Sure, everyone wants to be persuasive and confident while speaking. Most of the students find that this is the thing, which really matters both at college and work. However, they forget about one more significant point: listening. Unfortunately, the majority of young people concentrate on learning communication skills and development of their speech. They work on pronunciation and later, they are able to persuade others and become masters in this field. Nevertheless, these students still cannot get all the pluses of communication with other people. The main reason is that they cannot listen effectively and think that it is useless skill at all. Sure, it is not true. In this article, our team will try to explain why it is so essential to be a good listener and that it is sometimes more important than being an excellent speaker. Moreover, we will present some effective methods on how to develop such abilities for a short period of time.
Which Benefits Does a Good Listener Have?
First of all, it is significant to name several opportunities and benefits, which a young person with good listening skills may get. It will probably motivate you to work on yourself and develop such abilities as well. Pay attention to the points below.
Effective Studying
You should keep in mind that without good listening skills, you will not be able to perceive and memorize information during the lectures at college. It means that your studying will be ineffective. On the other hand, if you can listen to professor’s words in a correct way, you will faster learn materials and gain more knowledge than others. Moreover, you will have to spend less time preparing for the test, as the most important points are already in your head.
More Life Opportunities
It is a very useful life skill, which makes you able to get lots of opportunities in private life and work. For example, you will have a chance to build relationships with people quicker, as you can memorize their interests and opinions quickly thanks to good listening skills. On the other hand, it gives you a great number of opportunities at work. If you can listen to the explanation of your task attentively, you will avoid lots of failures and be able to deal with things quicker.
Methods of Effective Listening
There are some good methods and strategies, which can help you to listen effectively. Tips we offer are easy to do and they can guarantee you a good result in the fastest time period. The main point is that you should practice them regularly until these things become your habits.
Be Concentrated
The main rule you should know is the importance of being always concentrated on a person’s speech. If you pay attention to distractions, you will probably miss lots of significant things. For example, such situations usually happen at college lectures. You want to hear a professor’s explanation, but your classmate start telling you one of his fun stories. So, no wonder that you will not hear anything. To avoid such issues, you should be able to focus exactly on the things you need to hear. Do not answer or start a talk with people, who try to distract you. You have to look exactly on a person, who delivers a speech. It will help you to avoid distracted.
Set Eye Contact
It is very important during the private talk. You should establish a contact with this person: looking right into someone’s eyes is a pretty good method. It will show that you are really interested in the things, which he or she tells you. Moreover, you will avoid distraction and missing some significant points thanks to it. However, you should not be too pushy: do not make this contact prolonged as it is enough only several seconds. If you try to keep such a contact during the whole conversation, the other person will probably be confused.
Use Your Body Language
It is essential to use your body language in order to show that you are interested in a person’s speech. It includes different kinds of gesticulations. However, you should be careful and do not express your emotions too loudly or impolitely. You target is to show interest and concentration on your company, but not your sensitivity or something like that.
Never Interrupt
The worst thing you can do during a conversation is interrupting someone’s speech. As a result, you will miss this person’s words and make him or her upset. Moreover, you will look like an impolite and impatient one. Sure, this makes your reputation worse and ruins relationships with your friends. So, it is essential to develop patience and tolerance. Even if you do not agree with something, it is better to wait until this person finishes speaking and then express your thoughts as well.
To sum up, there are some good ways of improving your listening skills. However, you should always keep in mind that they are as important as speaking mastership. These things are related to each other and you have to be good at both of these fields if you want to become successful. We hope that our tips and hints will have a great usage for you.