Communication Skills

Overview
Understanding the nature and importance of communication in our community and world is
crucial. Communication is essential for idea exchange and innovation. This course will explore
the three receptive skills: listening, reading, and viewing, focusing on their application.

Course Outcomes
1. Listening: Learn the types, strategies, and elements of active listening.
2. Reading: Develop strategies and theories for effective reading.
3. Viewing: Evaluate motion pictures and other media to appreciate and critically assess their
content.

l Nature of Communication
Communication is a complex phenomenon involving many elements:
-Process: Exchange of verbal and non-verbal ideas, either one-way or two-way.
-Transmission: Exchange of information through various channels.
-Feedback: Manifestation that a message has been processed, not always as desired.
-Elements: Messages, encoding, decoding, and feedback.

Categories of Communication (Ian Bell)

1. Expressive Communication: Sending information, like sharing stories.
2. Receptive Communication: Receiving and understanding information, the focus of this
course.
3. Intentional Communication: Deliberate communication with a goal.
4. Unintentional Communication: Inadvertent communication through actions like nodding or
sleeping during lectures.

Listening
Listening is often neglected but is essential in effective communication. It is the most used
language art and involves:
- Affective Processes: Motivation to attend to a message.
- Cognitive Processes: Interpreting the meaning.
- Behavioral Processes: Verbal or non-verbal responses.

Barriers to Listening
1. Silence as Agreement: Quietly agreeing without voicing ideas.
2. External Pressures: Overwhelming demands of the environment.
3. Lack of Know-how: Leading to miscommunication.
4. Individual Make-up: Prejudice or bias affecting listening.
5. Time and Place: Challenging settings for communication.
6. Emotions: Allowing emotions to hinder listening.
7. Cultural Differences: Disparity between parties affecting communication.
8. Passive Listening: Habitual and unconscious process of receiving messages.
Types of Listening
1. Discriminative Listening: Differentiating between sounds.
2. Efferent Listening: Listening for information.

Strategies to Improve Listening

1. Repeat the Information: Helps in remembering important details.
2. Construct Mnemonics: Useful for recalling instructions.
3. Take Notes: Increases recall during lectures and meetings.

Aesthetic Listening
Listening for enjoyment or pleasure involves:
- Predicting: Formulating how a story will go.
- Visualizing: Imagining scenarios.
- Connecting: Associating elements to beliefs or scenes.
- Summarizing: Recalling and relaying the gist of the story.

Active Listening Techniques

1. Identify the Main Point: Understand what the speaker is conveying.
2. Ask Questions: Clarify confusion.
3. Paraphrase: Put the message in your own words.
4. Empathize: Identify with the speaker's feelings.

Critical Listening
Critical listening involves evaluating messages from media. Strategies include:
1. Determining the Author’s Viewpoint: Understanding the speaker’s perspective.
2. Identifying Persuasive Techniques: Examining how messages are conveyed.
3. Evaluating: Associating your ideas with others'.
4. Drawing Conclusions: Reaching an end after processing information.

Listening Styles
1. Content-oriented Listeners: Focus on facts and evidence.
2. Action-oriented Listeners: Focus on the main point and get frustrated with disorganized ideas.

Developing a Critical Ear

Listen without prejudice, evaluate what others say, and form judgments based on
comprehension.

Active Listening Skill Set (Michael Hoppe)

1. Pay Attention: Focus on the conversation.
2. Hold Judgment: Keep an open mind.
3. Reflect: Understand beyond words.
4. Clarify: Address ambiguities.
5. Summarize: Restate core themes.
6. Share: Participate in the conversation actively.

Conclusion
Listening, reading, and viewing are essential skills for effective communication. Developing
these skills involves active strategies, understanding different types of listening, and overcoming
barriers. Effective communication can enhance personal and professional relationships and is
crucial for success.

Overview

It is significant to understand the very nature of why communication has taken a big space in the
community and the world that we live in. Communication has become indispensable for it has
allowed ideas to merge and innovations to take place. In this module, you shall learn the nature
of communication and the first two foundations (listening and reading) and the new skill-viewing,
as a by-product of the contemporary times.

