A typical student spends approximately 14 hours per week listening in a classroom, according to the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) Student Handbook. Aside from the advantages of having great listening skills to absorb information and become a better student, listening skills are essential to building and maintaining relationships and can help you be a better friend, parent or business professional. In any career, relationship or life situation, listening skills are crucial.
Eye Contact
Good eye contact not only conveys your interest and respect to the speaker, it also allows you to focus your attention and better read the emotions of the speaker as evidenced in his facial expressions and mannerisms. Good eye contact will help you better understand what's being said.
Emotional Involvement
Another listening skill requires the listener to be free of biases. When you become emotionally involved in a conversation, you are prone to hear a jaded story, as your point of view and emotions will takeover. When emotional involvement is apparent, you will hear what you want to hear and should remain open-minded and objective instead, according to the UMD.
Avoiding Distractions
Good listening skills require the ability to overcome distractions. In many situations that require listening, there are other people present, noises resounding and a host of other possible distractions. Eliminating them may in some cases be impossible. Focusing on them, however, is a choice and may require diligence. In some cases, you can think faster than the speaker, according to the UMD. This can cause your mind to wander. Thinking, writing, pondering and listening simultaneously is possible, but may take practice.
Clarifying
Clarifying is an important factor for good communication. Even a skilled listener will not always comprehend what is being said, so clarification may be necessary to understanding. A passive or attentive listener is described by Larry Alan Nadig, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and marriage and family therapist, as being genuinely interested in hearing and understanding the other's point of view, but may be too passive to clarify. According to Nadig, active and reflective listening is the single most important listening skill. This requires both attention to the conversation and an effort to verify what's being said before responding. Restating or paraphrasing the speaker's point of view so that he may correct or agree with your interpretation is key to communicating effectively.
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