Listening Skills Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Listening Skills - Essay Example From childhood onwards the listening process starts. Parents and the teachers are the major entities which speak to the children during their childhood and adolescence. â€Å"The average college student spends about 14 hours per week in class listening (or perhaps I should say "hearing"--there is a difference!) to lectures† (Listening Skills, 2006). After grown up, we usually listens the complaints and suggestions of our children, friends, and co-workers. Good listening skills, apart from orating skills are essential for a manager to take sound decisions. It is difficult to understand a topic clearly if we read or write about that topic. Along with reading and writing, listening is the third essential segment of learning process. Listening is an active process which has three basic requirements like hearing, understanding and judging. (What does it mean to really listen?, 2009). A person said to be heard something if he was able to reproduce it. For example, we have often witnessed people sleeping at the hall when the politicians like speakers lengthen their speeches. Such sleeping people cannot be said that they heard what the speaker has told. So a mere presence alone may not guarantee proper hearing. Understanding is the second step of listening. Hearing will become meaningless if the audience does not understand anything. For example, suppose, a child of 6 years attending a college level class. Even if the lecturer tries too hard, the child may not understand anything because of his lack of awareness about the topic. In this case we can safely say that even though the child hears the full lecture, he understands nothing and his listening becomes meaningless. Judging is the third part of the listening process. â€Å"After you are sure you understand what the speaker has said, think about whether it makes sense. Do you believe what you have heard? You might think, "How could the stripes to be different for every zebra? But then