subject: Listen Actively: Learning Its basic Techniques [print this page] Listen Actively: Learning Its basic Techniques
It is important to have active listening skills for a communication to be effective. If you want other people to listen to you, then you ought to learn how to listen to them too. Inability to focus and listen to what a person is telling you can manifest your disinterest and disrespect to him. In order to learn to listen actively, one should know how to break the hindrances of effective listening. Active listening enables you to communicate to your friends, office mates and family properly. It also allows you to clearly know the topic or issue you are talking about. Read along and learn the techniques on active listening.
Be attentive. This is one of the important factors in being a good listener. Do not let the words of the one you're talking to just enter your one ear and go out on the other, pay attention to him and to what he's talking about. There are a lot of factors that can hinder you from listening properly i.e. noises. It is best to disregard them and to never let yourself to get disturbed by them or by the thoughts inside your head.
Active participation. This is the key to show the speaker that you are listening and that you are interested in what he's saying. Active participation is necessary in communication. Showing the person you're listening can be done in the form of feedback such as maintaining eye contact, nodding, facial expression and other body gestures. Asking questions can show that you are actively listening. If you didn't understand what one is saying, you can ask him questions, but do it in the appropriate time so as not to interrupt him.
Paraphrasing. This is done through recapping or giving a summary of what the person is talking about. This way you can show him if you have really understood what he is talking about and also to show that you are listening to him.
Active listening activities. These are ways to test and also to enhance your listening skills. Active listening activities can be used also by teachers to assess the listening skills of the students. The teacher may ask questions to his students about their lesson during the class. In this manner the teacher will know if the students are indeed listening and also if they were able to understand the lesson.
These are just some techniques that you can apply in order to perk up your listening skills. Hopefully, this article was able to help you make listening skills better and become a good listener.
