More information about listening skills

 

Egan (1986) introduced the idea of 'active listening' to stress that we need to listen to different things - words, non-verbal cues, 'sour notes' and the wide context. He suggests that communication is 8% words, 56% facial cues and 36% other non-verbal cues. But listening is not a straightforward process - there can be a number of difficulties. For example, if Jean had not ensured privacy for supervision and there had been interruptions (phone calls or other workers) this would interfere with the concentration for both individuals. Also if there was outside noise or the room was too hot or too cold - these could cause distractions and impact on the listening capacity of each person.

Lishman (1994) notes that she becomes alert if she starts to find difficulty in listening attentively or feels boredom, as this signals to her that she needs to work out if the difficulty rests with herself or the other person e.g. asking 'what does my boredom mean?'. She suggests that it could signify that the other person has low self-esteem, feelings of not being worthy of attention or depression, or that she is feeling distraction or defensiveness.

Egan (1986) outlines a variety of other blocks to listening:

  • inadequate listening
  • evaluative listening
  • filtered listening
  • sympathetic listening

Inadequate listening - can be due to illness, overtiredness, or anxiety. In our scenario if Jean was anxious about the impact of Nazra's practice on Paul this could have interfered with her capacity to listen to Nazra and focus on Nazra's learning. If we find the person we are listening to very attractive or unattractive this can interfere with listening too - this can be an issue in practice learning both in mixed gender and same gender situations.

Another distraction could have been if Jean realised that she had had a very similar experience to Narza and she started to think too much about this instead of allowing it to inform, rather than distract from the attention she was giving Nazra.

As well as similarity, difference can generate inadequate listening, for example, Jean might have become too focused on Nazra's ethnic minority 'self' and this could have resulted in inadequate attention to other aspects of Nazra e.g. her being a young woman, her lack of experience in working with adults.

Evaluative listening - is a complex area in terms of an educator/learner situation because an assessment process is part of the listening experience. However, if Jean found herself thinking Nazra's practice was 'wrong' or 'bad' it would have been difficult for her to engage in a non-judgemental way with Nazra's learning. Conversely, if Jean was keen to focus only on 'affirming' feedback she might have only talked about 'right' or 'good' practice, and this also would not assist Nazra's learning - even if it resulted in both individuals feeling good.

Filtered listening - Egan (1986) suggests that 'filters' are the way we pay attention to some, ignore other, information. In a positive way they allow us to classify, generalise and predict, but negatively they led to prejudice and bias. For example, Jean's working class background and gender could mean she viewed Nazra's comfortable background as a privilege and as result felt less empathy for her during the early difficulties of practice learning. Thompson (2003) notes that one the 'myths of language' is a mistaken assumption that, 'certain accents indicate a low level of intelligence'. This dangerous and discriminatory assumption could operate if Jean retains her original accent and Nazra had a negative assumption about Jean's intelligence, and therefore her skill as a practice teacher, as this would impact on Nazra's respect and her openness to learning.

Sympathetic listening - On the other hand, 'sympathetic listening' could occur if Jean over identified with Nazra's feelings and moved into a 'rescuing' mode in supervision - in this situation she would have been less able to note the negative impact that Nazra's practice had had on Paul, and so she would not have attended fully to Paul's safety and rights to a constructive service.