Listening Is A Process
Listening Is A Process
In her research on listening comprehension, Caren Feyten (1991) finds that meaning is constructed, by speakers as well as listeners, through communicative exchanges that include linguistics, such as spoken words; paralinguistics, such as tone of voice, intonation and pitch; and via nonverbal communication, such as body language (175). In Effective Listening: Key to Your Success (1983), Lyman Steil, Larry Barker and Kittie Watson identify four interconnected activities as essential to the process of listening:
- Sensing, the first step, is the actual reception of verbal and nonverbal messages.
Interpreting is the practice of understanding the message.
Evaluating refers to the process of sorting facts, information that can be verified, from opinion. Evaluating also involves concurring or rejecting the speaker’s message.
Responding is the process of reacting with verbal and nonverbal cues to the message.
While hearing can be measured with audiometric instruments, listening is a largely subjective experience. Thus, the first three steps of the listening activities cannot be directly evaluated or examined, as they are hidden from our view. Because most listening behaviors cannot be measured, the last, responding, becomes essential for the speaker to determine if he or she “has been successful in getting his or her point across” (36). We will speak more about this later in the module.