Learn the underpinnings of the three receptive skills: listening, reading, and viewing. The focus
of the course will be more on how you put these skills into application.

Nature of Communication

Communication is considered to be a complex phenomenon. That is simply because of the

many elements that surround the very idea of communication. There are many variables to be
accounted for in order to truly understand its nature. Yet, in spite of its intricacies, it is
undeniable that communication brought great impact to people’s lives.

Few elements that are notable in communication are its process. Communication is definitely an
exchange of ideas both verbal and non-verbal. It could be either one-way or two-way. With one-
way communication, the sender encodes and sends a message to be decoded by the receiver.
With two-way, there is feedback.

Moreover, the concept of transmission simply pertains to the exchange of information. These
messages are transmitted in various channels. The understanding of exchange allows you to
process information accordingly

Lastly, we have feedback. Feedback is a manifestation that a message has been processed. It
is true that not all the times a feedback is the desired one. Feedback could mean an
understanding of the message based on the context of the recipient.

In addition, communication is a complex process for we express, interpret, and coordinate

messages with others. We experience this everyday of our lives and you yourself could attest
how communication can be so challenging, but all for good reasons.
Because with communication, we create shared meaning, meet social goals, manage personal
identity, and carry out our relationships. Thus, communication is of great essence in life. At its
core, then, communication is about messages.

Going back to the basics of communication: we have

Messages (non-verbal or verbal)

Encoding (the process prior the sending of message, in other words the creation)

Decoding (the process of digesting the message or interpretation of the message) and

Feedback (the outcome of the message sent and received.)

On the other hand, Ian Bell introduce four Categories of Communication

Expressive Communication

concerns the sending of information. When you share your stories to your friends and the like.

Receptive Communication

concerns the receiving and understanding of information. This is the focus of this course. The
processing of information is very important as they assist in producing meaningful feedback or
response to the messages being received.

Intentional Communication

occurs when someone deliberately communicates with another person. This usually happens
when you have a goal to achieve or you just intended to create relationships with the people you
are with.
Unintentional Communication

occurs constantly. This happens when you just do not notice that you are already
communicating. Like nodding your head when you listen to lecture, or sleep during lectures,
those are inadvertently performed by some without really knowing.

Listening

Listening has been called the “neglected” or ignored language art for more than 50 years
because it is rarely taught in kindergarten through eighth-grade classrooms (Pinnell & Jaggar,
2003). Introspectively, listening perhaps has been ignored in the sense that we have been
listening all our lives, thus, forgetting its importance. But with all the advancements in
technology and all other skills, listening still and will always be a top skill. If you have read the
habits of the mind, listening to others is considered to be a powerful tool in facing affronts in life.
Listening is often called the most important language art because it is the one we use the most.
Researchers report that people spend as much time listening as they do reading, writing, and
talking combined (Pinnell & Jaggar, 2003).

Reading

Reading can be defined as an active interaction between the readers and the text. This
definition connotes an active, a more involved role of the reader (Castigador, 2004). Reading is
not everybody’s cup of tea, but reading opens opportunities for people to widen their knowledge
on different fields and disciplines.

Viewing

Viewing is an important part of literacy. In today’s world, students need to comprehend and
integrate visual knowledge with their other literacy knowledge (Tompkins, Bright, Pillard, &
Winso, 1999). With the modern times, people are exposed media almost everyday of their lives.
Thus, it is indeed important to develop a selective and effective viewing to process information
accordingly and to inhibit an individual from being persuaded to do something appropriate and
be dissuaded to do something that is good.
People, at times, interchange the meaning between hearing and listening. But, in terms of how
they function are totally different, yet interconnected at one point. Hearing is the physiological
process. In short, the process of receiving sounds. While listening is a process of interpreting
the sound having it associated with affective, cognitive, and behavioral processes.

Affective processes refer to our motivation to attend to a message.

Cognitive Processes refer to interpreting the meaning.(Imhof, 2010)

Behavioral processes relate to the responses we create either verbal or non-verbal. (Bodie, et
al., 2012)

Listening is significant as studies show that even with technology like the modern ways of
communicating these days through social media, email, cellphone texting, listening is still “the
most widely used daily communication activity” (Janusik & Wolvin, 2009, p. 115).

