Listen Skillfully
Speech – Mrs. Erlinger
Introduction
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Good listeners enact certain behaviors that help
them stay focused and remember what they’ve
heard
These behaviors include:
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Identifying your listening goal
Listening for major ideas
Practicing listening
Understanding your listening style
Becoming an active listener
Identifying a Listening Goal
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Typical student spends 45% of time
listening
Possible goals include:
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Listening for pleasure – simply enjoy; may
note how speakers/entertainers gain and
maintain attention and keep viewers
interested
Identifying a Listening Goal
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Listening to empathize – good friend, client,
customer, coworker; must stop, look, listen,
imagine and check
Listening to evaluate – make judgments but
also understand and recall information; biases
and judgments act as noise
Listening for information – listen for the details
of a message and link the details to major
ideas
Listening for Major Ideas
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Mentally summarize the major ideas that the
facts support
Good speaker will preview major ideas early in
the speech
Speaker may also enumerate major ideas (My
first point is…)
Transitional phrases and a speaker’s internal
summary
Be a selfish listener
Practicing Listening
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Listening skills do NOT develop naturally
Remember the adage: practice makes
perfect
Understanding Your Listening Style
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As listeners and speakers, one can adapt
and adjust to enhance quality of
communication
There are four listening styles or preferred
ways of making sense out of spoken
messages
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People-oriented listeners – comfortable
listening to people express feelings and
emotions; empathetic
Understanding Your Listening Style
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Action-oriented listeners – information that is
well-organized, brief and accurate; wants
speaker to get to the point and provide call(s)
to action; more skeptical
Content-oriented listeners – like complex
information laced with facts and details,
adequate support; debates
Time-oriented listeners – prefers succinct
messages; essential ideas in brief sound bites
Becoming an Active Listener
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Remains alert and mentally re-sorts,
rephrases and repeats key information
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Re-sort – rearrange information into new,
more logical patterns
Rephrase – mentally summarize, more likely
to remember
Repeat – go back to essential ideas and
restate them to yourself