Active Listening Activity

Purpose

The purpose of this exercise is to allow you to practice active listening skills. You will practice listening and then reflect on the experience. For this assignment, you will not engage in a debate or even share your views. You will be 100% focused on listening and understanding. Unlike most discussions where the listener is preparing a response, you will not deliver a response so you should be careful to keep your thoughts on the speaker and not your own thoughts.

Assignment Instructions

Read the entire assignment, including all of the information below about active listening and what it entails.

Find someone who has different views or opinions on some topic (e.g., handgun control, abortion, capital punishment, and euthanasia are just some of the topics on which you can always find someone with a different viewpoint).

Once you have found someone, engage in the following steps:

Have a discussion that is at least 10 minutes long with the person about a topic on which you disagree.

Remember that you will write about the situation in the discussion forum after.

Instead of sharing your opinions, you are trying to develop a full understanding of the person's views by using active listening.

Remember: Good listening isnt mimicry; it captures the essence of what others have said in your own words.

For this, you will likely need to tell your conversation partner that you have to do this for school.

Reflect on your discussion and then answer these questions.

Answer the questions below in your discussion post. Minimum of 150 words per question. No replies are necessary.

Was this discussion different from the way you normally discuss contentious topics with other people? Why, or why not?

Was it difficult to reflect or paraphrase your listening partners perspectives? Explain and give an example.

Did active listening techniques or empathetic listening techniques lead to more effective listening for you? Explain.

Grading

Your work will be graded on meeting all of the assignment requirements above, answering questions thoroughly, demonstrating deep reflection in your answers, and quality of writing.

Background

Active listening means assuming half the responsibility for successful communication by actively giving the speaker nonjudgmental feedback that shows you have accurately heard what he or she said. Active listeners make it clear from their behavior that they are listening carefully to what the speaker has to say. Active listeners put the speaker at ease, maintain eye contact, and show the speaker that they are listening by nodding and making short statements.

Several strategies can help you be a better active listener:

First, engage in immediacy behaviors, such as putting your phone away, turning off the TV, leaning forward and making eye contact, and using short words such as yes, uh-huh, and okay, to encourage the speaker to continue and to demonstrate that you're listening. In group settings, that means not following the rule of three, which states that in a group of five or six people, its acceptable to look at your phone as long as three people have their heads up and appear to be paying attention. The rule of three is not active listening.

Second, clarify responses by asking the speaker to explain confusing or ambiguous statements.

Third, when there are natural breaks in the speakers delivery, use this time to paraphrase or summarize what has been said. Paraphrasing is restating what has been said in ones own words. Summarizing is reviewing the speakers main points or emotions. Paraphrasing and summarizing give the speaker the chance to correct the message if the active listener has attached the wrong meaning to it. Paraphrasing and summarizing also show the speaker that the active listener is interested in the speakers message.

Below is a list of specific statements that listeners can use to clarify responses, paraphrase, or summarize what has been said.

Immediacy Behaviors, Clarifying, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing Responses for Active Listeners

Immediacy Behaviors

Put your phone away.

Turn off the TV.

Sit close and lean forward.

Make eye contact.

Use yes, uh-huh, okay, and other short words to encourage the speaker to continue.

Clarifying Responses

Could you explain that again?

I dont understand what you mean.

Im not sure how

Im confused. Would you run through that again?

Paraphrasing Responses

What youre really saying is

If I understand you correctly

In other words

So your perspective is that

Tell me if Im wrong, but what you seem to be saying is

Summarizing Responses

Let me summarize.

Okay, your main concerns are

To recap what youve said

Thus far, youve discussed

Source: Atwater, I Hear You, rev. ed. (New York: Walker, 1992).

Active listeners also avoid evaluating the message or being critical until the message is complete. They recognize that their only responsibility during the transmission of a message is to receive it accurately and derive the intended meaning from it. Evaluation and criticism can take place after the message is accurately received. Finally, active listeners recognize that a large portion of any message is transmitted nonverbally and thus pay very careful attention to the nonverbal cues (that is, immediacy behaviors) transmitted by the speaker.

Good listeners are also empathetic listeners. Empathetic listening means understanding the speakers perspective and personal frame of reference and giving feedback that conveys that understanding to the speaker. Empathetic listening goes beyond active listening because it depends on our ability to set aside our own attitudes or relationships to be able to see and understand things through someone elses eyes. Empathetic listening is just as important as active listening, especially for managers, because it helps build rapport and trust with others.

Reflecting feelings is also an important part of empathetic listening because it demonstrates that one understands the speakers emotions. Unlike active listening, in which one restate or summarize the informational content of what had been said, the focus is on the affective part of the message. As an empathetic listener, one can use the following statements to reflect the speakers emotions:

So, right now it sounds like youre feeling

It seems as if youre

Do you feel a bit?

I could be wrong, but Im sensing that youre feeling

I Dont Agree, but Im Listening

Being a good listener is a critical part of effective communication. Without it, one is unlikely to be a good manager. Therefore, the purpose of this assignment is to help students develop their listening skills. And theres no better way to do that than to talk to someone whose views are quite different from the students. In the best of situations, being a good listener is difficult. Because of perceptual filters, distractions, or daydreams, we retain only about 25 percent of what we hear. When were talking with people who have very different views and opinions, it can be almost impossible to be good listeners. We tend to interrupt, jump to conclusions about what theyll say, and hurry them to finish their points (which we dont want to listen to anyway) so that we can correct their thinking with our own opinions.

Notes about learning

Most people are very poor listeners, so having to restate or paraphrase what others have said before making their own point is a very different communication style for most people. Most people report that demonstrating active listening to others makes it clear that an individual has really heard them. People also report that they are much more likely to see themselves as agreeing rather than disagreeing when both parties use active listening skills, as seen in this exercise. People commonly say, I thought our views were very dissimilar. But after listening to each other, we discovered how similar they are.

This is usually much harder than it looks. The instructor can demonstrate this to the class by having one listening couple do a demonstration for the rest of the class in which person A makes a statement that person B must accurately reflect before making his or her counterpoint. Inevitably, person B has some trouble accurately rephrasing what person A has said. In fact, ask the rest of the class whether person Bs rephrasing was accurate. The instructors experience might be that usually its not. Give person B another chance. And if he or she still doesnt get it right, have person A make the original statement again. Then, to be fair, have person A rephrase person Bs statement.

This small demonstration usually shows the class that active listening is harder than it looks. After the demonstration, have all of the other listening pairs conduct the same exercise simultaneously. Usually this starts out loud, but then settles down into a predictable pattern where the listening partners are quietly listening and talking to each other.

Listeners should respond to emotions before information and facts when listening. If someone is angry or upset, listening should catch that first. Only after dealing with emotions should listeners move on to information and problems.