Stages of listening according to the strongest

Stages of active listening

The listening process goes through four basic stages: receiving, understanding, evaluating, and responding. Basically, the active listener must hear and identify the sounds of speech directed towards him, understand the message facing him from the person speaking, evaluate the information critically, remember what was said, discuss what he hears, and give feedback. Whether verbal or non-verbal on the information received, the following we will explain the stages of listening from the weakest to the strongest:

• Information reception 

Presence is associated with listening, which is the other half of the receiving stage in the listening process. We can define attendance as the process of identifying and interpreting certain sounds that are listened to accurately, because listening is an active process that builds meaning from verbal and non-verbal messages.

• comprehension

The second stage in the listening process is the understanding stage. Understanding is when all parties participate in a communication transaction, and it constitutes the first step in the listening process, and at this stage the listener determines the context and meanings of the words he hears, and begins to define the context and meaning of individual words as well as determine the meaning in the language, because it helps him to fully understand the sentences , which helps in understanding the purpose of the conversation.

Before getting the full picture of the goal of the conversation, there is difficulty in focusing on what the speaker is saying, so questions are asked of the listener so that he can understand the purpose of the information provided by the speaker and this is among the active listening skills.

• Evaluation

Evaluation is the second stage of listening, where the listener determines whether the information heard and understood by the speaker is well structured or unstructured, biased or unbiased, true or false, important or unimportant.

Here again the listener ascertains how and why the speaker came and conveyed the message they conveyed. This may involve considerations of the speaker's personal or professional motives and goals.

The evaluation phase occurs most efficiently once the listener understands well what the speaker is trying to say, while sometimes opinions can be formed about information and ideas that we do not fully understand or even that the person misunderstands, but that is not good in the long run, so when he understands The listener, the message presented by the speaker, can evaluate the message without ambiguity or spending time and energy on points that may not be important or necessary.

• response

The response phase is the phase in which the listener provides verbal and/or nonverbal feedback. The listener can respond to what they hear either verbally or nonverbally. Nonverbal cues can include gestures such as nodding, eye contact, tapping a pen, fidgeting, smiling, or Moving eyes, grimacing, or any other body language, and this stage is considered the strongest in the listening process.

These types of responses can be made unintentionally or intentionally, and a verbal response may include asking a question, asking for additional information, redirecting or changing the focus of a conversation, interrupting the speaker, or repeating what the speaker has said to her in order to verify that the received message matches the message. intended.

Non-verbal responses such as nodding or making eye contact help the listener express their level of interest without interrupting the speaker, thus keeping both speaker and listener from being dizzy. When a listener responds verbally to what they hear and remember with a question or comment, the roles of speaker and listener are reversed, at least momentarily.

Responding adds important work to the listening process, because in most conversations the speaker looks for the listener's verbal and non-verbal responses to determine whether and how their message is being understood and considered.

Depending on the listener's feedback, the speaker can modify or continue a speaking manner, for example if the listener is upset with their arms crossed, the speaker may decide they need to tone down their voice to better convey their point of view, and if the listener smiles and nods or asks questions, The speaker may feel that the listener understands what he is saying and that his message is being communicated well, so the listener must know  the difference between active listening and passive listening.

Obstacles to active listening

• Low concentration

Low concentration or extreme lack of interest in speakers leads to poor listening, which can result from various psychological or physical situations such as visual or auditory distractions, physical discomfort, insufficient volume or lack of interest in the subject material, stress or personal bias, regardless of the cause when If the listener does not pay attention to the speaker's dialogue, effective communication is greatly diminished.

• Not setting priorities

Like what happens when inattention also occurs when focusing too much on unimportant information, so the listener must be able to pick up verbal cues and prioritize the information they hear to determine the most important points in the context of the conversation.

Many times, the information that the audience needs to know is delivered with less relevant or irrelevant information. When listeners give equal weight to everything they hear, it makes it difficult to organize and retain the information they need. For example, students who take notes should know In class what information is worth writing down only.

• The judgment is weak

When listening to a speaker's message, it is sometimes pervasive to ignore aspects of the conversation or make judgments before all the information is presented, due to listeners engaging in confirmation bias i.e. the tendency to isolate aspects of the conversation to support pre-existing beliefs and values. This psychological process has a detrimental effect on listening for several reasons.

• Focus on style, not substance

If listening, distractions, or larger-than-life elements in a speech or presentation can cause attention to be diverted away from more important information in the conversation or presentation, those distractions can also affect the listener's opinion. 

• cultural differences

Cultural differences such as speakers' accents, vocabulary, and misunderstandings due to cultural assumptions, can cause the listening process to fail. Also, among these biases is the physical appearance of the speaker. To avoid this problem, listeners must be aware of these biases, move away from them, and focus on the essence only instead of focusing on the same speaker.

Types of listening 

There are two main types of listening which are the foundations of all sub-types of listening and they are:

• discriminatory listening
• Comprehensive listening.

There are also three main types of listening that are most common in interpersonal communication:

• Informational listening (listening to learn)
• Critical listening (listening for assessment and analysis)
• Therapeutic or affective listening (listening to understand feelings and emotion)