Listen to a person for 45 minutes, and blog about:
- listening tools used
- what was learned
- what was done well
- how I can improve.
I had the opportunity to talk to a friend of mine, from brazil, trough Skype. the conversation didn't actually reach the 45 minutes because he had to leave, but we made it to the 42 min. It was a very hard experience because my objective was to practice my listening skills, and therefore i had to make him speak. I guess the problem was that he is one of my best friends and he was really interested in my new life, since much has changed to my life and not much to his. I would say that in the first 30 minutes i managed to keep the focus of the conversation in his talking but in order to do that, I need to admit that i could not focus 100% in his talking since i had to keep thinking in how to ask questions that would make him keep talking. after those first 30 minutes, i could not find new topics for him to talk about. Although we kind of shared the 15 last minutes, it was when i could really listen what he was talking about.
I believe the tools i used were basically to make good questions. it was the one factor that made the conversation to don't be 'about me'. what i learned is, that there is much to learn about being a good listener, i guess, before this experience i did not even know what is to fully listen to someone. In brazil, its kind of 'polite' to cut the other's speech and talk even before they finished their idea, it kind of shows how interested you are in the conversation... but i realize know that this is the opposite from what a good listener should do. I have much to learn. i believe that what was done well was the effort i made to completely change the way i listen to someone, and the way i could focus the conversation in the listening, not talking : talk the least to insure i could listen. to improve, i should be more patient, and don't listen to what im hearing and already think in the response. to fully listen everything one has to say can contribute much more to our learning.
Interesting experience! I want to know how do you keep the conversation going when you did not focus on asking good questions? And I think ask questions is a way that you can activily listen to another. And I did not see how does this relate to Listen empathetically.
ReplyDeleteThis is not a very effective way of listening because your friend is passively talking to you just because you asked him to speak and have you listen in order to do an assignment. What you should do is asking your friend some questions that require very thorough and lengthy response, that way, he would be actively sending information for you to listen and the content of your listening activity would be more reliastic. I suggest approach because this brings the meaning to the listening activity. Additionally, if your friend ends up in a situation in which he does not have anything to say, try asking for more details and more questions that lead to explanations, generally speaking, you should be asking the how and why questions rather than the what, when, and where questions.
ReplyDeleteYou covered one of the difficulties faced when listening, such as asking questions. However from what you wrote, it seems that you were more concerned with getting you friend to continue talking, then actually trying to understand what was being communicated. Like Yixiao said, What other methods did you use to keep the conversation going besides asking questions? Also, did you understand what your friend was feeling and fully understand what was being communicated? Listening is not only just about asking questions.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. I think you definitely learned something about becoming a better listener through this experience. Though as you stated listening is more important, but talking and providing feedback is also crucial for effective communication and enhances the experience of listening a lot more. I would encourage you to expand on both aspects- talking effectively and listening and find a way to balance out the two.
ReplyDelete