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LEARNING BY LISTENING
You can learn a lot through
listening. In high school, college, tech school, and job
settings it will be a prime source of information.
Unfortunately, people do not instinctively listen well.
Listening is a skill which must be developed.
1. Determine why the speaker is saying something
important to you.
If you don't have an immediate, vivid reason for listening to a
speaker, you are an unmotivated listener.
2. Take responsibility for what is being said. The responsibility for interest and understanding
lies with you, not with the speaker. Learning is up to the
learner. If you simply want to sit passively and blame the
speaker for your lack of success, then you're not a serious
learner.
3. If you can't hear, arrange things so you can. Move away from sources of noise-human or
mechanical. Sit where you can see the speaker easily, and where
other distractions are at a minimum.
4. Listen to what the speaker is saying.
Don't tune the speaker out because you don't like something
about him/her or the message. Be sure you understand something
before you reject it.
5. Look for the speaker's pattern of organization. In a lecture, a speaker is generally
referring to notes or some other source of information. You can
understand much better if you are able to recognize what the
speaker's driving at and how the speaker's getting there.
6. Look for the main idea or ideas of the presentation. Facts are important only as they
support the speaker's points.
7. Don't let your mind wander.
Your thoughts move far more rapidly than the swiftest mouth, and
the urge to stray is tempting. Your attention span can be
increased, however, through deliberate effort. Continue to
practice the habit of attention and don't be discouraged by
early failures.
8. Take notes while you listen.
Even if you recognize everything being said, jot it down,
because you won't remember it later unless you do. More on
this listening strategy later.
9. Anticipate the next point.
Good listeners try to anticipate the points a speaker will make
in developing a subject. If they guess right, the speaker's
words reinforce their guesses. If they guess wrong, they'll
have to do some thinking to discover why they and the speaker
failed to agree. In either case, their chances of understanding
and remembering what was said is nearly double what it would
have been if they had simply listened passively.
10. Recapitulate.
With the tremendous thought speed that everyone has, it is easy
to summarize in about five seconds the highlights covered by a
speaker in about five minutes. When the speaker pauses, the
experienced listener makes a mental summary. Half a dozen
summaries of the highlights of a fifty-minute talk will easily
double the understanding and retention important points in a
talk.
10 BAD LISTENING HABITS
1. Calling the Subject Dull
Bad listeners often find a subject too dry and dusty
to command their attention and they use this as an excuse to
wander off on a mental tangent. Good listeners may have heard a
dozen talks on the same subject before, but they quickly decide
to see if the speaker has anything that can be of use to them.
The key to good listening is that little three-letter word use.
Good listeners are sifters, screeners, and winnowers of the
wheat from the chaff. They are always hunting for something
practical or worthwhile to store in the back of their mind to
put to work in the months and years ahead. G.K. Chesterton said
many years ago that in this entire world there is no such thing
as an uninteresting subject, only uninterested people.
2. Criticizing the Speaker
It's the indoor sport of most bad listeners to find
fault with the way a speaker looks, acts, and talks. Good
listeners may make a few of the same criticisms but they quickly
begin to pay attention to what is said, not how it is said.
After a few minutes, good listeners become oblivious to the
speaker's mannerisms or his/her faults in delivery. They know
that the message is ten times as important as the clothing in
which it comes garbed.
3. Getting Over stimulated
Listening efficiency drops to zero when the
listeners react so strongly to one part of the presentation that
they miss what follows. At the University of Minnesota we think
this bad habit is so critical that, in the classes where we
teach listening, we put at the top of every blackboard the
words: Withhold evaluation until comprehension is complete --
hear the speaker out. It is important that we understand the
speaker's point of view fully before we accept or reject it.
4. Listening Only For Facts
I used to think it was important to listen for
facts. But I've found that almost without exception it is the
poor listeners who say they listen for facts. They do get
facts, but they garble a shocking number and completely lose
most of them.
