Essay on Active Listening in Effective Communication

Listening is a skill that requires active, rather than passive, participation to advance shared understanding and minimise misinterpretation. Lang, Floyd and Beine (2000) describe active listening as a skill that ‘focuses on attending to patients’ clues, ie, utterances and/or behaviors that are not explicit but may have special meaning and suggest unshared ideas, concerns, and expectations’. This essay will discuss how active listening strategies such as analysing and displaying non-verbal body language, clarifying meaning and accuracy, expressing understanding for the speaker’s feelings through empathy and silence contribute to effective communication by encouraging the speaker to convey his or her thoughts, building trust and†¦show more content†¦As the speaker continues more information is given. The listener is then able to collect the verbal and non-verbal data to gain a better understanding of what is being communicated (Eunson 2008: 310). In addition to non-verbal body language, clarify meaning and accuracy assists the listener to gain an understanding of what is being said and also helps to minimise misinterpretation. Misinterpretation occurs when a message is not understood as the sender had intended (Duck McMahan 2009: 18). Carl Rogers advises that ‘a good rule of thumb is to assume that you never really understand until you can communicate this understanding to the others satisfaction’ (1987). Clarifying meaning and accuracy can be achieved in numerous ways including asking questions and paraphrasing. Paraphrasing allows the listener to check the accuracy of their interpretation of the speaker’s meaning by restating what has been said in their own words (Turner West 2009: 208 and DeVito 2011: 66). This can also help the listener gain the full picture as paraphrasing often encourages the speaker to extend on what has already been said (DeVito 2011: 66). Asking questions also adds to under standing and minimises misinterpretation (DeVito 2011: 66 and Eunson 2008: 320). Eunson (2008: 319,321) states that asking questions such as what, how or when for clarity, understanding and accuracy helps to discover what has been left unsaid by others. Eunson goes on to argue thatShow MoreRelatedActive Listening and Strategies of Effective Communication712 Words   |  3 PagesActive Listening and Strategies of Effective Communication Active Listening and Strategies of Effective Communication Active listening is an attentive and interactive form of listening. One of the primary objectives of active listening is establishing and achieving empathy among all parties engaged in communication together. 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