Listening Course- Overview

When I saw that this Listening course was required for my Communication Studies major, I wasn't really shocked and did not really question why we had to study this subject. I've always thought that it's important to know how to listen-- for everybody, and even more essential for people who plan to build a career that involves communications. What did interest me, however, was how we would go about learning listening. In my other communication studies courses this semester the "how" part was pretty much a given:

Communication Theory- you learn through theories.
True. The key word was THEORY. We read theories.

Public Speaking- you practice and improve by speaking in public.
Yup, SPEAKING. We performed speeches. Done.

Listening- uh? Hmm. You...listen...to...each...other..?
Not so much.

We presented, we discussed, we read, we wrote. And, yes- of course- we also listened.

I think that this course increased my knowledge of the broad spectrum of listening. I never knew there were so many categories that defined this subject (critical listening, appreciative listening, comprehensive listening, etc.). I also feel that it made me more aware of my own listening behavior and encouraged me to understand that you can never improve enough while working on becoming a good listener.

In my opinion, learning through applying the concepts that we were taught would have made this course better. I remember the first day of class when we discussed resolving and enhancing a specific listening situation. Our professor gave us the "GAP scenerio"-- which was basically all about improving listening in a work environment (between employees and their boss). We discussed the hypothetical situation and assigned imaginary characters, who each had a personal motive and listening style. It was interesting and relevant to our lives. It made us interact, as a classroom, on the first (awkward) day of class. And, It intrigued me, personally, to learn more about listening.

I would have liked to do more listening exercises like that rather than constantly read and write about listening. I think that learning the concepts and reflecting about them in writing is good, but engaging in interactive, relevant, two-way listening (while being aware of your listening purposes) encourages greater Hearing, Understanding, Remembering, Interpreting, Evaluating, and Responding (the aspects that comprise the HURIER listening model that we learned).

I think that would have made us listen even more.

Also, I feel like this course condensed too much material, which was a bit repetitive and overwhelming. I think we could have used that time to further learn, engage in, and improve upon the essential aspects of the listening process.