Importance of Listening as a Vital Element in Human Communication
¡§The Importance of Listening as a Vital Element in Human Communication¡¨ According to the Oxford English Dictionary the verb to listen means ¡§to hear attentively; to give ear to; to pay attention to (a person speaking or what is said)¡¨. ... Listening is a key communication channel. Only 7% or our current communications are verbal it is therefore even more essential to listen actively if so little of our communication is verbal. ... Of that 70%, 9% of it is taken up as writing, 16% reading, 30% speaking and 45% listening. Many of us think that communication is talking. ... But good communication requires good listening as well as talking. However, we receive almost no training in good listening and usually do not realise that really ¡§hearing¡¨ someone is not a passive activity. There are two known types of listening; Causal and Active. ... Casual listening, also known as passive listening, is what people do most frequently; this includes small talk or watching a movie of listening to the radio. Active listening on the other hand requires understanding and remembering. ... Active listening requires the listener to notice and interpret the message given out by the sender. There are numerous reasons for listening, these include, understanding and retaining information, evaluating the quality of a message, building and maintaining relationships and helping others. Many people believe hearing is the same as listening. ... Hearing is the process wherein sound waves strike the eardrum and cause vibrations that are then transmitted to the brain; however, listening occurs when the brain reconstructs these impulses into a representation of the original sound and then gives them meaning. There are several components that make up the listening process: Hearing „³ Attending „³ Understanding „³ Remembering „³ Responding There are also a number of different types of listening responses. ... Recent studies have shown that we spend 50% more time listening that we do talking. In today¡¦s world, listening is a vital component in human communication. We often take listening for granted, never realising that it is a skill that can be learned. Effective communication is a necessity in everyday life; however, problems can arise in the language used.