9.1: Listening vs. Hearing

Learning Objectives

1. Understand the differences between listening and hearing.
2. Explain the benefits of listening.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Kimba Howard – megaphone – CC BY 2.0.

Beyond Hearing

“Are you listening to me?”

This question is often asked because the speaker thinks the listener is nodding off or daydreaming. We sometimes think that listening means we only have to sit back, stay barely awake, and let a speaker’s words wash over us. While many Americans look upon being active as something to admire, to engage in, and to excel at, listening is often understood as a “passive” activity. More recently, O, the Oprah Magazine featured a cover article with the title, “How to Talk So People Really Listen: Four Ways to Make Yourself Heard.” This title leads us to expect a list of ways to leave the listening to others and insist that they do so, but the article contains a surprise ending. The final piece of advice is this: “You can’t go wrong by showing interest in what other people say and making them feel important. In other words, the better you listen, the more you’ll be listened to” (Jarvis, 2009).

You may have heard the adage, “We have two ears but only one mouth”—an easy way to remember that listening can be twice as important as talking. As a student, you most likely spend many hours in a classroom doing a large amount of focused listening, yet sometimes it is difficult to apply those efforts to communication in other areas of your life. College students spend more than half of their daily communication listening (Emanuel et. a., 2008). As a result, your listening skills may not be all they could be. In this chapter, we will examine listening versus hearing, listening styles, listening difficulties, listening stages, and listening critically.

Listening vs. Hearing

Hearing is an accidental and automatic brain response to sound that requires no effort. We are surrounded by sounds most of the time. For example, we are accustomed to the sounds of airplanes, lawn mowers, furnace blowers, the rattling of pots and pans, and so on. We hear those incidental sounds and, unless we have a reason to do otherwise, we train ourselves to ignore them. We learn to filter out sounds that mean little to us, just as we choose to hear our ringing cell phones and other sounds that are more important to us.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Hearing vs. Listening

Listening, on the other hand, is purposeful and focused rather than accidental. As a result, it requires motivation and effort. Listening is active, focused, concentrated attention for the purpose of understanding the meanings expressed by a speaker. We do not always listen at our best, however, and later in this chapter we will examine some of the reasons why and some strategies for becoming more active critical listeners.

Benefits of Listening

Listening should not be taken for granted. Before the invention of writing, people conveyed virtually all knowledge through some combination of showing and telling. Elders recited tribal histories to attentive audiences. Listeners received religious teachings enthusiastically. Myths, legends, folktales, and stories for entertainment survived only because audiences were eager to listen. Nowadays, however, we gain information and entertainment through reading and electronic recordings rather than through real-time listening. If we become distracted and let our attention wander, we can go back and replay a recording. Despite that fact, we can still gain at least four compelling benefits by becoming more active and competent at real-time listening.

Become a Better Student

When we focus on the material presented in a classroom, we will be able to identify not only the words used in a lecture but their emphasis and their more complex meanings. We will take better notes, and will more accurately remember the instructor’s claims, information, and conclusions. Many times, instructors give verbal cues about what information is important, specific expectations about assignments, and even what material is likely to be on an exam, so careful listening can be beneficial.

Become a Better Friend

When we give our best attention to people expressing thoughts and experiences that are important to them, those individuals are likely to see us as someone who cares about their well-being. This fact is especially true when we give our attention only and refrain from interjecting opinions, judgments, and advice.

Others Will View Thoughtful Listener as Intelligent & Perceptive

When we listen well to others, we reveal ourselves as being curious and interested in people and events. In addition, our ability to understand the meanings of what we hear will make us more knowledgeable and thoughtful people.

Good Listening Can Help Public Speaking

When we listen well to others, we start to pick up more on the stylistic components related to how people form arguments and present information. As a result, we have the ability to analyze what we think works and doesn’t work in others’ speeches, which can help us transform our speeches in the process. For example, really paying attention to how others cite sources orally during their speeches may give us ideas about how to more effectively cite sources in our presentations.

Exercise

1. With a partner, discuss how you find out when you haven’t been listening carefully. What are some of the consequences of poor listening?

References

Emanuel, R., Adams, J., Baker, K., Daufin, E. K., Ellington, C., Fitts, E., Himsel, J., Holladay, L. and Okeowo, D. (2008.) How college students spend their time communicating. International Journal of Listening, 22:1, 13-28, DOI: 10.1080/10904010701802139

Jarvis, T. (2009, November). How to talk so people really listen: Four ways to make yourself heard. O, the Oprah Magazine. Retrieved from www.oprah.com/relationships/Communication-Skills-How-to-Make-Yourself-Heard