Good listeners listen for the main ideas in a speech
or lecture and use them as connecting threads to give sense and
system to the whole. In the end they have more facts appended
to those connecting threads than the catalogers who listen only
for facts. It isn't necessary to worry too much about fact as
such, for facts have meaning only when principles supply the
context.
5. Trying To Outline Everything
There's nothing wrong with making an outline of a
speech -- provided the speaker is following an outline method of
presentation. But probably not more than a half or perhaps a
third of all speeches given are built around a carefully
prepared outline.
Good listeners are flexible. They adapt their note
taking to the organizational pattern of the speaker-they may
make an outline, they may write a summary, they may list facts
and principles -- but whatever they do they are not rigid about
it.
6. Faking Attention
The pose of chin propped on hand with gaze fixed on
speaker does not guarantee good listening. Having adopted this
pose, having shown the overt courtesy of appearing to listen to
the speaker, the bad listener feels conscience free to take off
on any of a thousand tangents.
Good listening is not relaxed and passive at all.
It's dynamic; it's constructive; it's characterized by a
slightly increased heart rate, quicker circulation of the blood,
and a small rise in bodily temperature. It's energy consuming;
it's plain hard work. The best definition I know of the word
attention is a "collection of tensions that can be resolved only
by getting the facts or ideas that the speaker is trying to
convey."
7. Tolerating Distraction
Poor listeners are easily distracted and may even
create disturbances that interfere with their own listening
efficiency and that of others. They squirm, talk with their
neighbors, or shuffle papers. They make little or no effort to
conceal their boredom. Good listeners try to adjust to whatever
distractions there are and soon find that they can ignore them.
Certainly, they do not distract others.
8. Choosing Only What's Easy
Often we find the poor listeners have shunned
listening to serious presentations on radio or television.
There is plenty of easy listening available, and this has been
their choice. The habit of avoiding even moderately difficult
expository presentations in one's ensure-time listening can
handicap anyone who needs to use listening as a learning tool.
9. Letting Emotion-Laden Words Get in the Way
It is a fact that some words carry such an emotional
load that they cause some listeners to tune a speaker right out:
such as, affirmative action and feminist-they are fighting words
to some people.
I sometimes think that one of the most important
studies that could be made would be the identification of the
one hundred greatest trouble-making words in the English
language. If we knew what these words were, we could ring them
out into the open, discuss them, and get them behind us. It's
so foolish to let a mere symbol for something stand between us
and learning.
10. Wasting the Differential between Speech and Thought Speed
Americans speak at an average rate of 125 words per
minute in ordinary conversation. A speaker before an audience
slows down to about 100 words per minute. How fast do listeners
listen? Or, to put the question in a better form, how many
words a minute do people normally think as they listen? If all
their thoughts were measurable in words per minute, the answer
would seem to be that an audience of any size will average 400
to 500 words per minute as they listen.
TAKING NOTES
Why bother to take notes?
-
Making yourself take notes forces you to engage as an active
listener
-
Taking notes tests your understanding of the material.
-
When
you are reviewing for a quiz or test, notes provide the key
concepts to focus on.
- Personal notes
are usually easier to remember than the text.
Instructors usually give
clues to what is important to take down. Some of the more
common clues are:
-
Material written on the whiteboard.
-
Highlighted or italicized words in a PowerPoint
presentation.
-
Repetition
-
Emphasis
Emphasis
can be judged by tone of voice and gesture.
Emphasis
can be judged by the amount of time the instructor spends on
points and the number of examples he or she uses.
5.
Word
signals (e.g. "There are two points of view on . . .
The third reason is . . . In conclusion . . .
")
6.
Summaries given at the end of class.
7.
Reviews
given at the beginning of class.
Each
student should develop his or her own method of taking notes,
but most students find the following suggestions helpful:
1.
Make
your notes brief.
2.
Never use a
sentence where you can use a phrase. Never use a phrase where
you can use a word.
3.
Use
abbreviations and symbols, but be consistent.
4.
Put most
notes in your own words. However, the following should be noted
exactly:
~Formulas
~Definitions
~Specific facts
5.
