Could be too, that I simply do not have a demanding-enough presence to command desired attention...I'm grasping at straws here.
In my defense, however, it can be stated, with practically no qualification, that people in general do not know how to listen. They have ears that hear very well, but seldom have they acquired the necessary aural skills which would allow those ears to be used effectively for what is called listening.
Anyway, that's my excuse -- and I'm sticking to it! Allow me to elaborate.
It is curious that silent and listen are spelled with the same six letters. There is merit in restraining comment until you have heard what the other person has to say. As far as I am concerned, listening to reply and interrupting when someone is in the middle of expressing themselves are always a sign of disrespect and disinterest in hearing out the other person.
Behind this widespread inability to listen lies, in my opinion, a major oversight in our system of classroom instruction. We have focused attention on reading, considering it the primary medium by which we learn, and we have practically forgotten the art of listening. About six years are devoted to formal reading instruction in our school systems. Little emphasis is placed on speaking, and almost no attention has been given to the skill of listening, strange as this may be in view of the fact that so much lecturing is done in college. Listening training—if it could be called training—has often consisted merely of a series of admonitions extending from the first grade through college: “Pay attention!” “Now get this!” “Open your ears!” “Listen!”
Certainly teachers feel the need for good listening, in fact they insist on it with their students. Why then have so many years passed without educators developing formal methods of teaching students to listen? Perhaps we have been faced with several false assumptions which have blocked the teaching of listening. For example:
(1) We have assumed that listening ability depends largely on intelligence, that “bright” people listen well, and “dull” ones poorly. There is no denying that low intelligence has something to do with inability to listen, but we have greatly exaggerated its importance. A poor listener is not necessarily an unintelligent person. To be good listeners we must apply certain skills that are acquired through either experience or training. If a person has not acquired these listening skills, his ability to understand and retain what he hears will be low. This can happen to people with both high and low levels of intelligence.
(2) We have assumed that learning to read will automatically teach one to listen. While some of the skills attained through reading apply to listening, the assumption is far from completely valid. Listening is a different activity from reading and requires different skills. Research has shown that reading and listening skills do not improve at the same rate when only reading is taught.
This means that in our schools, where little attention is paid to the aural element of communication, reading ability is continually upgraded while listening ability, left to falter along on its own, actually degenerates. As a fair reader and a bad listener, the typical student is graduated into a society where the chances are high that he will have to listen about three times as much as he reads.
In general, people feel that concentration while listening is a greater problem than concentration during any other form of personal communication. Actually, listening concentration is more difficult. When we listen, concentration must be achieved despite a factor that is peculiar to aural communication, one of which few people are aware.
Basically, the problem is caused by the fact that we think much faster than we talk. (I should use the word generally here because in my case I speak as slowly as my mind thinks -- but that's my problem) The average rate of speech for most people is around 125 words per minute. This rate is slow going for the human brain, which is made up of more than 13 billion cells and operates in such a complicated but efficient manner that it makes the great, modern digital computers seem slow-witted.
People who study the brain are not in complete agreement on how it functions when we think, but most psychologists believe that the basic medium of thought is language. Certainly words play a large part in our thinking processes, and the words race through our brains at speeds much higher than 125 words per minute. This means that, when we listen, we ask our brain to receive words at an extremely slow pace compared with its capabilities.
It might seem logical to slow down our thinking when we listen so as to coincide with the 125-word-per-minute speech rate, but slowing down thought processes seems to be a very difficult thing to do. When we listen, therefore, we continue thinking at high speed while the spoken words arrive at low speed. In the act of listening, the differential between thinking and speaking rates means that our brain works with hundreds of words in addition to those that we hear, assembling thoughts other than those spoken to us. To phrase it another way, we can listen and still have some spare time for thinking.
The use, or misuse, of this spare thinking time could well hold the answer to how effectively a person can concentrate on the spoken word.
The speed at which we think compared to that at which people talk allows plenty of time to accomplish these four mental tasks when we listen; however, they do require practice before they can become part of the mental agility that makes for good listening. Recent business training courses have devised aural exercises designed to give people this practice and thereby build up good habits of aural concentration.
