Communication Skills: The Importance Of Listening

refuse to go to a bad argument even if it looks like the only one available to support them. As a result, one who has acquired the skills, may function better both in educational contexts and everyday life since they can come to conclusions in a more rational and logical way.

2.2. Listening Comprehension

Listening comprehension is the key to communication since more than half of humans’ communication is verbal. However, as Vandergrift states the teaching of listening requires a lot of efforts since it is the least explicit of communication skills (2004). Low and Sonntag (2013) stated that “Listening is not the same as hearing. While hearing is a physiological process, listening is a conscious process that requires us to be mentally attentive” (p.770). The significance of listening goes far beyond educational and professional frameworks. As it is said, people tend to respond based on what they think they have heard rather than what they really heard. Such a problem means that in most cases people actually do not listen properly. Howatt and Dakin (1974) declared that listening is about understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his

59) define a task in this way: “A task is generally described as an activity in which people engage to attain an objective, and which involves the meaningful use of language.” Tasks have always been crucial to guarantee learning. From the commencement of task-based language teaching, tasks have obtained a greater attention from second language acquisition (SLA) scholars, curriculum developers, educator trainers and language teachers. Ellis (2003) gives a definition of task that includes almost all the major points of argument in pedagogical frameworks, attention to meaning, engagement with grammar, inclusion of pragmatic properties, use of authentic communication, importance of social interaction, integration of language skills, and the connection to psycholinguistic