Passage 1
Learn How to Listen
The people in the room were tense. Five young engineers were sitting with their boss. They were trying to settle details of an important new plant site for a major client.
Suddenly one of the young engineers gave what he thought was a good solution to the problem. What he had to say was greeted by an uncomfortable silence. The boss then laughingly pointed out that the same proposal had been made and turned down some minutes before.
The incident seemed funny at the time. But several months later it didn't. After the project had been successfully finished, most of the engineers who had worked on it were promoted. But the young man who had made a fool of himself at the meeting was passed over.
What had happened? The young engineer swore that he had never heard the proposal made and rejected. He was right. He was a victim of a bad listening habit that he didn't know he had.
Bad listening habits can hurt you a lot in your daily living. Much of your success, both in your work and social life, is related to how you listen. A number of major industries and more than twenty leading colleges have become very concerned about our bad listening habits. They have set up "listening clinics" and courses to find out what is wrong. And what to do about it! Why You Must Hear Correctly
My own experience as a teacher in one of these clinics has taught me that many people who seem to be listening miss important points. Therefore, they draw wrong conclusions from what is said. That is a serious problem when you consider our attitudes toward other people and success on the job. These attitudes are shaped more by the persuasive spoken word than by any other means of communication.
What are the faulty hearing habits that hurt us in so many ways? Here are some of the more common ones I've observed in a close study of my many clinic students.
Our minds won't wait. Our thoughts can race along from four to ten times • 72 •
faster than most people speak. So, while we are waiting for the words to come in, our thoughts tend to go off on a tangent(突然改变想法) And sometimes they remain away too long.
Your boss, perhaps, is discussing a situation with you. You want to hear it all. But what happens? Your mind tunes out. It comes back and tunes out again. Why doesn't someone kill that fly? I wonder who just came into the other room? Suddenly a few words come through. "Since you agree with my suggestion," your boss says. . . What did he suggest? Such tuning-out gaps are common—and sometimes costly.
We think we know already. We're so sure we know what the speaker is going to say that we listen with just "half an ear. "
A newspaper publisher once told me how this listening habit cost him a big gum of money.
A regular client telephoned an order for a new series of ads. The person taking the order simply wrote out a standard order form. Not until too late did the publisher learn that the client had wanted the new ads to be four times as large as the old. But the smaller ads had already been set in type by then. So the client decided to run them.
One clerk's job around that newspaper office was pretty shaky for a time.
We're looking not listening. How often in introductions has a name failed to stick because your mind was in the way its owner looked or acted? For the same reason, and far more often than you may think, other information fails to come through.
We are busy listeners. We try to listen while giving part of our attention to a newspaper, or a radio or TV program. Outside noises also bid for a share of our attention. No wonder we don't really "hear. "
We miss the big idea. Once I gave my students a list of vocabulary words from a recording of a newscast. The students were to listen for these words and decide how they were used in context.
Then I questioned them about the general content. They replied, "Oh, we weren't listening for that; we were just listening for the words. "
The poor listener "just hears words. " Have you ever had the feeling that a upeaker said a lot but that you didn't quite "get" it all? This may have been the speaker's fault. Or perhaps you haven't learned to look for the main ideas and the important supporting details.
Our emotions make us deaf. Do you recall a speech or conversation that got you riled up(激怒)? How well did you listen once your blood started to boil?
When someone offers opposing ideas on a subject like religion or politics , we often feel it is risky to listen. Most of us have strong opinions on these subjects. We are afraid* we might hear something that could make us question our own views. We mentally stop listening while we plan our verbal counter-attack.
These are some of the common listening faults. Fortunately, with so little effort, you can correct any of them. I suggest these six ways to make yourself a better listener;
(1) Learn to concentrate. It's an important part of listening. Practice such games as "Take 2, plus 3, minus 5, plus 4 times 2, minus 6—what's the answer?" Similar exercises are used in listening-training courses.
(2) Run a TV test. With a friend or relative listen to a radio or television talk. See how many of the ideas presented you can recall. You may find yourself lost. "Well, he sort of talked about. . . And then he said. . . and then. . . " If so, you may have missed the main point. With the other listener, try to agree on a pretty specific statement of the main ideas.
(3) Cut out distractions. Resolve to put aside the newspaper and stop half-listening to a radio or TV program when someone is trying to talk to you.
(4) Accept controversy. When someone brings up a controversial subject, don't automatically go "deaf". Check all-too-natural wish to stop listening while thinking up sharp remarks to deliver in the next silence.
Instead, plan a question based on his remarks. Don't plan the kind that will cut the opposition down to size. But plan one that will make sure you are getting what is being said.
(5) Repeat instructions. Practice repeating instructions and directions correctly. Unless you can do so, you obviously will not be able to carry them out properly.
( 6) Help others listen. I suspect we encourage bad listening habits in our children by repeating our demands several times before they obey. As much as possible, we should give them a command once. If they do not "hear" it, we should give them some penalty. This way they will learn to listen the first time. And we might set them a good example by listening to them the first time.
Good listening isn't easy. Hearing, understanding, and remembering take a great deal of energy. It is hard to listen properly and do anything else at the same time. But it pays off.
By recognizing and correcting any listening faults that may be hurting you, good things may happen. You may listen your way to closer friendships and better relations with your family. You may also get larger pay checks and ♦ 74 •general success in life.
1. One of the major clients had just cancelled his order and so the people in the room were tense.
2. Poor listening habits may cause one to fail in examinations.
3. The newspaper publisher suffered a big loss of money because the ads were not to the requirements in size by the client.
4. Poor memory is responsible for failure to remember a person's name being introduced.
5. In learning to listen you should be strict with your child as well as with yourself.
6. Good listening habit is of great value in many ways.
7. When you are talked to, it is advisable for you to run a TV test.
8. Our attitudes toward other people and success on the job are largely shaped by the
9. Noise from radio or TV programs tends to______our attention away from listening.
10. Sometimes we pay so much attention to a person's looks or actions that his name
I. N 2. NG 3. Y 4. N 5. Y 6. Y 7. N 8. persuasive spoken word 9. distract 10. fails to stick
