Chapter 4 Review

“Listening is a vital skill in public speaking and beyond.”

In this chapter, we discussed a major contrast—hearing noises, sounds, and words versus listening to them. Hearing refers to passively receiving these stimuli; listening refers to how one processes and understands them. This is particularly relevant to public speaking because both speakers and audience members must develop good listening skills to effectively convey and understand information. Good listening is not limited to words or even sound. By paying attention to an audience’s responses, a speaker can tell if he or she needs to adjust tone of voice, rate of speech, or some other aspect of his or her delivery.

We further explored how the listening process works, how information is retained, what the types of listening styles are, how individuals may listen differently in different contexts, what causes ineffective listening, and how to improve your listening skills both as a speaker and as an audience member. Listening is vital not only for developing and delivering a successful speech but also for observing and critiquing a presentation, and happily it is a skill that can be learned. To make the transition from hearing to listening, a person must process the message, coming to her or his own conclusions, and then retain or remember the message.

There are a host of culprits that lead to unsuccessful listening, including unprocessed note taking, nonlistening, interruptive listening, agenda-driven listening, argumentative listening, and nervous listening. Techniques for better listening include filtering out distractions, focusing on the speaker, and showing that you are listening. As a speaker, you can anticipate ineffective listening before your speech and plan accordingly, and you can maximize listening during your speech by tailoring your message and watching out for argumentative, defeated, and superficial listeners.

As an audience member, make sure to take notes and identify the speaker’s main points. When giving feedback, offer constructive criticism by considering the speech’s objectives, supporting your feedback with examples, and keeping appropriate ethical guidelines in mind.

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LaunchPad for Speak Up offers videos and encourages self-assessment through adaptive quizzing. Look for the check icon and play icon throughout the chapter for adaptive quizzing and online video activities.

Key Terms

hearing 94

listening 94

processing 95

retention 96

action-oriented listening 98

content-oriented listening 98

people-oriented listening 98

time-oriented listening 99

unprocessed note taking 101

nonlistening 102

interruptive listening 102

agenda-driven listening 103

argumentative listening 104

nervous listening 105

interactive listening 106

external noise 106

internal noise 106

audience surveillance 108

defeated listening 110

superficial listening 111

speech critique 112

constructive criticism 112

Review Questions

  1. Question

    What is listening? How does it differ from hearing?

  2. Question

    What are the various styles of listening identified in this chapter? How are they different from one another?
    What are the various styles of listening identified in this chapter? How are they different from one another?

  3. Question

    Identify and describe at least one internal and one external barrier to effective listening.

  4. Question

    What two steps make up the listening process? Explain each one.

  5. Question

    Detail four of the six culprits behind poor listening.

  6. Question

    What is interactive listening? Describe three methods for improving your listening skills through interactive listening.

  7. Question

    Explain four ways you can prepare in advance to enhance the way your audience listens to your speech.

  8. Question

    As a speaker, what do you need to look for to determine if your audience is listening? If audience members are not listening, how can you reengage them?

  9. Question

    Explain three guidelines for listening when you are in the audience.

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Critical Thinking Questions

  1. Question

    Reflect on your own listening skills. How well do you process information as you listen? How well do you retain a speaker’s message? What are some techniques you can employ to improve each of these?

  2. Question

    Give three reasons why our culture might negatively affect our ability to listen. How can we counteract each of these?

  3. Question

    Consider the attentiveness curve presented on page 97. Do you recognize this pattern in your own behavior during lectures? How can you combat the pattern as both an audience member and a student? As a speaker, how might your knowledge of this pattern influence the way you choose to organize and deliver your speech?
    Consider the attentiveness curve presented on page 97. Do you recognize this pattern in your own behavior during lectures? How can you combat the pattern as both an audience member and a student? As a speaker, how might your knowledge of this pattern influence the way you choose to organize and deliver your speech?

  4. Question

    How would you distinguish the ways you can anticipate ineffective listening before you speak from the techniques you might use to deal with ineffective listening once you are speaking?

  5. Question

    How can good listening skills help you give a constructive critique to a classmate?

Activities

  1. Question

    Test your listening skills by going to either Youtube or Netflix and watching a monologue from a late-night talk show. After viewing it once, write down a summary of the monologue. Then watch it again with your summary in hand, and see how much you remembered. Try the same activity with a cooking program. If you try both variations on this activity, are the outcomes any different? If so, what is different, and why?
    Chapter 4 - Activity Question 1

  2. Question

    For five or ten minutes in class, try viewing your public speaking instructor as a speaker trying to keep an audience (the class) engaged in effective listening. How could your instructor be more effective in encouraging effective listening? How does your instructor encourage good listening?
    Chapter 4 - Activity Question 2

  3. Question

    Look at the illustration on page 111 that shows how to deal with superficial listeners. Think of what the speaker might have said to encourage audience members to turn off their cell phones for the speech. In your opinion, would a direct approach work best, or is the promise of speech content worth their attention? Write your own speech bubble above the illustration.
    Chapter 4 - Activity Question 3