Active listening is an important communication skill that involves fully focusing on the speaker, understanding their message, and responding thoughtfully. It requires paying attention not just to the words but also non-verbal cues like tone of voice and body language. While hearing is a physical process, listening is a mental activity that uses the brain to comprehend sounds. Barriers like distractions, biases, disinterest, and close-mindedness can prevent effective active listening.

2. 1. Recognize that listening is an integral part of communication skills
2. Define active listening
3. Distinguish listening from hearing
4. Identify the importance of active listening
5. Identify how to be an effective listener
6. Identify verbal and non-verbal signs of active listening
7. Mention types of listeners
8. Identify barriers to effective listening

3.  Many people think that speaking is communication, that is, they treat
speaking as synonymous with communication. Thus, they misconceive
fluent speakers as effective communicators than calm and silent people.
 People who speak more, cause more ‘noise’ in communication (i.e unclear
messages).
 People who keep on talking without listening to others fail to understand
that communication is a two way process and efficacy of communication
is directly proportional to the ability to listen carefully to others.
 That is why, effective communicators focus on active listening.
Listening as an Integral Part of Communication Skills

4. There are five different parts
that we listen with other than
just our ears.
• Mouths need to be quiet and not making
sounds.
• Hands/feet need to be still, not moving. They
also need to not be making sounds.
• Brain helps us to understand what is being
said and make connections.
• Listen with eyes. When someone is speaking
we should be looking at them.
• listen with heart. When listening, we should
be considerate of the speaker.

5. • Listening is not a ‘passive” skill but a “receptive” skill through
ears, eyes and brain. It requires as much attention and mental
activity as speaking.
What is active listening?
• Active listening is the ability to focus completely on a speaker,
understand their message, comprehend the information and respond
thoughtfully.
• Active listening is the practice of showing someone you’re listening
through verbal and non-verbal cues.

6.  Active listeners, besides paying full attention to
words, keenly observe the non-verbal cues (tone of
voice, facial expressions, and body language) for
grasping the message completely.
What is it called “active”?
You use your eyes and brain as
well as your ears.

7. TOTAL COMMUNICATION PROCESS
Reading
16%
Writing
9% Speaking
30%
Listening
45%
That of the time an
individual is engaged
in communication,
approximately 9% is
devoted to writing, 16%
to reading, 30% to
speaking, and 45% to
listening.

8. Listening is different from Hearing

9.  Listening is different from hearing
because hearing is basically a physical
activity. However, listening is a
mental activity that involves and uses
the brain.
 Hearing is the passive intake of sound
while listening is the act of
intentionally working to comprehend
the sounds you hear.

10. Stages of listening
1. Hearing
2. Attending
3. Understanding
4. Responding
5. Remembering

11. Apart from just hearing, it involves:
 Reception
 Selection
 Organization
 Assimilation ‫االستيعاب‬
 Interpretation
 Evaluation
 Response

13. Why is active listening important?
1.It helps to build relationships.
2.It helps to build trust.
3.It helps to identify and solve problems.
4.It helps to increase knowledge and understanding of
various topics.
5.It helps to avoid missing critical information.

15. 1. Be attentive
completely
2. Ask open ended
questions
3. Ask probing
questions
4. Request
clarification
5. Paraphrase (in your
own words)
6. Be in agreement to
and reflect feelings
7. Summarize

16. How can check your understanding
For any barrier to communication, it is possible for information to get
misinterpreted causing us to hear a message that was not intended.
To avoid confusion, before responding, it is good practice to check for
understanding using the following:
1. Use reflecting and paraphrasing to ensure you have understood the
speaker’s message correctly. Try using phrases such as, “If I am
hearing you correctly, you’re saying…”
2. Ask probing questions to help clarify the speaker’s meaning. “What
did you mean when you said…?”
3. Summarize what you have heard occasionally

18. Non-verbal

19. TYPES OF LISTENERS
Active listening: You listen closely to content and intent. What emotional
meaning might the speaker be giving you? You try to block out barriers to
listening. Most importantly, you are non-judgmental and empathetic.
Passive listening: (Non-listening). You hear the words only, but your mind is
wandering and no communication is taking place (no response).
Selective listening: You hear only what you want to hear. You hear some of
the message and immediately begin to formulate your reply without waiting
for the speaker to finish.
Marginal Listening: The marginal listener is mentally too busy preparing a
reply to what he is hearing to be sufficiently attentive to what it means. The
marginal listener is very easily distracted by noise, movement, or even simply
his own mind fog.
Evaluative Listening: The evaluative listener is logical and unemotional. He
evaluates any message strictly on the basis of the words being spoken and
totally disregards the vocal tone, body language, or facial expressions of a
speaker. The problem here is that quite often the evaluative listener believes
that he understands the speaker perfectly. Meanwhile, however, the speaker
himself does not feel understood at all.

20. WHAT MAKES AN ACTIVE LISTENER?

21. BARRIERS TO ACTIVE LISTENING

22. Sufficient language background is required
to fully understand the speaker.
Despite one’s best efforts to intensely
participate in the communication process (a
lecture delivered, for instance), inadequate
language base will act as a deterrent.
Weak language proficiency, lack of
technical vocabulary, combined with fear
and shyness, will hinder the progress of
learning a new subject.

23.  Partial listening occurs when people are
multitasking and allow themselves to be distracted
easily.
 For instance, when talking over the phone during a
conversation, flip through a book, or surf through
the internet, they fail to pay full attention to the
speaker.
 Because the mind is involved in too many things,
important details are missed in partial listening.

24.  Lack of interest in the subject prevents
one to pay complete attention.
 Students, for instance, may remember a
pop song more easily than the name of
an author.
 So, due to disinterestedness in the
subject, during a conversation, the
listener may focus on other interesting
subjects.

25.  The listeners form biased opinions by
looking at the speaker’s look, dress and
mannerism (Prejudice).
 The bias against the speaker can be
formed due to one’s own gender and
colour preferences.
 Even the status of the speaker,
depending on whether it is high or low,
can affect the logical thinking of the
listener.

26.  The major cause of poor listening is due to the
listener’s emotional, mental and psychological
mind-set.
 If there is any dislike for the speaker and
disapproval to his/her ideas, the listener will
certainly reconstruct distorted, negative
message and keep disagreeing with the speaker’s
viewpoints.
 The listener will even go to the extent of
insulting, and humiliating the speaker in public.

27.  Some listeners suffer from a defeatist
(pessimistic) attitude.
 Hence, underestimate their self-capabilities and
decide in advance that they cannot understand
what they are going to hear.
 Mostly, new students and participants in a
conference suffer from this kind of self-
diffidence and affect the listening process.

28.  Sometimes one tends to become close minded
due to one’s own deep rooted beliefs.
 Socio- culturally embedded beliefs act as
barriers to new thoughts and fresh ideas.
 For instance, if one has a deep rooted conviction
on caste system based arranged marriage,
then the person will not be able to openly listen
to a talk on the benefits of inter-caste love
marriage.
 Such deep-rooted beliefs lead to superficial
listening and cause disagreement with the
speaker’s stance and view point.

29. NPTEL- COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Always
Remember . . .