Listening is an active process that involves hearing, understanding, and interpreting what is being said. It is important for effective communication and can be defined as hearing attentively or more than just hearing to understand meaning. Good listening skills are important for success in work, family, and society as they involve showing empathy, asking questions for clarification, and providing appropriate responses. There are different types of listening including active listening, which focuses on concentrating, understanding, responding, and remembering; appreciative listening, which involves listening to enjoy music or speakers; and informative listening, which aims to understand the message.

2.  Listening skill can be defined as, “Listening is the act of hearing
attentively”. It is also a process similar to reading which should possess
knowledge of phonology, syntax, semantics and text understanding.
Thomlison (1984) defines listening as, “Active listening, which is very
important for effective communication”. Listening can be also defined as,
“More than just hearing and to understand and interpret the meaning of a
conversation”.
Listening skill makes you successful in workplace, family and in the
society. Good listening skill is mandatory to get into a profession in
communications, management, planning, sales, etc. Listening skills
involve a different set of etiquettes, questioning for explanation, showing
empathy and providing a suitable response. Good listening skills include
the understanding ability. Body language is also a part of listening skill.
Eye contact with the speaker, sitting straight and alert are the good
gestures of a good listener.

4. 1. Active listening
2. Appreciative listening
3. Informative listening
4. Reflective listening
5. Empathetic listening

5.  Active listening is
a communication technique
used in counseling, training,
and Conflict resolution. It
requires that the listener
fully concentrate,
understand, respond and
then remember what is being
said. This is opposed
to reflective listening where
the listener repeats back to
the speaker what they have
just heard to confirm
understanding of both
parties.

6.  Appreciative listening is a type of
listening behavior where the listener
seeks certain information which they will
appreciate, for example that which helps
meet his/her needs and goals. One uses
appreciative listening when listening to
good music, poetry or maybe even the
stirring words of a great leader.[
 It involves listening to music that one
enjoys, people the listener likes to listen
to because of their style and the choices
the listener make in the films and
television he/she watches, radio
programmes and plays and musicals in
the theatre. Unlike informative
listening or relationship listening,
appreciative listening does not rely on the
message from the speaker it is how one
responds as a listener. Our appreciation
of what we hear will vary depending on
our individual tastes, but will also be
affected by three different factors:

7.  Informative listening is the name we
give to the situation where the
listener’s primary concern is to
understand the message. Listeners
are successful insofar as the
meaning they assign to messages is
as close as possible to that which the
sender intended.
 Informative listening, or listening to
understand, is found in all areas of
our lives. Much of our learning
comes from informative listening.
For example, we listen to lectures or
instructions from teachers—and
what we learn depends on how well
we listen. In the workplace, we
listen to understand new practices
or procedures—and how well we
perform depends on how well we
listen. We listen to instructions,
briefings, reports, and speeches; if
we listen poorly, we aren’t equipped
with the information we need.

8.  Reflective listening is
a communication strategy involving
two key steps: seeking to
understand a speaker's idea, then
offering the idea back to the speaker,
to confirm the idea has been
understood correctly. It attempts to
"reconstruct what the client is
thinking and feeling and to relay
this understanding back to the
client". Reflective listening is a more
specific strategy than the more
general methods of active listening.
It arose from Carl Rogers' school
of client-centered
therapy incounseling theory.
 Empathy is at the center of Rogers'
approach.

9.  Empathetic
listening is paying
attention to another
person
with empathy [emotio
nal identification,
compassion, feeling,
insight]. One basic
principle is to "seek to
understand, before
being understood.