Key Terms: articulators diaphragm larynx listener barriers pharynx pitch resonators speaker barriers thought speed trachea vocal cords external barriers
Summary
This chapter covers vocal production and listening. Vocal production involves breath and sounds, resonance, and articulation. Skillful communicators learn how to use their voices properly and carefully.
Listening involves a four-step process:
1. receiving
2. interpreting
3. evaluating
4. responding
Thought speed gives a listener time to process what a speaker is saying. There are four types of listening:
Informational
Empathic
Critical
Creative
Good communicators avoid the three barriers to listening
External
Speaker
Listener barriers
And use guidelines for good listening.

Part I. VOCAL PROJECTION
Every day you get out of bed and begin to make an amazing number of different sounds. You may yawn, grumble, giggle, talk, yell, or sing. But do you know how your voice makes these sounds.
1. Breath and Sound – the production of sound begins with the breathing process. The breathing process provides the air needed for sound production. Besides the lungs, the process involves the diaphragm, a muscle that separates the chest from the abdominal cavity. a. Breath Control - when inhaling, the diaphragm needs to move down and out as the air fills up the lungs. The shoulders should remain level. Also, it is more effective to breathe through the nose to avoid gulping air. b. Sound Production – as you exhale, air leaves your lungs and passes into the windpipe, or trachea. The trachea is the tube that carries air, just as the esophagus carries food. At the top of the trachea, air passes into the larynx, also called the voice box. The larynx contains your vocal cords, which are two elastic folds with a slit between them. As air is pushed upward through this slit, the cords vibrate to produce sound. c. Pitch – the length of your vocal cords affects the pitch or highness and lowness of sound. The longer the cord, the lower the voice; the shorter the cord, the higher the voice. When you are nervous, your neck becomes tense and your vocal cords tighten up. This tension may create a higher pitch or more strained sound. d. Resonance – the sound produced by the vocal cords moves upward in the throat to resonating chambers. The pharynx – the muscular sac between the mouth and the esophagus – or the back part of the throat, the mouth, and the nasal cavities act as hollow chambers, or resonators, to increase the sound. The thin soft sound that comes from the vocal cords becomes louder as it moves through the resonators. e. articulation – speech occurs when articulators form sounds into words. The articulators are the tongue, teeth, jaw, hard and soft palate, and lips. These parts of the vocal mechanism affect the final formation of words.
What aspects of your job or volunteer work that require you to make use of your vocal skills, example: talking with visitors, speaking over a public address system, reading to children, work in an area that has working machine sounds, etc. f. vocal quality – this refers to the sounds of your voice. Most people produce full sounds, which make their voices pleasant. Some speakers have a nasal voice, which makes them sound if they are talking through their nose. Others have husky or raspy voices.
*Steps involved in the proper way to breathe – keep shoulders level; swell diaphragm upon inhalation; breathe through the nose.

2. Importance of Vocal Production
Effective speech begins with good vocal production. It is important to develop correct habits for creating sounds so that you can make yourself understood in many situations. This is especially important when speaking with people from different areas of the country and world. Skillful communicators learn how to improve their voices and make themselves more easily understood by listeners.

Part II. THE LISTENING PROCESS
What is listening? Is it the same as hearing? You may be surprised to learn that there is a difference.
Hearing is the act of receiving sound. Listening involves hearing, but it is much more complicated than just picking up sounds. Listening involves a four-step process:
1. receiving – It involves hearing and seeing.
2. interpreting – Once you have received a message through your ears and eyes, you have to use your own experience to interpret what you just heard.
3. evaluating – After you have interpreted the message, you need to evaluate it carefully. You have to connect that message to your ideas or feelings about the subject of the message.
4. responding – Almost all messages require some type of response. A lack of response frustrates most speakers. The listener’s response is important for effective communication. Listeners have one advantage over speakers. This advantage allows them to be active while listening. It is called thought
speed. Thought speed refers to the extra tie listeners gain because they can process words faster than speakers can produce them.
* An example of a listening process that involves all the steps above - you receive a message when you hear your friend greet you and see that she is smiling; you’ve seen her smile that way before, so you interpret that she has some good news; you know that she was trying out for the school play, so you evaluate what her getting the part would mean to her and to you; you respond by smiling back at her and asking about her audition.
Part III. TYPES OF LISTENING
An effective listener uses four types of listening. Each type of listening requires effort and awareness. A competent listener is comfortable using all types.
1. Informational Listening – An important purpose for listening is to get information.
2. Critical Listening – Examining an informative or a persuasive message and making decisions about your findings. Critical listening involves separating fact from opinion and checking out the source of a message. A fact is a statement that can be proved or disproved. An opinion is a statement that is based on a belief or feeling.
3. Creative – Using your active imagination as you interpret a message. This is sometimes called recreational listening. Example: A talented storyteller helps you create mental pictures.
4. Empathic – Involves listening to another’s feelings. It is not always easy to listen to others talk about feelings.

Part IV. BARRIERS TO LISTENING
A person with normal hearing is not necessarily a good listener. The three major barriers to listening are eternal barriers, speaker barriers, and listener barriers.
1. External Barriers – are situations in the environment that keep you from paying careful attention to the speaker. Example: bee flying around your head an ambulance siren wailing outside or a beeper going off.
2. Speaker Barriers – are characteristics of the speaker that interfere with listening. They include appearance and manner, prejudice, and believability. a. Distracting Appearance and Manner – some speakers turn off their audiences through their appearance or by their manner of speaking. Example: using filler words such as: “you know” or “like.” b. Prejudice – speakers who appear narrow-minded or prejudiced also turn off listeners. c. Lack of Believability – listeners need to believe that the speaker knows his or her subject well.
3. Listener Barriers – are personal attitudes or behaviors that interfere with listening. Internal distractions, lack of knowledge, personal prejudices, and your desire to talk may get in the way of listening. a. Internal Distractions – your thoughts, feelings, or physical conditions can interfere with listening. b. Lack of knowledge – sometimes you will find that no matter how hard you try to listen, you cannot understand what the speaker is saying. c. Personal Prejudices – personal beliefs may also keep you from really hearing what another person has to say. d. Desire to Talk – Many people would rather talk than listen, especially if they have to listen carefully.

Part V. GUIDELINES FOR GOOD LISTENING
The following guidelines are used by people who worked their listening skills. These guidelines can help you develop your own listening skills.
1. Watch for nonverbal clues.
2. Try to see things from the speaker’s point of view
3. Avoid distractions
4. Listen for the new and unusual idea
5. Listen for repetition
6. Get prepared
7. Respond to the speaker
8. Apply the ideas to yourself
9. Listen for structure
10. Review and preview the points

1. What are the three elements of vocal production?
2. Describe the proper way to breathe.
3. What are the four steps in the listening process? Give an example of how one message goes through these steps.
4. Describe the four types of listening and their importance.
5. Describe the three barriers to listening. Give examples of each.
6. What aspects of your job or volunteer work that require you to make use of your vocal skills, example: talking with visitors, speaking over a public address system, reading to children, work in an area that has working machine sounds, etc.

7. Think about the different places which you need good communication skills in your own life (home, school, work, sports events, clubs, church).
Choose one of these places, and think back to when good listening was an important part of your activity there.
Describe one time when the listening was effective and one time when it was not effective.
Then explain why good listening did or did not take place.
8. You will be giving a speech/presentation on giving instructions on how to do something. As a listener, you should be able to make sense of the instructions as they are being presented. An example: how to do a dance step, or how to open up oysters. You will present this either through a power point presentation format or a hands on approach of step by step.