Active Listening

Many of us treat listening as a passive activity. We sit back and listen as if we were sponges trying to soak up information. Active listening takes the approach that listening is an activity that you need to do with another. Listening is a process that you actively participate in. Listening is something you engage in with another person, it's not just something that happens to you automatically whenever someone speaks around you. Active listening is a form of listening in which you actively show the listener that you are indeed listening. Active listening can be summarized into seven categories.

• Paraphrasing Take what the other person said and repeat it back using your own words. Paraphrasing is a way of reflecting back what the speaker has said. Don't over do it. People who paraphrase too much run the risk of sounding like parrots. Paraphrasing is most valuable when you really want to make sure you understand what the other has said to you. Paraphrasing allows you to gain verification from the speaker that you understood him or her. Statements like, "what I hear you saying is ..." give the speaker the opportunity to correct you if necessary. When used correctly, paraphrasing can provide reassurance to the speaker.
  
• Summarizing Similar to paraphrasing, but involves taking what the user has said and condensing it. By summarizing what the speaker has said, the listener proves understanding.
• Acknowledging An acknowledgment is any verbal or nonverbal means of letting the speaker know you are following him/her. Words and phrases such as "okay," "right," or "gotcha" are common acknowledgments. Nodding the head, smiling, winking, and so on are typical nonverbal acknowledgments.
  
• Encouraging Encouraging is any verbal or nonverbal means of prompting the speaker to continue talking. It can take the form of questions or gentle prodding: "go on," "tell me more about that." Interviewers practice this form of active listening.
  
• Relating Sharing a similar experience of your own as a means of letting the speaker know that you have been there yourself. You must be careful when you practice this form of active listening that you don't wind up taking over the conversation and becoming a "stage hog."
  
• Metatalking Metacommunication means communication about communication. Meta is Greek for "above" or "beyond." Metatalking is a way of practicing active listening by talking about the way you and the speaker communicate. Statements like: "I have difficulty hearing you when you speak with your mouth full" or "It's hard for me to talk while reading the paper" are examples of metatalking because they involve communication about the nature of the communication itself.
  
• Nonverbal feedback The way you sit, your facial expressions, the amount of eye contact you make--all of these nonverbal actions express how well you are listening.
  

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