Use
outline form and/or a numbering system. Indention helps you
distinguish major from minor points.
6.
If you
miss a statement, write key words, skip a few spaces, and get
the information later.
7.
Don't
try to use every space on the page. Leave room for coordinating
your notes with the text after the lecture.
8.
Date
your notes. Perhaps number the pages.
9.
Some
students say that they plan to rewrite or type their notes
later. To do so is to use a double amount of time; once to take
the original notes and a second to rewrite them. The advice is
simple: DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME!
CREATING NOTES
Learning
to make notes effectively will help you to improve your study
and work habits and to remember important information. Often,
students are deceived into thinking that because they
understand everything that is said in class they will
therefore remember it. This is dead wrong! Write it down.
As you
make notes, you will develop skill in selecting important
material and in discarding unimportant material. The secret to
developing this skill is practice. Check your results
constantly. Strive to improve. Notes enable you to retain
important facts and data and to develop an accurate means of
arranging necessary information.
Here are some hints on note
making.
1.
Don't write down everything that you read or hear. Be alert and
attentive to the main points. Concentrate on the "meat" of the
subject and forget the trimmings.
2. Notes
should consist of key words or very short sentences. If a
speaker gets sidetracked it is often possible to go back and add
further information.
3. Take
accurate notes. You should usually use your own words, but try
not to change the meaning. If you quote directly from an
author, quote correctly.
4. Think
a minute about your material before you start making notes.
Don't take notes just to be taking notes! Take notes that will
be of real value to you when you look over them at a later date.
5. Have a
uniform system of punctuation and abbreviation that will make
sense to you. Use a skeleton outline and show importance by
indenting. Leave lots of white space for later additions.
6. Omit
descriptions and full explanations. Keep your notes short and
to the point. Condense your material so you can grasp it
rapidly.
7.
Don't worry about missing a point.
8.
Don't keep notes on oddly shaped pieces of paper. Keep notes in
order and in one place.
9.
Shortly after making your notes, go back and rework (not redo)
your notes by adding extra points and spelling out unclear
items. Remember, we forget rapidly. Budget time for this vital
step just as you do for the class itself.
10.
Review your notes regularly. This is the only way to achieve
lasting memory.
The
Cornell Note Taking System
|
Recall Column
------2 1/2--------
Reduce
ideas and facts to
concise jottings
and
summaries as cues
for
Reciting,
Reviewing,
and Reflecting. |
Record Column
--------------6--------------------
Record
the lecture as fully and as meaningfully as
possible. |
The format
provides the perfect opportunity for following through with
the
5 R's
of note-taking. Here they are:
1. Record.
During the lecture, record in the main column as many
meaningful facts and ideas as you can.
Write
legibly.
2. Reduce.
As
soon after as possible, summarize these ideas and facts
concisely in the Recall Column.
Summarizing
clarifies meanings and relationships, reinforces continuity,
and strengthens memory.
Also, it is a
way of preparing for assessments gradually and well ahead of
time.
3. Recite.
Now cover the column, using only your jottings in the Recall
Column as cues or "flags" to help you recall,
say over
facts and ideas of the lecture as fully as you can, not
mechanically, but in your own words and
with as much
appreciation of the meaning as you can. Then, uncovering
your notes, verify what you have
said. This
procedure helps to transfer the facts and ideas of your long
term memory.
4.
Reflect.
Reflective students distill their opinions from their notes.
They make such opinions the starting point for
their own
musings upon the subjects they are studying. Such musings
aid them in making sense out of their
courses
and academic experiences by finding relationships among
them. Reflective students continually label
and
index their experiences and ideas, put them into structures,
outlines, summaries, and frames of reference.
They
rearrange and file them. Best of all, they have an eye for
the vital-for the essential. Unless ideas are
placed in
categories, unless they are taken up from time to time for
re-examination, they will become
inert and
soon forgotten.
5. Review.
If
you will spend 10 minutes every week or so in a quick review
of these notes, you will retain most
of what you have learned, and you will be able to use your
knowledge currently to greater and
greater effectiveness.
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