Listening is a very complex process that can be decomposed into five main steps and sometimes some obstacles might interfere in this course of action.
Step 1: HEARING
Hearing is a prerequisite step to the listening process. Simply put, in this stage the sounds emitted by the speaker are received by listener ears. In scientific words, when someone speaks, sounds waves are produced, and after striking human auditory receptors circulate along the nervous system pathways and reach different parts of the brain.
Barriers: noisy surroundings, speaker’s tone and volume, hearing deficiencies.
Step 2: ATTENDING
Attending is a mental and psychological effort which consists of filtering sounds and auditory messages after an internal and/or external stimuli. Afterwards, for the listener, it’s about choosing what sound he’s going to focus his attention on and “prioritize” according to three main factors:
- Selectivity (On what sound to concentrate?),
- Strength (How well to concentrate),
- and Sustainment of his attention (for how long he can concentrate).
Barriers: conflicting priorities caused by multiple sources of sound, inattention, stress and mental fatigue, pseudo-listening.
Step 3: UNDERSTANDING
Understanding implies attaching a meaning to the message received. In this stage, the listener interprets and decodes verbal and non-verbal signals sent by the speaker, based on his personal background. During this part of the process, there are many factors that should be taken into consideration: culture, education, language, social references and bias, and mainly vocabulary.
Barriers: misinterpretation of words and non-verbal signals, lack of interest.
Step 4: EVALUATING
Evaluating involves analyzing the information received in order to draw proper conclusions. In this stage the listener tries to judge the most objectively possible what was said and not said by the speaker, determine the merit and the quality of the message based on personal and general standards.
Barriers: emotions toward speaker, negative attitude, prejudice, closed-mindedness, speaker’s appearance and mannerisms.
Step 5: RESPONDING
Responding is the reaction to the message sent by the speaker. It consist first in acknowledging the information received, and secondly providing feedbacks to the audience with verbal answers or commentaries, and physical responses such as laughs, smiles, gestures, head nodding, and frowns.
Barriers: poor memorizing skills
