Five Elements

In chapter seven listening: more than meets the eye, I thought elements in the listening process were very insightful. There are five elements that make up listening. The elements are hearing, attending, understanding, responding, and remembering. I never realized that are so many components to listening. There are many factors that influence our hearing such as background noises, fatigue, and loss of hearing. Background noises affect my hearing the most because it’s hard for me to focus on other things besides that. Attending is another important part of listening. If we were to attend every sound then we would go crazy because of all the sounds that are constantly going on. This is important to do when listening to a friend because you have to turn off all the sounds around you. Understanding and making sense of all the messages is important for listening too. If you don’t do this then it’s hard to figure out the conversation you are listening to. I personally feel that responding is the most effective way to listening. This helps fully understanding messages because you are interacting in the conversation. I feel like you look like a good listener if you do this. Remembering is key to listening, because it is good to recall what you just heard, if you can’t remember then it makes it hard to listen.