Types of Listening

TOPIC
Types of Listening
OBJECTIVES
Throughout the discussion, the students are expected to:
1. identify the types of listening;
2. relate the four types of listeners to a jar;
3. listen to ones opinion carefully; and
4. apply the knowledge acquired in this lesson by answering the activity.
INTRODUCTION
What is listening? Why do we have to listen? How does it differ from hearing? These are
the common questions people ask to themselves when they hear the word listening.
Defining Listening
The first communication skill we engage in the moment we are born is listening. It is how
we learn and acquire language. Speaking and listening, then, are always interrelated. However,
although it is our first communicative behavior, listening is usually our most underdeveloped
communication skill. The International Listening Association (www.listen.org) defines listening
as the process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken and/or
nonverbal messages (1996). Because we cannot physically shut down our auditory perceptions, it
might be easy to assume that we are always in a state of listening. Individuals, however, have the
ability to appear to be listening when they are actually just hearing. What is the difference
between hearing and listening? The terms hearing and listening are often used interchangeably in
everyday life, but in order to learn how to listen effectively, it is important to understand the
differences between both activities. Until quite recently, not very much was known about the
process of listening. While speech instruction is commonwe teach our children how to speak a
language, for examplethere has been little instruction related to listening.
There are different reasons why we listen.

r enjoyment.
The way to become a better listener is to practice active listening. This is where you
make a conscious effort to hear not only the words that another person is saying but, more
importantly, to try and understand the total message being sent.
TYPES OF LISTENERS
Buddha compared listeners or learners to an earthen vessel -- that has holes at the bottom
that has cracks in it
that is completely full
that has neither crack nor hole

Approaches for Teaching Listening and Speaking. MA in English Education. 2013

Types of Listening
TYPES OF LISTENING
Discriminative listening
Discriminative listening is the most basic type of listening, whereby the difference
between difference sounds is identified. If you cannot hear differences, then you cannot make
sense of the meaning that is expressed by such differences.
We learn to discriminate between sounds within our own language early, and later are
unable to discriminate between the phonemes of other languages. This is one reason why a
person from one country finds it difficult to speak another language perfectly, as they are unable
distinguish the subtle sounds that are required in that language.
Likewise, a person who cannot hear the subtleties of emotional variation in another
person's voice will be less likely to be able to discern the emotions the other person is
experiencing.
Listening is a visual as well as auditory act, as we communicate much through body
language. We thus also need to be able to discriminate between muscle and skeletal
movements that signify different meanings.
Comprehension listening
The next step beyond discriminating between different sound and sights is to make sense
of them. To comprehend the meaning requires first having a lexicon of words at our fingertips
and also all rules of grammar and syntax by which we can understand what others are saying.
The same is true, of course, for the visual components of communication, and an
understanding of body language helps us understand what the other person is really meaning.
In communication, some words are more important and some less so, and comprehension
often benefits from extraction of key facts and items from a long spiel. Comprehension listening
is also known as content listening, informative listening and full listening.
Critical listening
Critical listening is listening in order to evaluate and judge, forming opinion about what
is being said. Judgment includes assessing strengths and weaknesses, agreement and approval.
This form of listening requires significant real-time cognitive effort as the listener
analyzes what is being said, relating it to existing knowledge and rules, whilst simultaneously
listening to the on-going words from the speaker.
SYNTHESIS
If a good leader is a good follower; therefore, a good speaker should be a good listener,
too. One cannot be an effective speaker if one is not an effective listener as well. There are
people who are only good at speaking but not at listening and vice versa so we really do not
know where to place ourselves. However, having known the different types of listeners by
comparing them to a jar, we can already assess ourselves if we are really a good listener.
Moreover, with the first three types of listening, we can also tell which among these types we
usually use in our everyday activities.

Approaches for Teaching Listening and Speaking. MA in English Education. 2013

Types of Listening
BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://buddhaha.blogspot.com/2006/12/four-different-types-of-listeners.html
http://changingminds.org/techniques/listening/types_listening.htm
http://textcommons.org/node/112
ACTIVITY
The teacher will play the song It Will Rain by Bruno Mars TWICE and the students
will answer the activity sheet provided. The first part of the activity will measure the students
knowledge on idiomatic expressions and definition while the second part will gauge the students
listening skills.

Approaches for Teaching Listening and Speaking. MA in English Education. 2013