As you are now future professionals, it is deemed important to not neglect the power of listening
in effective communication. Effective communication is a valuable skill in the workplace, and
listening properly is the most important part of effective communication.

If you could remember, a statement was made that listening is a neglected art form. And if this
persists, it leads to poor listening skills. Being a professional and having subpar ability to
process information may result to damaging outcomes. Poor listening skills definitely make a
huge, negative impact on team morale and productivity. This situation usually results in conflicts
and misunderstandings among team members, and it creates a negative environment
([Link]

Aside from poor listening skills, people may have developed listening apprehension. Simply, this
means the anxiety one feels about listening. This is a result of fear in misinterpreting the
message conveyed (Brownell, 2006). Also, this apprehension stems from a concern of how the
message can affect one psychologically.

For example, if you are in a training for your new job, you may worry processing all the
necessary information in order for you to do your job well. Or you might feel anxiety when the
material you need to absorb is difficult or confusing. Likewise, your anxiety may increase when
you feel ill, tired, or stressed about something else going on in your life. Listening apprehension
makes it difficult to focus on the message.

With the discussion of poor listening and apprehension, it can be gleaned that listening itself can
be a barrier if not developed. In this section, the barriers to listening will be dealt with. There are
many classifications as to what a barrier is, and these are some of them:

Silence as agreement

One barrier that affects active listening is if one decides to quietly agree and not voice out
his/her ideas. It does not mean though that you have to share everything that is in your mind,
but if you have something valuable to say, convey the idea in order to avoid misunderstanding.

External Pressures

This pertains to the overwhelming demands of the environment. At times, when one person is
pressured and is present in an unhealthy environment, he/she fails to listen as the person tries
to avoid from being affected by it. However, it is important to allow oneself to critically evaluate
the messages despite the environment in order to communicate better rather than secluding
oneself.

Lack of Know-how

If one person lacks the know-how of things, basically it would most likely lead to
miscommunication. Listening contributes a lot in gathering information from different
environments and ignoring these important pieces of information by not listening only impedes
one in succeeding.

Individual make-up

A person’s background may also contribute in affecting active listening as one might create
prejudice or bias.

Time and place

Listening is particularly challenging when you aren’t in the same room with those with whom you
are working. The setting of the communication may also affect listening as certain uncontrollable
factors may hinder the transmission of message.

Emotions

When one person allows emotions to take over, listening to the party may not transpire only to
result into conflict.

Cultural Differences

Same with individual make-up, culture may also inhibit one person from listening since there is
an obvious disparity between parties.

Also, we have physical setting (when you are in a crowded and noisy place) and facility
problems (when the electric fan is too noisy, or the equipment used in communication has
defects)

Passive Listening

With all these, the least ideal barrier would be the person himself. This is when he develops
passive listening. “Passive listening is the habitual and unconscious process of receiving
messages. When we listen passively, we are on automatic pilot. We may attend only to certain
parts of a message and assume the rest. We tend to listen passively when we aren’t really
interested or when we are multitasking.”

It all starts with listening. Listening is a major force in the field of communication. If someone
does not know how to listen, eventually he/she would not learn anything. Listening should be
mastered and developed by everyone in order to achieve successful communication. In this
module, you shall learn the strategies subconsciously employed when listening, specifically
discriminative and efferent listening.
stomach is growling).

3. Hear the person out. At times, attending is not observed when we already have biases
toward a person. Practice arguing with the person in mind and let him/her make his point and
wait for the time you can respond.

Additional Inputs

“Remembering is being able to retain and recall information later. We may find remembering
difficult, for instance, because we filter out information that doesn’t fit our learning style, our
listening anxiety prevents us from recalling what we have heard, we engage in passive listening,
we practice selective listening and remember only what supports our position, and we fall victim
to the primacy–recency effect of remembering only what is said at the beginning and end of a
message. “

Verderber, K Sellnow, D., & Verderber, R., 2017

There are three techniques to develop:

1. Repeat the Information: try to recall the information and repeat it either in your head or by
saying it out loud. This helps you in remembering important information. For example in an
emergency call, you must remember vital information in order to provide the need of the caller.

