communication skills

1. ASSINGNMENT
Topic: Listening and Speaking Skills
Submitted To: Mr. Waleed Butt
Submitted By: Amna Safder
Ayesha Afzal
Syeda Qurat ul Ann
Huma Saleem
Dept: M.A (English)
Semester: 2nd

2. Listening and Speaking of Communication Skills
Listening
Introduction:
What is listening? We were given two ears and one mouth. Because God knew that listening was
twice hard as talking. The word listen refers to making as effort to hear something or pay
attention to someone speaking or to some specific sound. According to David Brandon “Good
listening has an enormous quality of newness. Helpful listening is a form of meditation.”
Listening is following and understanding the sound. It is hearing with a purpose. Good listening
is built on three basic skills: attitude, attention and adjustment. These skills are known
collectively as Triple-A listening. Hearing and listening are not same.
Listening is a very important skill, especially for students. Many students tend to talk too much
during a tutorial session. This defeats the purpose of tutoring, which is to allowstudents to learn
by discussion. Rather than turning the session into a mini-lecture, tutorsmust actively listen and
encourage their students to become active learners. Giving astudent your full attention is
sometimes difficult because you start to run out of time, or you find yourself thinking about your
next question; however, the time you spendactively listening to your student will result in a
quality tutoring session.
Listening is the absorption of the meanings of words and sentences by the brain.Listening leads
to the understanding of facts and ideas. But listening takes attention, or sticking to the task at
hand in spite of distractions. It requires concentration, which is thefocusing of your thoughts
upon one particular problem. A person who incorporateslistening with concentration is actively
listening. Active listening is a process of responding to another that encourages communication.
Difference between Hearing and Listening:
Hearing Listening
Hearing is merely the ability of ear to sense Listening is more of conscious effort to

3. sounds around one interpret the sound.
Non-selective and involuntary process for
anyone that can hear.
Listening is voluntary, that involves intention
and attention.
Easy, physical and passive process. Active mental process, attempt to make a
meaning of what we hear.
Hearing is when the sound is reaching your
ear.
Listening is when it reaches your brain.
Barriers to Effective Listening:
 Environmental barriers( room is too hot or cold , chair is uncomfortable)
 Linguistic barrier(inappropriate tone, monotonous voice, complex sentences, complex
vocabulary)
 Psychological barriers(anger, own anxiety, frustration and inability to put across ideas)
 Perceptual barriers(attitude unexpected, appearance of speaker, mannerism, accents)
 Content barriers(speaker goes on for too long, content is repetitious, heard the material
before)
 Personal barriers(preoccupied with own problem, looking for any opportunity to
interrupt)
Poor Listening Habits and Good Listening Habits:
Habits Poor Listeners Good listeners
Criticizing a Speaker Criticize the speaker voice,
clothes or looks. So they
decide the speaker won’t say
anything important.
Realize that lecture is not a
popularity contest. Good
listeners looks for the ideas
being presented.
Finding fault with the
Speaker
Become so involved in
disagreeing with something
the speaker states.
Listen with the mind, not the
emotions. Good listeners jot
down with something they
don’t agree with to ask the
speaker later,
Forcing every lecture to one
format
Outline the lecture in detail,
the listener is so concerned
with organization that he
misses the content,
Adjust their style of note
taking to the speaker’s topic
and method of organization.
Listening only for facts Only want the facts. They
consider everything else to be
only the speaker’s opinion.
Want to learn something new
and try to understand the
speaker’s point. A good
listener is not afraid of
difficult, complicated and
technical ideas.
Wasting thought speed Move along lazily with the Use any extra time or pauses

4. speaker even though thinking
is faster than speaking.
the lecture to reflect on the
speaker’s message.
Speaking
Introduction
Speaking is the action of conveying information or expressing one’s thoughts and feelings in
spoken language. Speaking is the act of generating words that can be understood by listeners.
Our voice can reveal as much about our personal history as we are. The sound of a voice and
content of a speech can provide clues to an individual’s emotional state and a dialect can indicate
their geographic roots. The voice is unique to the person to whom it belongs.
Aspects of Effective Speaking
Effective speaking has nothing to do with the outdated concept of ‘elocution’ where everyone
was encouraged to speak in the same ‘correct’ manner. Rather effective speaking concerns being
able to speak in a public context with confidence and clarity, whilst at the same time reflecting
on your own personality. Following are the aspects of effective speaking;
 Accents
 Finding your voice
 The effect of breath on voice and speech
 Vocal production
Importance of Speaking Skills
 Ability to convey your message in a proper way.
 Encouraging the people to communicate with each other.
 Ability to perform, persuade and direct.
 It give us the ability to communicate effectively.
 Speaking skills helps to ensure that one won’t be misunderstood,
Speaking is the productive skill in the oral mode. It, like the other skills, is more complicated
than it seems at first and involves more than just pronouncing words. There are three kinds of
speaking situation in which we find ourselves,
 Interactive
 Partially Interactive
 Non-Interactive

5. Types of Speaking
 Informal speaking
 Formal speaking
 Group interviews
 Job interviews
 Meetings and Conferences
 Public speaking and Presentation
Salient features of Speaking
 Commanding yet friendly voice
 Perfect clarity of language, thoughts and ideas
 Listeners friendly
 Comprising of anecdote, wit and humor
 Creating a bond between speaker and listeners
There are some micro skills that involves on speaking.
 The speaker has to pronounce the distinctive sounds of a language clearly enough so that
people can distinguish them.
 Use the correct forms of words.
 Put words together in correct word order.
 Use vocabulary appropriately.
 Use the language that is appropriate at the situation and relationship to the conversation
partner.
 Make the main ideas stand out from supporting ideas or information.
 Think before you speak.
 Know your message.
 Know something about the audience.
 Illustrate with example.
 Have the facts and respond well to questions.
Barriers in Speaking
 Unclear message
 Lack of consistency in communication
 Incomplete sentence
 Not understanding the listener
 Words can have different meanings to different listeners
 Use of negative words

6. So, unlike a written text where we can re-read the information, a speaker has to speak the word.
These words can’t be removed. There is no opportunity for listeners to recapture the words once
they have been said. To maintain listener’s attention, speech needs to be well planned.