communication skills

Active listening is composed of six distinct components
Hearing: The physiological process of receiving sound and/or other stimuli.
Attending: The conscious and unconscious process of focusing attention on external stimuli.
Interpreting: The process of decoding the symbols or behavior attended to.
Evaluating: The process of deciding the value of the information to the receiver
Remembering: The process of placing the appropriate information into short-term or long-term storage.
Responding: The process of giving feedback to the source and/or other receivers.

Barriers to Listening
The following list identifies just some possible barriers to effective listening;
Sources of noise
Evaluation before we understand what is being said, or ‘jumping to conclusions’.
Hearing what we want to hear.
Being inattentive - thinking about something else entirely.
Having a closed mind - you do not want to hear what the person has to say.
Feeling anxious.
Judging the person, either positively or negatively.
Cultural issues, e.g. listening to the differences in pronunciation of different accent, rather than the content of the message.