2. Construct mnemonics: this is a common way of taking down notes. In conversations though
you do not take down notes unless it is a formal meeting. Speaking of which, when you
communicate with your boss and requires you to do numerous tasks, the best way to go about it
is perhaps employ mnemonics to recall all instructions.

3. Take notes: Although note taking may not be an appropriate way to remember information
when engaged in casual interpersonal encounters, it is a powerful tool for increasing recall
during lectures, business meet- ings, and briefing sessions. Note taking provides a written
record that you can go back to later. It also allows you to take an active role in the listening
process (Dunkel & Pialorski, 2005; Kobayashi, 2006; Titsworth, 2004).

AESTHETIC LISTENING
Listening with comprehension has same value as reading comprehension. To comprehend
meaning, words should be familiar and sentences should be not beyond the linguistic capability
of the person that includes but not limited to vocabulary and grammar. Understanding the body
of the text and identifying important details help a person take hold of what others really
mean. In this module, you shall learn how aesthetic listening is employed in our everyday life
and the strategies you subconsciously use whenever you are listening for enjoyment.

Generally, aesthetic listening is used for enjoyment or pleasure something that does really
require too much of a mental effort rather more on the affective domain. But at the same time,
this kind of listening allows you to practice certain strategies while actually enjoying. Students
learn to use predicting, visualizing, connecting, and summarizing strategies, and they apply
what they’re learning as they listen.

Predicting- Have you experienced watching a film or series and tried to formulate how it will go?
I bet you did.

Visualizing- Have you tried to imagine or picture out the scenarios and how they will turn out?

Connecting-Have you experienced associating elements from what you listened and watched to
your beliefs or connect them to the scenes in the film just to make sense of what is happening?

Summarizing-Have you recalled a film/series and relay to your peers or friends the gist of the
movie?

All these are executed by us when we do aesthetic listening. These are the same
comprehension strategies that students use when they read, but learning them through listening
is often more effective.
Listening style is our favored and usually unconscious approach to listening (Watson, Barker, &
Weaver, 1995). Each of us tends to favor one of four listening styles. However, we also may
change our listening style based on the situation and our goals for the interaction (Gearhart,
Denham, & Bodie, 2014).

There is this one listening style I think we can identify ourselves with when doing aesthetic
listening. Since it impacts more our affective domain and focuses more on enjoyment. When we
watched and listened to drama or tragic movies, they are still to entertain audiences. At times,
watching and listening to them makes us relate or understand what they are going through.

People-oriented listeners focus on the feelings their conversational partners may have about
what they are saying. For example, people-oriented listeners tend to notice whether their
partners are pleased or upset and will encourage them to continue by using nonverbal cues like
head nods, eye contact, and smiles. (Gearhart, Denham, & Bodie, 2014).

An active listening strategy we can associate with aesthetic listening is understanding.

There are four techniques employed in understanding:

Identify the main point- When you are listening ask yourself what the speaker is trying to
convey.

Ask questions-When you don’t understand the context of the conversation, you may ask
questions to clarify your confusion. In watching films though, you internalize the questions for
yourself and later find the answers.
Paraphrase-put the message in your own words in order to better decipher the thought. By
paraphrasing, you give the speaker a chance to verify your understanding. The longer and more
complex the message, the more important it is to paraphrase.

Empathize- Empathy is intellectually identifying with the feelings or attitudes of another. Three
approaches are empathic responsiveness, perspective taking, and sympathetic
responsiveness (Gearhart, et al., 2014). When you empathize, you put yourself in someone
else’s shoes.

Perspective Taking-this is when you use your knowledge of the person you are talking in order
to understand his/her point.

Sympathetic Responsiveness- is feeling concern, compassion, or sorrow for another’s situation.

Sympathy differs from the other two approaches. Rather than attempting to experience the
feelings of the other, we translate our intellectual understanding of what the speaker has
experienced into feelings of concern, compassion, and sorrow for that person.

