reply to caroline disccussion below:

W2 Listening Analysis 

• Listening Score
• State the results of the exercise and what surprised you with the questions and results. 

At first, I thought I was going to score an A, but when I realized my 38 score was a low B, I was very surprised. There were some questions like “Trying to keep my eyes on what is going on elsewhere in the room” or “encourage the sender to continue through the use of feedback such as ‘I see’” where I know I didn’t score the best. Once I saw my score and rethought the questions I realized that maybe I’m not as good a listener as I thought I was. 

• Consider how your listening strategy changes when you are interacting with a different culture, then share your reflection with the class.

Whenever I’m interacting with a different culture, there is a high possibility that I may not fully understand what they are saying. For example in my previous post, I wrote about how I was having trouble speaking with someone who speaks Spanish, but they were talking extremely quickly. When I’m interacting with someone from a different culture, I pick up keywords that I understand and focus my attention on that. Our textbook states “People perceive things differently. We choose to select different aspects of a message to focus our attention based on what interests us, what is familiar to us, or what we consider important.”(Mclean, 2018). 

• Example
• Using the information from the exercise, describe an instance when you failed to be an effective listener.

I failed in being an effective listener by not making eye contact most of the time. Whenever someone is giving a presentation, it’s not that I don’t want to look at them the entire time, but I know if I were in their position I wouldn’t want to feel starred at. So I move my eye contact from their eyes, to if they’re holding something, to what’s behind them. I like thinking of it in the way of getting the whole picture and ‘experience’. There was a question on the exercise that asked if I “try to keep an eye on what is going on elsewhere in the room?” I immediately was like “yeah most of the time!” and realized that was 1 point and not 3. 

• Also, in this section, include an example of when you found it difficult to listen when communicating with someone from a different culture.

When I’m speaking to someone from a different culture, I don’t like feeling as if I don’t know what is going on.  It is very important to be able to communicate with others. To be able to do so effectively we need to be aware of the person we are talking to. Things such as physical attributes, cultural backgrounds, and beliefs are ways we can we are trying to communicate with others effectively (McLean, 2018). I focus a lot on body language instead of words when I can’t fully understand due to a strong accent or plain not knowing what the word means. 

• Reflections
• Share a time when you experienced a breakdown in the listening process.

I remember when I went to go get a pedicure done for the first time a few years ago, and when I sat down I got a lady who spoke mainly only Vietnamese. She was trying to explain something to me, and I messed up and tried to assume what she was going to say before she said it. We had a question on the exercise that asks if we “assume you know what the sender is going to say before he or she says it?” as it does not qualify as being an effective listener. After she kept saying no multiple times, I stayed quiet. 

• What do you believe was the reason you failed to listen effectively?

I felt nervous and didn’t want to embarrass myself more by miscommunicating. I had originally assumed what she was going to say and perhaps she felt I was trying to rush her. I was only trying to make sure we both were on the same page, and it backfired. 

• Share potential listening barriers that might have been present.

She was also speaking extremely quietly. In not being to understand what she was saying, not being able to hear her was worse. I didn’t want to keep saying “I’m sorry, what? or “huh” all the time so I just nodded my head to everything. This lead to me getting acrylic and a whole other “care-taking” package when I originally was going for a simple gel pedicure.   

• What could you have done differently to improve your listening?

I now use hand gestures if I am in a similar situation. Spontaneous hand movements produced in rhythm with speech are called co-speech gestures and naturally accompany all spoken language. People from all known cultures and linguistic backgrounds gesture and is fundamental to communication (Clough & Duff, 2020). Since there was a language barrier between us, including accents, gestures are commonly known in all languages and that could have helped both of us during that encounter. 

• References

Clough, S., & Duff, M. C. (2020). The Role of Gesture in Communication and Cognition: Implications for Understanding and Treating Neurogenic Communication Disorders. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2020.00323Links to an external site.

McLean, S. (2018). Exploring Interpersonal Communication v2.0. Flat World Knowledge. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781453390429