Question

ACTIVE LISTENING PARTNER ACTIVITY

Meet with a partner. Each person will spend 5 minutes talking about practical applications of their coursework that they've seen in the field already. The other partner will practice active listening and ask meaningful questions as appropriate.

After you've met, answer the following:

• How skilled are you at the various components of active listening and what areas would you focus on to improve?
• When you were listening to the other person, did you fully understand the message or did you 'decide' what they are saying before they are finished? What effect did that have on the conversation?

Answer 1

Ans1 Components of active listening are attention (paying attention to what a speaker is saying requires intentional effort on listener’s part), attitude (approach task of listening with a positive attitude and an open mind) and adjustment (wait with patience till the speaker finished his or her conversation or speech). Other components can be listener orientation towards message and speaker, the reflective technique and questioning skills of the listener. In my case I need to focus more on adjustment part of active listening for improvement in my active listening skills. I generally get bored when someone continuously speaking and after that my mind started diverting and then I am only hearing, not actively listening.

Ans2 Yes, in this conversation I fully understand the message which speaker is giving. In some other cases sometimes I decide what he or she is saying after not properly understanding the message.

Ans3 They were saying that, “your questions are very good and I feel great after answering your questions because it not increase your understanding about the topic but also open my mind for some questions related to this topic which I would like to ask my professor”. This message effected the conversation positively and we have new doubts about this topic.

“If you like my answer please give thumbs up, thank you”.