Active Listening

Purpose

Active listening is a communication skill that you can use to improve your ability to understand and comprehend verbal information. This skill will also help you to communicate your ideas and knowledge more effectively. In this tutorial, you will learn about effective active listening skills. You will understand how the communication process actively involves a sender and a receiver.

Whether our roles are as students, friends, workers, or family members we spend a lot of time communicating. To communicate well, we have to listen well. We often just hear words and don't really listen carefully or critically. Active and careful listening shows our sensitivity to others. It is a critical part of paying attention to other people and being mindful of life's basic and substantive issues.

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Goals and Objectives

The overall goal of this tutorial is to help you to become an active listener. Upon completion of this tutorial, you will be able to:

• Define active listening and its relationship to communication.
• Describe active listening skills and their components.
• Engage in and model active listening skills.