Another factor that affects listening ability concerns the reconstruction of orally communicated thoughts once they have been received by the listener.
Newspapers reported not too long ago that a church was torn down in Europe and shipped stone by stone to America, where it was reassembled in its original form. The moving of the church is analogous to what happens when a person speaks and is understood by a listener. The talker has a thought. To transmit his thought, he takes it apart by putting it into words. The words, sent through the air to the listener, must then be mentally reassembled into the original thought if they are to be thoroughly understood. But most people do not know what to listen for, and so cannot reconstruct the thought.
For some reason many people take great pride in being able to say that above all they try to “get the facts” when they listen. It seems logical enough to do so. If a person gets all the facts, they should certainly understand what is said to them. Therefore, many people try to memorize every single fact that is spoken but do so at the risk of developing bad listening habit.
When people talk, they want listeners to understand their ideas. The facts are useful chiefly for constructing the ideas. Grasping ideas is the skill on which the good listener concentrates. They remember facts only long enough to understand the ideas that are built from them. But then, almost miraculously, grasping an idea will help the listener to remember the supporting facts more effectively than does the person who goes after facts alone.
It might seem logical to slow down our thinking when we listen so as to coincide with the 125-word-per-minute speech rate, but slowing down thought processes seems to be a very difficult thing to do. When we listen, therefore, we continue thinking at high speed while the spoken words arrive at low speed. In the act of listening, the differential between thinking and speaking rates means that our brain works with hundreds of words in addition to those that we hear, assembling thoughts other than those spoken to us. To phrase it another way, we can listen and still have some spare time for thinking.
The use, or misuse, of this spare thinking time could well hold the answer to how effectively a person can concentrate on the spoken word.
The speed at which we think compared to that at which people talk allows plenty of time to accomplish these four mental tasks when we listen; however, they do require practice before they can become part of the mental agility that makes for good listening. Recent business training courses have devised aural exercises designed to give people this practice and thereby build up good habits of aural concentration.
Another factor that affects listening ability concerns the reconstruction of orally communicated thoughts once they have been received by the listener.
Newspapers reported not too long ago that a church was torn down in Europe and shipped stone by stone to America, where it was reassembled in its original form. The moving of the church is analogous to what happens when a person speaks and is understood by a listener. The talker has a thought. To transmit his thought, he takes it apart by putting it into words. The words, sent through the air to the listener, must then be mentally reassembled into the original thought if they are to be thoroughly understood. But most people do not know what to listen for, and so cannot reconstruct the thought.
For some reason many people take great pride in being able to say that above all they try to “get the facts” when they listen. It seems logical enough to do so. If a person gets all the facts, they should certainly understand what is said to them. Therefore, many people try to memorize every single fact that is spoken but do so at the risk of developing bad listening habit.
When people talk, they want listeners to understand their ideas. The facts are useful chiefly for constructing the ideas. Grasping ideas is the skill on which the good listener concentrates. They remember facts only long enough to understand the ideas that are built from them. But then, almost miraculously, grasping an idea will help the listener to remember the supporting facts more effectively than does the person who goes after facts alone.
Surely this listening skill is one which can be taught in our school systems, one in which people can build experience leading toward improved aural communication.
In different degrees and in many different ways, listening ability is affected by our emotions. Figuratively we reach up and mentally turn off what we do not want to hear. Or, on the other hand, when someone says what we especially want to hear, we open our ears wide, accepting everything—truths, half-truths, or fiction. We might say, then, that our emotions act as aural filters. At times they in effect cause deafness, and at other times they make listening altogether too easy.
If we hear something that opposes our most deeply rooted prejudices, notions, convictions, mores, or complexes, our brains may become over-stimulated, and not in a direction that leads to good listening. We mentally plan a rebuttal to what we hear, formulate a question designed to embarrass the talker, or perhaps simply turn to thoughts that support our own feelings on the subject at hand.
When emotions make listening too easy, it usually results from hearing something which supports the deeply rooted inner feelings that we hold. When we hear such support, our mental barriers are dropped and everything is welcomed. We ask few questions about what we hear; our critical faculties are put out of commission by our emotions. Thinking drops to a minimum because we are hearing thoughts that we have harbored for years in support of our inner feelings. It is good to hear someone else think those thoughts, so we lazily enjoy the whole experience.
