Listening is one of the most …

Listening is one of the most important skills you can have. How well you listen has a major impact on your job effectiveness and on the quality of your relationships with others. For instance, we listen to obtain information. We listen to understand. We listen for enjoyment. We listen to learn. Given all the listening that we do, you would think we'd be good at it! In fact, most of us are not, and research suggests that we only remember between 25 percent and 50 percent of what we hear, as described by Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience. That means that when you talk to your boss, colleagues, customers, or spouse for 10 minutes, they pay attention to less than half of the conversation. Turn it around and it reveals that when you are receiving directions or being presented with information, you aren't hearing the whole message either. You hope the important parts are captured in your 25-50 percent, but what if they're not? Clearly, listening is a skill that we can all benefit from improving. By becoming a better listener, you can improve your productivity, as well as your ability to influence, persuade and negotiate. What's more, you'll avoid conflict and misunderstandings. All of these are necessary for workplace success! Effective speaking depends on effective listening. It takes energy to concentrate on hearing and to concentrate on understanding what has been heard. Incompetent listeners fail in a number of ways. First, they may drift. Their attention drifts from what the speaker is saying. Second, they may counter. They find counter-arguments to whatever a speaker may be saying. Third, they compete. Then, they filter. They exclude from their understanding those parts of the message which do not readily fit with their own frame of reference. Finally, they react. They let personal feelings about the speaker or subject override the significance of the message which is being sent. What can a listener do to be more effective? The way to improve your listening skills is to practice "active listening." This is where you make a conscious effort to hear not only the words that another person is saying but, more importantly, the complete message being communicated. The first key to effective listening is the art of concentration. If a listener positively wishes to concentrate on receiving a message his chances of success are high. Concentration is helped by alertness. Mental alertness is helped by physical alertness. It is not simply physical fitness but also positioning of the body, the limbs, and the head. Some people also find it helpful to their concentration if they hold the head slightly to one side. One useful way for achieving this is intensive note-taking, by trying to capture the critical headings and sub-headings the speaker is referring to. It may need determination. Some speakers are difficult to follow, either because of voice problems or because of the form in which they send a message. There is then a particular need for the determination of a listener to concentrate on what is being said. To the contrary, people perceive the best listeners to be those whoperiodically ask questions that promote discovery and insight. These questions gently challenge old assumptions, but do so in a constructive way. Good listening was consistently seen as a two-way dialogue, rather than a one-way “speaker versus hearer” interaction. The best conversations were active. Good listeners made the other person feel supported and conveyed confidence in them. Good listening was characterized by the creation of a safe environment in which issues and differences could be discussed openly. In these interactions, feedback flowed smoothly in both directions with neither party becoming defensive about comments the other made. Good listening invariably included some feedback provided in a way others would accept and that opened up alternative paths to consider. Of course, there are different levels of listening. Not every conversation requires the highest levels of listening, but many conversations would benefit from greater focus and listening skill. Consider the level of listening which you would like to aim for. The higher, the better! In addition, note-taking has been recommended as an aid to the listener. It also helps the speaker. It gives him confidence when he sees that listeners are sufficiently interested to take notes; the patterns of eye contact when the note-taker looks up can be very positive, and the speaker's timing is aided — he can see when a note-taker is writing hard and can then make effective use of pauses. Posture too is important. Consider the impact made by a less competent listener who pushes his chair backwards and slouches. An upright posture helps a listener's concentration. At the same time, it is seen by the speaker to be a positive feature amongst his listeners. Effective listening skills have an impact on both the listener and the speaker. These are the hallmarks of great listening. a. On the basis of your understanding of the above passage, make notes on it using headings and sub-headings. Use recognizable abbreviations (wherever necessary-minimum four) and a format you consider suitable. Also supply an appropriate title to it. b. Write a summary of the passage in about 80 words.

Why couldn't the narrator reconcile the fact that his grandmother was once young and pretty? The portrait of a lady class 11

It takes 64 muscles to frown and 13 to smile. So, why overwork yourself by frowning. So said report by some US psychiatrists, and that set me on my nerve racking mission of spotting smiling faces among the sea of humanity. I had not noticed till then how is our national need to smile dispelling all gloom. make note and summarize it.

The theme of the story we are not afraid to die brings out the important of having confidence and making optimum use of our potential elaborating an occurrence from the text to inspire the audience to challenge hurdles of life

Why is the first meeting described by author in vain ? From the address

Read the following passage given below and answer the questions the follow: The Great wall of China was built to link existing fortifications into a united defense system and better keep invading Mongol tribes out of china. It is the largest man-made monument ever to have been built and it is said that it is the only one visible from space. Many thousands of people must have given their lives to build this huge construction. The great wall of china is a series of towers made of stone, brick, earth, wood and other materials, generally built along an east-to- west line across the historical northern borders of china to protect the Chinese states and empires against the raids and invasions of the various nomadic groups of the Eurasian Steppe. Several walls were being built as carly as the 7th century BCE, these later joined together and made bigger and stronger, are now collectively referred to as the Great wall Especially famous is the wall built (220-206 BCE) by Qin shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. Little of that wall remains. Since then, the great wall has on and off been rebuilt, maintained and enhanced, the majority of the existing wall is from the ming dynasty (1368-1644) other purposes of the Great wall have included border controls, allowing the imposition of duties on goods transported along the silk road, regulation or encouragement of trade and the control of immigration and emigration. Furthermore, the defensive characteristics of the Great Wall were enhanced by the construction of watch towers, troop barracks, gharrison stations, signaling capabilities through the means of smoke or fire and the fact that the path of the Great wall also served as a transportation corridor. The Great wall stretches from Dandong in the cast to Lop Lake in the west, along an are that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia. A comprehensive archaeological survey, using advanced technologies, has concluded that the Ming walls measure 8,850 km. This is made up of 6,259 km sections of actual wall, 359 km of trenches and 2,232 km of natural defensiove barriers such as hills and rivers. Another archaeological survey found that the entire wall with all of its branches measures out to be 21,196km. King Zheng of Qin conquered the last of his opponents and unified china as the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty Qin shi Huang in 221 BCE. Intending to impose centralized rule and prevent the resurgence of feudal lords, he ordered the destruction of some sections of the walls, however, he ordered building of new walls to connect the remaining fortifications along the empire's northern frontier. Transporting the large quantity of materials required for construction was difficult, so builders always tried to use local resources. Stones from the mountains were used over mountain ranges, while earth was used for construction in the plains. The Great wall concept was revived under the Ming dynasty in the 14th century, to gain a clear upper Hand over the Mongolian tribes. 1.1 On the basis of your reading of the above passage make notes on it, using headings and subheadings. Use recognizable abbreviations (Wherever necessary, minimum four) and a format you consider suitable. Also supply an appropriate title to it. 1.2 Write a summary of the passage in about 50 words.

Why did the grandmother hate music

Bbc class 11 module 2 ca9

Describe the arrival of the gold Finch to the laburnum tree?

theme of the story we are not afraid to die brings out the important of having confidence and making optimum use of our potential elaborating an occurrence from the text to inspire the audience to challenge hurdles of life

He had no premonition that this night call would prove unusual, still less that it would influence his whole future in blainelly".what was the unusual event for him ?