Active Listening Essay
May 7, 2008
Active listening is a communication skill that facilitates understanding,
comprehension, and compassion between people. Good listeners “actively process
information, make pertinent comments, and ask relevant questions” (Brent and
Anderson 123). They are engaged in the conversation and purposeful in listening,
thereby creating opportunities that improve relationships, increase cooperation,
solve problems, and build intimacy.
According to Philippa Cordingley, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Canada’s
Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in Education, there are four subsets of
skills involved in active listening (5). They include: valuing silence, listening to what
has actually been said, using affirming body language, and reframing what has been
said to check meaning. Silence is important because it shows the listener is
attentive, allows the speaker to finish what they are saying, and, to some extent,
provides the speaker with the opportunity to hear him or herself talk. It’s also
important for the listener to fight the urge to speak what is on their mind and listen
to what is actually being said. Listeners may want to add something to conversation,
e.g., make suggestions; in doing so, however, the listener might miss the real
meaning of what is being said. Using affirming body language is also important in
letting the speaker know the listener's attention, e.g., nodding and smiling. Finally,
it’s important for the listener to repeat back what they heard in their own words.
This allows the speaker to reconsider what they have said and clarify details.
Active listening is important in all situations where people are communicating with
each other. According to the National Communication Association, “effective
communication is critical to achieving high quality personal and work relationships”
(36). In the workplace active listening allows employers to understand their
employees and create a workplace that is responsive to employee needs. In service
industries, active listening allows service providers to better understand what
customer expectations are and meet those expectations. In the field of medicine,
active listening allows doctors and nurses to better understand their patients and
provide better care. In families, active listening builds intimacy and trust between
husband and wife and parent and child.
I worked for twenty years in the field of business as an administrative analyst. My
work revolved around analyzing workflow, writing procedure manuals, and
developing new hire orientation programming and technology training materials.
This work required that I meet with and interview employees across all levels of the
firm, from clerks to upper management, so that I could better understand how
processes flow from person to person and how the efficiencies of the processes I
studied impacted productivity and profitability. My success as an administrative
analyst required that I employ exemplary active listening skills so that I could
understand each employee’s perception about their job and their relationship with
other employees. Often, however, employees would complain about one another. It
was important that I remained neutral, even when I had an opinion. I had to ask
many clarifying questions, and when an employee was really upset, I had to allow
them to vent and respond to their venting in an empathetic, nonjudgmental way. I
then would take the information I gathered from interviews and reinterpret it in the
form of written manuals and reports to management. I gave a copy of everything I
wrote to all vested individuals for review to ensure that I interpreted the
information accurately. At the time, I did not realize that I was employing active
listening skills. Knowing what I now know, I can’t help but think about how much
better I would have been at my job had I received training in actively listening.
Active listening is especially important in the classroom; teachers who practice
active listening connect with their students and engage them in the participatory
aspects of learning. Active listening promotes understanding and sends the message
to students that they are important. When students internalize these positive
messages, communication and behavior in the classroom improves. When teachers
really listen, students intuitively feel that the teacher cares about and believes in
them (Wolfgang 208). Consequently, students feel understood and empowered and
are more likely to communicate their needs appropriately.
It’s not just the teachers who benefit from employing active listening, students
themselves benefit from learning these skills. Students who have active listening
skills are able to effectively process information and use their knowledge to better
understand concepts and develop new ideas. Teachers should teach listening skills
as part of their regular curriculum so that students develop communication literacy
skills. The National Communication Association (NCA) has published K-12
standards for speaking and listening that outline the importance of integrating
effective communication skills across the curriculum. According to these standards,
competent listeners demonstrate:
• Knowledge and understanding of the listening process
• The ability to use appropriate and effective listening skills for a given
communication situation and setting, and
• The ability to identify and manage barriers to listening.
