Listening
plays an important role in our life because listening is the best way to gain
knowledge, gather information and get social relationship. That is the reason
why all of us are born with two ears and one mouth; not the other way around. It is because God wants us to
listen more and talk less.
Most
of us are not good listeners as we always pretend to listen, get frustrated,
don't pay enough attention, don’t focus or even dream when our friends are
talking to us.
Most
of us do not have the patience to listen and some even cut in the conversation
and talk about a new topic without thinking about the feeling of our friend.
Some
of us also express an uninterested body language when someone is talking to us.
Sometimes we do not even respond to the conversation and we ignore the
speech from our friend. These are very common practices among us in our daily
life.
In
order to be an effective listener, we have to acquire some basic listening
skills. These are some of the tips to improve our listening skills:
Ø
Pay full attention when someone is talking to us
Ø
Be patient
Ø
Maintain eye contact
Ø
Focus on the message
Ø
Give time to the speaker to complete his speech (do not cut in)
Ø
Respond to the conversation by saying, "I see", "mmm",
"okay" or "shake the head"
Ø
Understand the conversation
Ø
Remember the important (key) points of the conversation
Ø
Show a proper body language
Ø
Give feedback or paraphrase the conversation
By acquiring these listening skills we would be able to be an effective listener. Most important, to be an effective listener we should always remember an important point: "talk less and listen more".
Kavya, August 2003
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