Listening Styles
Listening styles are the various styles one employs when listening to something being said. The listening styles vary depending on the type of information one is listening to or the information being passed. In this essay, we shall reflect on the different types of listening styles available. How well they have worked with me or if they need improvement and finally identify when the styles were effective or ineffective for me and why.
Listening Styles
Informational Listening
Informational listening is the type of listening style where one listens to learn. The listening style is mostly applied in schools and at work where people have to keep learning more. Apart from schools and work, even in our daily routine tasks, we listen to learn, for example, when watching the news, when being told about a recipe, or how to solve a problem in your car or computer. Most of the listening styles are active, but it is less active for informational listening since we just listened to learn not to analyze or criticize. When informational listening is done in formal settings like school or work, notes can be taken to help with reviewing the information later (Skills You Need, 2019).
Empathetic Listening
In this listening style, the listener is always attempting to understand the speaker’s feelings as the word; empathy can be defined as a deep connection with another individual. Most people confuse sympathy with empathy. For empathy, the connection is deeper and mostly involves understanding the speaker’s point of view by relating to their emotion, feelings, and thoughts (Skills You Need, 2019). When using empathetic listening, it is essential to avoid judgments or to interrupt to give advice. What is required by the listener is to encourage the speaker to speak more as they will explain their feeling and emotions. Empathetic listening is used mostly by therapists, counselors, and other professionals. They listen to understand and help their patients with easing their conditions. That is why in most of their offices, you will be encouraged to speak more. They also avoid misunderstanding by using skills such as reflection and clarification.
Critical Listening
In this style, the listener listens to the speaker so that evaluation and scrutiny can happen. In this style, there are more aspects involved and, therefore, more active in nature. Critical listening usually involves decision-making or problem-solving (Skills You Need, 2019). Therefore, once the listener receives the information, they try to criticize it with the information they already know.
Appreciative Listening
Under this style, listening is done for enjoyment. This style’s characteristics are that one does nothing only sits back and absorbs the speaker’s content. Hear you are not learning, analyzing, or evaluating; it is all about enjoying the experience (Dreistadt, 2018). For example, when one is in a movie theater or enjoying a concert or play.
In my case, I have used appreciative listening and informational learning. The appreciative listening worked perfectly, and sat relaxed and enjoyed the show, considering it was a movie. There were no thoughts of scrutiny or analyzing; I appreciated the movie the way it was. The second listening style was informational listening. Under this, it did not go so well, and therefore I need improvements. I kept asking questions and analyzing the information provided, and in the end, I learned little while I could have grasped lots of knowledge.
There was a time we were role-playing, and therefore I took the role of a school counselor. The role involved listening to people as they talk and using their information against them. For example, after explaining, I would ask the client, what do you feel about that? They would end up solving the problems for themselves and making the right choices. In the empathetic listening style, I think I was effective because of the patients and trying to see the clients’ issues from their point of view.
References
Dreistadt, M. (2018, September 10). 5 listening styles: Selective listening. Infinity Concepts. https://www.infinityconcepts.com/2012/04/learning-selective-listening-5-critical-listening-styles/
Skills You Need. (, 2019). Types of listening. skillsyouneed.com. https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/listening-types.html