Listening

 

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

We are given two ears and only one mouth. It means to say that GOD emphasizes clearly that listening is twice as hard as speaking.

While learning the mother tongue the child inevitably listens, imitates and imbibes the language. In thelearning of the second language the child is deliberately exposed to the listening material. This helps one to pick up the language, comprehend it and finally produce the desirable responses. The relative importance of the listening skill becomes evident as ear training precedes speech training.

Thoughts move about four times as fast as speech. With practice, while we are listening we will also be able to think about what we are hearing, really understand it, and give feedback to the speaker. Like the development of any skill, the first step to improvement is to have a good understanding of what we can do or stop doing in order to get better. The second step is often the most difficult, and that is the requirement that we practice the skill over and over. Listening is not different. Listening effectively to others can be the most fundamental and powerful communication tool of all. When someone is willing to stop talking or thinking and begin truly listening to others, all of their interactions become easier and confident.

 Language is made up of sounds and structures. If it is so, then the sounds are its phonic substance. If a person has to speak, requisite is that he should have the ability to discriminate between the contrasting units of sound in the language. Listening is perhaps the basic skill of communication. In the recent times much stress has been laid down on the skills of communication. It is considered an advantage to speak and write well. If that is so, the ability to speak well depends on our ability to listen well. Listening is an active process as it is an input in the channel of communication. The following figure explains how listening can be described as an input.

 

Input		Processing		Output
(Listening) words of the sender				(Speaking) Response given by the receiver

 Listening is thus the processing of data, its reconstruction and giving meaning to the data already organized. This makes it clear that listening is always followed by other skills in the LSRW (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing) order. Listening is not an isolated activity. It is always an integration of various skills of language learning that activate the mind to produce desirable responses. In communication, interaction is possible only when there is proper reception and comprehension of the message. There is always a clear distinction between hearing and listening. Many sounds are produced in and around us and we hear everything. But listening comes in only when we have a purpose and pay conscious attention to what we are listening. Hearing may always lead to forgetting. But, when we listen, it is done with a purpose and hence the memory is for long-term. It is always true that a good listener can learn the language more quickly and efficiently.

We listen to conversations, news, multimedia, mass media, programs, announcements, lectures, orations, debates, seminars, interviews, interrogation, speech and recitation of literature. Listening gives both pleasure and knowledge. Hence, it is meant for enjoyment and this equally leads to intellectual stimulation.

Dr. D. Ashalatha Reddy

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