Bshs 385 - Effective Listening Strategies

Effective Listening Strategies

BSHS/385

November 9, 2015

Shawn Miller

Effective Listening Strategies

Effective listening is more than just hearing what an individual is saying. It’s letting go of all other distractions to focus solely on what is being said verbally and nonverbally.  Through using understandable language, detaching one’s self from solution-oriented listening, and applying active listening skills, a listener will be better equipped to understand and aid the speaker when the time comes. Through searching on the University of Phoenix I found two articles which are Article 1: Extensive Listening vs. Listening Strategies, Article 2: The Gift of Listening: JUST Listening Strategies. Article 3: The Human Side of Teaching: Effective Listening.

Article 1: Extensive Listening Vs. Listening Strategies

In the article. In the Blyth’s 2012 article, he emphasizes a  major point that about word count in which listeners are able to comprehend, suggesting that 250 words per minute is comprehensible; however, 127 is optimal. To back this concept, Blyth suggests complex words for which listeners may not understand, therefore pausing to check their understanding resulting in either comprehension of the word or giving up on attempting to understand it. In doing so, listeners miss out on what else is being said during this contemplative process. Next, Blyth stresses the importance of the audience comprehension of what is being said by the speaker. He states that it is important to be able to fully understand what is being said and reiterates Floyd (2011) who states that listeners will develop their own contextual meaning from the dialogue the listener is subjected to Finally, Blyth suggests that several researchers make the assumption that listening skills can be likened to reading skills, for which Blyth himself disagrees. In his article, Blyth mentions that during reading, the individual is able to read and re-read the text he or she is viewing in order to check their comprehension; however, when listening, it’s more of a one chance opportunity to understand or not. My thoughts. My thoughts on the article fall in concurrence with Blyth. Listening skills cannot be likened to reading skills because, as Blyth suggests, when reading, the individual has one opportunity to read and re-read the information. When listening, the listener has one opportunity to hear and understand the entire process. Application of thought. This article was quite a bit more insightful than I had anticipated. While our text from Floyd does touch on the concept of listening ability and word comprehension, there was not a lot of further expansion on the subject. Through Blyth’s comparison, I understand the complexity of listening by his comparison to reading. As someone who struggles to read and understand, having the comparison of reading and listening suggests to me to give my listener(s) the opportunity to follow along by slowing down and using level appropriate wording to ease their comprehension abilities. While Blyth doesn’t necessarily give a final strategy for implementing the concepts he presents, he does leave the reader with questions to consider; it is these questions which evoke the sense of importance in allowing a listener the time and ability to understand what is being said which makes me feel that slowing down and using level-appropriate speech will be important to my listener(s).