how to Become a Better Listener 5.3 77
- Listen. Pay attention to both the details of the message and the major ideas.
- Imagine. Visualize how you would feel if you had experienced what the
speaker experienced. - Check. Check your understanding of the message by asking questions to clar-
ify what you heard and by summarizing what you think you heard.
LISTENING TO EVALUATE When you evaluate a message, you are making
a judgment about its content. You are interested in whether the information is
reliable, true, or useful. When evaluating what you hear, the challenge is to not
become so critical of the message that you miss a key point the speaker is mak-
ing. Rather, you must juggle three very difficult tasks: You must make judgments
as well as understanding and recalling the information you are hearing. Your
biases and judgments act as noise, sometimes causing you to misunderstand the
intended meaning of the message.LISTENING FOR INFORMATION Since preschool, you have been in listening
situations in which someone wanted you to learn something. Keys to listening for
information are listening for the details of a message and making certain that you
link the details to major ideas. Poor listeners either listen only for facts and pieces of
a message or are interested only in the bottom line. By concentrating on both facts
and major ideas while also mentally summarizing the information you hear, you
can dramatically improve your ability to remember messages. Also, remember to
compare unfamiliar information to ideas and concepts with which you are familiar.LISTEN FOR MAJOR IDEAS In a classic study, Ralph Nichols asked both good
and poor listeners what their listening strategies were.^14 The poor listeners in-
dicated that they listened for facts, such as names and dates. The good listeners
reported that they listened for major ideas and principles. Facts are useful only
when you can connect them to a principle or concept. In speeches, facts as well
as examples are used primarily to support major ideas. Try to mentally summa-
rize the major idea that the specific facts support.
If you heard President Barack Obama deliver his Second Inaugural Address
in Washington, D.C., on the cold morning of January 22, 2013, you heard him
introduce his key idea about two minutes into his speech by repeating these
three words: “We the people... .” A good listener would recognize that these
words reveal a core idea of the speech—that it takes a collaborative effort to do
good things.
How can you tell what the major ideas in a speech are? A speaker who is
well organized or familiar with good speaking techniques will offer a preview
of the major ideas early in the speech. If no preview is provided, listen for the
speaker to enumerate major points: “My first point is that the history of Jackson
County is evident in its various styles of architecture.” Transitional phrases and
a speaker’s internal summaries are other clues that can help you to identify the
major points. If your speaker provides few overt indicators, you might have toM05_BEEB3981_05_SE_C05_065-094.indd 77 07/11/14 11:45 AM