While teaching listening skills is important, it is the teacher who models effective
listening skills that has the most influence. Teachers can model active listening by
giving undivided attention to students when they are presenting information in
class and by making appropriate and timely comments on the presentation. It’s also
important to listen and respond to students during everyday interactions. Brent and
Anderson acknowledge that it is unrealistic to expect that a teacher drop everything
to listen to students whenever they have something to say, but that it is important
that students “frequently see their teacher exhibiting good listening behavior”
(124). In addition to presentations, class discussion and one-on-one conferences are
also excellent opportunities to model active listening in the classroom.
Modeling active listening in the classroom is especially important in building a
cooperative classroom where students learn how to (a) communicate their thoughts
and feelings to each other in productive ways, and (b) solve problems between each
other and the teacher in ways that lead to positive outcomes. When a student is
angry and sharing his or her problem with the teacher, for example, he or she may
say things out of anger that do not represent their ultimate need. The appropriate
teacher response in a situation like this would be to first listen attentively. The
teacher who is actively listening understands that this is a necessary step in
resolving the issue and lets students communicate his or her feelings without
judgment. Secondly, the teacher should evaluate the situation by listening critically
and gaining additional information by asking open-ended questions such as, “Do you
want to tell me more about the situation?” Finally, the teacher should use verbal and
non-verbal cues so that the student knows they are being heard and understood.
This practice of active listening makes the student feel that his or her feelings are
important, thus helping the student open up and communicate more honestly with
teachers and peers.
Of all the classroom management plans, assertive discipline is the least likely to use
active listening as a tool for communication. Teachers who use assertive discipline
establish non-negotiable rules for the classroom and expect students to follow them.
Specific rewards and consequences are communicated and consistently and fairly
handed out to students who follow or do not follow the rules (Canter 1989). In
classrooms that use assertive discipline a student who is trying to communicate his
or her feelings may be viewed as arguing with the teacher; and, a teacher who stops
instruction to listen to a student talk about his or her feelings might be viewed by
other students as showing favoritism. In a classroom that employs assertive
discipline as a classroom management plan, teachers would almost have to
consciously not listen to children, especially if the situation that required listening
to was in conflict with one or more of the rules.
Active listeners let people know they care about what is being said and help the
speaker articulate the true meaning of their thoughts and the true source of their
feelings. The active listener seeks to understand and remember what is being said,
evaluates and interprets what they hear, and communicates understanding by
reflecting back to the speaker in an empathetic manner. Active listening is very
important in the classroom where teachers who practice active listening empower
students to be better communicators and learners. Teachers who strive to integrate
listening skills in the curriculum and model active listening in their every-day
interaction with students connect with students in ways that support open
communication and build a cooperative culture in the classroom.
Resources
Brent, Rebecca; Anderson, Patricia. “ Developing Children’s Classroom Listening
Strategies.” Reading Teacher 47.2 (1993) 122-126. Retrieved on May 5, 2008, from
EBSCO.
Canter, L. "More Than Names on the Board and Marbles in a Jar." Phi Delta Kappan
71(1989): 57-61. Retrieved from Professor Waltz’s homepage. D’Youville College,
http://campus.dyc.edu/~drwaltz/FoundLearnTheory/FLT_readings/Canter.htm.
Cordingley, Philippa. “Talking to learn: The Role of Dialogue in Professional
Development.” Education Review 19.2 (2006): 50-57. Retrieved on May 7, 2008,
from EBSCO.
Jalongo, Mary Renk. “Promoting Active Listening in the Classroom. Childhood
Education (1995). Retrieved in full text on May 6, 2008, from BNET.com. <
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3614/is_199510/ai_n8712320/print>.
National Communication Association (NCA). “NCA K-12 Standards of
Communication.” Retrieved on May 7, 2008 from <
http://www.natcom.org/NCA/admin/index.asp?downloadid=119>.
Poole, Marshall S.; Walther, Joseph B. (Eds.). “Communication: Ubiquitous, Complex,
Consequential.” National Communication Association. Retrieved on May 7, 2008
from < http://www.natcom.org/nca/Template2.asp?bid=1342>.
Salem, Richard. “Empathic Listening.” (2003). Retrieved on May 6, 2008, from
Beyond Intractability <
http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/empathic_listening/>.