Assignments are growing on me like parasites. Presentations are wrecking my body's nervous system. Exams are shortening my hours of sleep.

In advanced, I apologize as I'm about to copy and paste, and edit something I just read off an Australian University Database. Yes, I read it. Over and over again. Ok, well only three times.
It is on effective listening. In detail, it talks about some of the fallacies of listening.

Fallacy #1: Listening Is Not My Problem!

People generally believe they are better listeners than those around them. It is the people they work for, the ones who work with or for them, their family members, and their friends who have a problem in listening effectively—not them.

The people around us believe that we have more of a problem listening effectively than they do. This should tell us something. Listening is not just someone else’s problem—it’s ours.

Fallacy #2: Listening and Hearing
Are the Same

Simply having good hearing does not make one a good listener. In fact, many people who have perfectly good hearing are not good listeners. Having good hearing does facilitate one’s perception of sound; but good listeners don’t simply hear words—they focus on the meaning. We communicate effectively with each other insofar as we share meaning.

If I tell you something and you misunderstand me, effective communication has not occurred. If I tell you something and you understand what I meant—that is, if we have an effective transfer or sharing of meaning—we say that the communication is effective. Effective listening implies that the listener understands what the speaker means.

The difference between hearing and listening can be stated this way: Hearing is the reception of sound, listening is the attachment of meaning to the sound. Hearing is passive, listening is active. Understanding the difference between hearing and listening is an important prerequisite for listening effectively.

Fallacy #3: Good Readers
Are Good Listeners

This statement is often untrue, even though both reading and listening depend on the translation of words into meaning. Because of the shared translation function, there is obviously some kind of relationship between reading and listening; the problem is, many people mistakenly believe that all good readers are necessarily good listeners.

Researchers who administer different standard reading tests to the same individual find a high positive correlation between the two sets of scores; that is, persons who score well on one reading test generally score well on another while persons who score low on one test tend to score low on another.

Similar results are found by researchers who test individuals on standardized listening tests. Those who score high on one test tend to score high on another, and vice versa. Interestingly, however, there is often a surprisingly low correlation between one’s scores on reading tests and that same person’s scores on listening tests. For a demonstration of this result, consider the following experiment.

A teacher divides a class into two sections, randomly assigning students until each section has half the students. Each new “class” is placed in a new, separate classroom. Each student in one class is given a short paper, told to read it once and then place it on the desk, blank side up. Students in the other class listen as the teacher delivers the paper as a speech. Students in both classes are then given identical tests on the material covered.

Experiments like this one consistently result in certain questions being answered correctly more often by those who read the paper while other questions are answered correctly more often by those who heard it delivered as a speech. This result is really not all that surprising. When we read a document, visual cues—margins, illustrations, punctuation—become factors. On the other hand, when we listen, the speaker’s vocal emphasis, reading style, pauses, and the like influence our understanding. There is, then, a difference between processing information from the written word and processing it from the spoken word. The fact that some people are better at one than the other demonstrates the fallacy of believing that good readers are necessarily good listeners.

Incidentally, test results also show that most people score higher as readers than as listeners. Being a good reader is no guarantee that you are a good listener.

Fallacy #4: Smarter People
Are Better Listeners

Obviously, intelligence plays a role in a person’s capacity to listen. Persons with limited intelligence will be limited in their capacity to process the information contained in messages they receive. Conversely, those having high intelligence levels will possess a greater processing capacity. Yet, the belief that “smarter people are better listeners” is often false. In fact, evidence suggests that the reverse is often true.

Whatever the reasons, however, the fact remains that smarter people are not necessarily better listeners.

Certainly, the capacity or ability to listen and attach appropriate meaning to messages improves with age and experience—at least in the early years and at least to some point. But although listening ability increases, listening performance generally declines at some point. But this doesn’t have to be the case. The discrepancy between listening ability and listening performance is often due to our having learned bad listening habits. Here are some of the most common bad habits.

1. Learning not to listen. We learn a lot about not listening while growing up. For example, a parent tells us: “Don’t forget to wear your coat to school!” But we don’t want to wear a coat, so we “learn” to not listen. Later, at school, the teacher repeats an assignment several times, hoping to make certain that all the students have heard it. The teacher’s behavior reinforces not listening, since there will be multiple opportunities for us to get the information. Another example is found in the focus given to repetition in radio and television advertising. This repetition further conditions us against listening carefully the first time.

2. Thinking about what we are going to say rather than listening to the speaker. In trying to plan our response, we often miss the point that the other person is making. Then, when we do talk, it sounds as if we weren’t listening—which is exactly what happened.

3. Talking when we should be listening. Our entire culture seems to condition us to talk, not to listen. The silent act of listening seems no match for the messages hurled at us almost incessantly. The way to control things—to have things go our way—seems to be by out-talking others. Some justify this behavior by saying, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” But the truth of the matter is that we miss a lot by talking when we should be listening. A wise person once observed that since we were created with one mouth and two ears, we should spend twice as much time listening as talking. More of us should heed this advice.

4. Hearing what we expect to hear rather than what is actually said. This habit seems to become an increasingly greater problem as we grow older.

Hearing what we expect rather than what the other person means can pose a big problem. Whether we are listening to learn, evaluate, discriminate, relax, or improve a relationship, it’s important to listen to the other person.

5. Not paying attention. The name of this bad habit says it all. In addition to the bad habits discussed above, there are some other common factors that cause us to not pay attention.

Preoccupation. Sometimes we don’t listen because we are preoccupied. We have so many things to think about. Our mind is full of ideas, facts, worries. We are unable to put them aside while we listen. Nevertheless, good listening demands that we avoid preoccupation when someone is speaking to us.

Prejudice. Attitudes and feelings not tempered by logical thinking can lead to prejudice. Perhaps we don’t like the speaker. Or the subject may be one that we know little about and “don’t want to know.” Maybe we don’t like the method of presentation. In any event, we are prejudiced against the presentation; we have prejudged it. Consequently, we may mentally argue with the speaker. Or we may simply “tune out.” Prejudicial thinking can divert our attention away from what the speaker is saying.

Self-centeredness. Since we live with ourselves all day every day, most of us spend much more time thinking about ourselves than about others. It is therefore not surprising that self-concern interferes with our listening to what another is saying. We must work at transferring our concentration from “I” to “You”—from ourselves to the person doing the talking.

Stereotyping. As thinking and feeling human beings, we hold certain beliefs about a variety of subjects. We have “fixed” judgments or concepts which we believe to be true and correct. If a speaker presents evidence that contradicts our beliefs, we tend to ignore what is being said—either because it is not believable to us or because we don’t want our ideas challenged. Good listeners do not allow themselves to be trapped by stereotypes.

Reference :

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/kline-listen/b10ch2.htm

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