What can we do about these emotional filters? The solution is not easy in practice, although it can be summed up in this simple admonition: hear the person out. Following are two pointers that often help in becoming a good listener
(1) Withhold evaluation—This is one of the most important principles of learning, especially learning through the ear. It requires self-control, sometimes more than many of us can muster, but with persistent practice it can be turned into a valuable habit. While listening, the main object is to comprehend each point made by the talker. Judgments and decisions should be reserved until after the talker has finished. At that time, and only then, review main ideas and assess them.
(2) Hunt for negative evidence—When we listen, it is human to go on a militant search for evidence which proves us right in what we believe. Seldom do we make a search for evidence to prove ourselves wrong. The latter type of effort is not easy, for behind its application must lie a generous spirit and real breadth of outlook. However, an important part of listening comprehension is found in the search for negative evidence in what we hear. If we make up our minds to seek out the ideas that might prove us wrong, as well as those that might prove us right, we are less in danger of missing what people have to say.
I do not hesitate to consider myself a good listener...sometimes out of courtesy, I must admit. At the risk of being judged a poor conversationalist, I am sensitive to foisting my thoughts on others, preferring instead to fully ingest what I am hearing said to me.
In practise, I save my serious thoughts, ideals -- even the odd opinion -- for Wrights Lane and the church pulpit. Still, I have reason to believe very few really listen -- to me.
Maybe this is a personal shortcoming...I also listen to what I think I see, by any other name -- inhabitions.
In different degrees and in many different ways, listening ability is affected by our emotions. Figuratively we reach up and mentally turn off what we do not want to hear. Or, on the other hand, when someone says what we especially want to hear, we open our ears wide, accepting everything—truths, half-truths, or fiction. We might say, then, that our emotions act as aural filters. At times they in effect cause deafness, and at other times they make listening altogether too easy.
If we hear something that opposes our most deeply rooted prejudices, notions, convictions, mores, or complexes, our brains may become over-stimulated, and not in a direction that leads to good listening. We mentally plan a rebuttal to what we hear, formulate a question designed to embarrass the talker, or perhaps simply turn to thoughts that support our own feelings on the subject at hand.
When emotions make listening too easy, it usually results from hearing something which supports the deeply rooted inner feelings that we hold. When we hear such support, our mental barriers are dropped and everything is welcomed. We ask few questions about what we hear; our critical faculties are put out of commission by our emotions. Thinking drops to a minimum because we are hearing thoughts that we have harbored for years in support of our inner feelings. It is good to hear someone else think those thoughts, so we lazily enjoy the whole experience.
What can we do about these emotional filters? The solution is not easy in practice, although it can be summed up in this simple admonition: hear the person out. Following are two pointers that often help in becoming a good listener
(1) Withhold evaluation—This is one of the most important principles of learning, especially learning through the ear. It requires self-control, sometimes more than many of us can muster, but with persistent practice it can be turned into a valuable habit. While listening, the main object is to comprehend each point made by the talker. Judgments and decisions should be reserved until after the talker has finished. At that time, and only then, review main ideas and assess them.
(2) Hunt for negative evidence—When we listen, it is human to go on a militant search for evidence which proves us right in what we believe. Seldom do we make a search for evidence to prove ourselves wrong. The latter type of effort is not easy, for behind its application must lie a generous spirit and real breadth of outlook. However, an important part of listening comprehension is found in the search for negative evidence in what we hear. If we make up our minds to seek out the ideas that might prove us wrong, as well as those that might prove us right, we are less in danger of missing what people have to say.
I do not hesitate to consider myself a good listener...sometimes out of courtesy, I must admit. At the risk of being judged a poor conversationalist, I am sensitive to foisting my thoughts on others, preferring instead to fully ingest what I am hearing said to me.
In practise, I save my serious thoughts, ideals -- even the odd opinion -- for Wrights Lane and the church pulpit. Still, I have reason to believe very few really listen -- to me.
Maybe this is a personal shortcoming...I also listen to what I think I see, by any other name -- inhabitions.
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