Effective
listening is actively absorbing the information given to you by a speaker,
showing that you are listening and interesting, and providing feedback to the
speaker so that he or she knows the message was received. In my point of view,
effective listening is more important than speaking. To support my idea I will give the reason to support my
idea.
The effective listener can signal
his or her affective engagement in the conversation by making it the only focus
of attention, and by receiving communications with acceptance and
empathy.
Action is also part of effective listening. The listener
should communicate his or her attention through non-verbal means like eye
contact, erect posture, nodding, and other positive body language. The
listener can also demonstrate engagement by broadening the range of the
conversation, such as by inquiring about or suggesting alternatives to the
topic or conclusions at hand. (Zandman, 2011)
Libuse Binder said in her book Ten Ways to Change the World
in Your Twenties, a good dialogue is based on our ability to listen to other
points of view, even when we don’t agree with them.
It is right that effective listening
is more important and beneficial than speaking. Because if we listen
effectively, our dialogue can be good. But, we also need speaking for our
communication. It is impossible if we only listen without speaking. Because to
share our ideas we need to speak it up.
Otherwise,
speaking without listening effectively is useless. because every word that we
utter from our mouth is very influential by effective listening.
To
sum up, I strongly agree that effective listening is much more essential than
speaking because if we can listen effectively, we can speak effectively.