Through this chapter students will understand about listening skills. Along with that, they will also learn about cognitive process of listening and barriers to listening. Further, they will be exposed to the basics of listening skills and listening process. After that, they will learn reading and public speaking skills. Finally, two very important aspects of communication skills which is voice modulation and body language will also be covered.

2.2 Introduction

Being able to communicate effectively is the most important of all life skills. Communication is simply the act of transmitting information from one place to another, whether this be vocally (using voice), written (using printed or digital media such as books, magazines,

The five stages are: 1. Hearing- This is the first step in listening. This step involves the use of sensory perception of the ear. In other words hearing means receiving the words sent by the speaker for further processing.

2. Decoding- In this step the message that was received from the speaker is filtered for further processing. This is a conscious exercise on the part of the listener. In filtering the message received is classified as important or unimportant. If it not important, the same is discarded. However, if the message is considered as important, it is retained and further processing is done.

3. Comprehending- Comprehending means understanding the message heard and filtered. In this step the message received is given meaning. Through this step the listener tries to understand the actual meaning of the message. In doing so listener uses his perception, knowledge and experience. While doing so he also considers the non-verbal part to effectively give meaning.

4. Remembering- After decoding the message and giving proper meaning to it, it is important to remember the message. This is so because sometimes the message may be required for use in

Personal barriers

1. Physical Barriers- Physical barriers are mostly external in nature. They include noises and sounds, physical disturbances in the form of interruptions, malfunctions, low audibility levels, etc.

2. Personal Barriers- They are categorized as physiological and psychological barriers. Physiological barriers relates to body functions. For example; sleeplessness, hearing disabilities, fatigue, or even any illness. Any of these alignments can act as a barrier in effective listening.

On the other hand, psychological barriers are mental in nature. They occur due to certain mental barriers like; bias against the speaker, perceived lack of speaker’s credibility, past experience, listener state of mind, etc.

2.7 Reading Skills

The skill of reading depends on the reader’s ability to get meaning from the written symbols and to interpret it in given context. Every day we read newspaper, books and various other documents related to employment, financial and legal matters, circulars, manuals, encyclopedias, etc. When we attend to the reading material, it is not only passing our eyes through the text, but it is actively analyzing and processing the words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs so that meaning is interpreted, evaluated and