CRITICAL LISTENING

Listening with comprehension has same value as reading comprehension. To comprehend

meaning, words should be familiar and sentences should be not beyond the linguistic capability
of the person that includes but not limited to vocabulary and grammar. Understanding the body
of the text and identifying important details help a person take hold of what others really
mean. In this module, you shall learn to evaluate messages from videos and audio texts
employing strategies in critical listening.

The last type of listening and personally a very important skill to develop is critical listening. As
students, you are exposed to mass media (tv, radio, movies,) and it is necessary then and now
to clearly evaluate the messages conveyed to us. Critical listening is actually an extension of
efferent listening. You need to organize ideas, ask questions, recognize the big ideas, and
summarize the presentation so that you can evaluate the message.

Here are four strategies in critical listening

determining the author’s viewpoint.-knowing the standpoint of the proponent or speaker gives
you a better grasp as to how you would process the message. This will further expand your
understanding considering different perspectives.

identifying persuasive techniques-this is when you examine how the message is conveyed and
what purpose do the sender of the message aims to accomplish.

Evaluating- this is when you associate your ideas to someone else’s and put value judgment on
the idea being processed by you, would you agree, disagree, abstain?

drawing conclusions-this part is when you reach an end as you fully processed the information.

I could associate two listening styles in critical listening we have first: Content-oriented listeners
focus on and evaluate the facts and evidence. Content- oriented listeners appreciate details and
enjoy processing complex messages that may include a good deal of technical information.
Content-oriented listeners are also likely to ask questions to get even more
information. (Gearhart, Denham, & Bodie, 2014).

Second one is Action-oriented listeners focus on the ultimate point the speaker is trying to
make. Action-oriented listeners tend to get frustrated when ideas are disorganized and when
people ramble. Action-oriented listeners also often anticipate what the speaker is going to say
and may even finish the speaker’s sentence for them. (Gearhart, Denham, & Bodie, 2014).

An active listening strategy we can connect with critical listening is evaluating. Evaluating is a
process that involves the scrutiny of an information. It is done to validate the authenticity of the
message. There are two techniques:

Separation of facts from inferences. You must learn how to differentiate and distinguish facts
from inferences. Your opinion may be valid on your end, but it does not stand true to all. Facts
are proven by evidences.
Probe for information- As a critical listener, you must allow yourself to quench your thirst of
knowledge and ask further questions to the proponent or speaker in order to authenticate your
curiosity.

DEVELOPING A CIRITICAL EAR

Being able to listen to others and critically evaluate what they have said immensely provides
oneself an opportunity to gather thoughts and integrate them in one’s ideas. People should
listen without prejudice first to completely comprehend what others really mean. Afterwards,
people can then create their own judgment based on what they have heard and compare and
contrast to what they know. Also, people can learn from others so listening should never be
underestimated.

telling the target audience that everyone uses it. Like 9 out of 10 women, 8 out of 12 men…

Rewards

Propagandists offer rewards for buying their [Link] is common in our local products. Like
you win load when you buy this, you get 50% discount if you purchase the product now, and so
on

Name Calling

Persuaders try to pin a bad label on someone or something they want listeners to dislike, such
as calling a person “unpatriotic.” Listeners then consider the effect of the label. This happens
when the competitor shows or names the product and states the negative.

Lastly, let me share these set of active listening skill set by Michael Hoppe.

Pay Attention. You have to pay attention to your frame of mind, body language, and the person
you are talking to. This is setting creates a productive dialogue.
Holding Judgment. You allow yourself to have an open mind. You must be open with new ideas,
new perspectives. If you disagree, you suspend your ideas and allow the other party to make
his/her point.

Reflect. Always allow yourself to see beyond what is said. The way you understand things might
be different and never allow yourself to be clouded by your biases.

Clarify. Double-check on any issue that is ambiguous or unclear. Open-ended, clarifying, and
probing questions are important tools.

Summarize. This is a brief restatement of core themes raised by the other person as the
conversation proceeds. Summarizing helps people see their key themes, and it confirms and
solidifies your grasp of their points of view.

Share. As a listener, you are not there to just listen. You are an active participant in the
conversation. Open up and voice your ideas as well