Introduction
Of all the communication skills we use regularly, listening ranks at the top in importance. And yet, somehow, in the rush to speak and argue for action, listening has gotten lost and its salience forgotten—listening is after all a passive activity, isn’t it? The focus of most traditional communication studies has been on the speaker. After all it is the speaker who manages communication, especially in the public arena where discussion of facts, values, and issues of policy formation occur. We cannot emphasize enough the critical nature of effective listening. Like the old story of the baseball umpire calling pitches—‘they ain’t nothing ‘til I calls em’—the words of the speaker aren’t meaningful until they have been attended to, interpreted and understood by the listener. Without listeners there would be no need for speakers.
The listening perspective in a communication situation can be seen as a mirror of the speaking perspective. The speaker has a purpose and goals for speaking, the speaker considers the occasion, the situation, and the audience. All of that gets mirrored when we consider the perspective of the listener. We can talk about the listener’s purpose and goals, as well as the listening occasion and situation. Where the speaker considers the audience, the listener must consider knowledge of the speaker.
In this module we will deal with listening in two parts. The first part will take account of listening in general and the shortcomings of listeners. Basically, this will include a definition and description of listening and a discussion of the problems the listener must overcome to be an effective listener.
The last part of the module presents what a listener should do to be a critical listener in the classroom and society. We give guidelines for effective listening in public speaking and/or mediated situations where the listener is part of an audience. We ask the listener to evaluate their present listening skill set and ask what would be necessary in order to be a critical (thinker) listener: consideration of personal biases, the need to weigh multiple points of view, to be intellectually humble and contingent about differing points of view, and to give consideration to the situation, the content and the speaker’s rhetorical strategy and tactics.
This module will also have a positive bias: listeners are active. It will contend that all listening is and should be an engaged activity for effective communicators. With practice listeners can become active and aware rather than passive and unconscious.
