Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing (LSRW) are the basic language skills of communication. Of
all these skills, listening is the most important. Because our speaking, and
reading and writing also to extent, depend on our listening. We speak ‘what’ and ‘how’ we listen. But, generally, listening is not given enough significance by
the people. If one wants to be effective speaker, one must be effective
listener first. Listening is a process of hearing, understanding and
interpreting what someone is saying. Listening involves the following four stages –

1) Perception
of Message

2) Interpretation
of Message

3) Evaluation
of Message

4) Action/Response

    It can best be illustrated from the
following diagram.

1) Perception : 

    Perception
means receiving the message or hearing the sound. The sound waves reach the
listener through air. If the communicators are using the technological tools
like phone, the sound waves are transferred through the tools. After that the
listener decodes the message.

2) Interpretation
of the Message :

    Once the message is received by the listener, he interprets it.
He decodes and derives meaning from the message.

3) Evaluation
of the Message : 

    After
decoding the message and understanding it, the listener evaluates it and draws
its value and significance.

  4) Action/Response
: 

    In this stage, the listener takes action as
per the message. He gives appropriate response to the message in the form of
physical action or through body language.

Types
of Listening :

1)    Active
Listening: 

    Active
listening is also called ‘attentive listening’. In active listening, the
speaker pays total concentration to the speaker and attempts to understand
every word and sentence uttered by the speaker. He responds to the speaker through
body language, facial expressions and sometimes through words if needed. Active
listening encourages the speaker.

2)    Passive
Listening : 

    Passive
listening is also called ‘Pseudo- listening’. In such a type of listening, the
listener does not pay total concentration to the speaker. He just feigns of
active listening. He remains physically present but mentally absent in front of
the speaker. His mind is somewhere else during the communication process.

3)  Selective
Listening : 

    In
the selective listening, the listener listens to some part of the message and
not whole of the message. He pays attention to the part of message according to
its significance.

4)    Critical
Listening :  

    In critical listening, the message received
is evaluated to know its strengths, weaknesses, agreements and disagreements,
approval and knowledge of the speaker. Critical listening is also called
‘Interpretive Listening’.

Difference  between Hearing and Listening

    The
words ‘hearing’ and ‘listening’ are treated as similar words. But they are different.
Hearing is a physical process while listening involves the mind and
concentration. Listening is an acquired skill. It is an active process.
Listening is a purposeful activity. But there is no any intention in hearing.
For example, into the classroom students listen to teacher’s lecture. There are
many sounds such as sounds and horns of vehicles and noise of the outside
students coming from outside of the classroom. The students have no any intention
in hearing these sounds. Hence, they ignore them. But they involve their mind
and concentration in listening to the lecture of the teacher. They have
intention of acquiring knowledge from the lecture. Thus, listening is an active
and intentional activity. But hearing is purposeless activity.