Good Listeners

Attending: Attend to important information |Ready themselves mentally and physically |Listen objectively regardless of emotional involvement|Listen differently depending on situations |Understanding |Assigned appropriate meaning to what is said |Seek out apparent purpose, main points and supporting information |Ask mental questions to anticipate information Silently paraphrase to solidify understanding |Seek out subtle meanings based on non-verbal cues |Remembering |Retain information |Repeat key information |Take notes |Evaluating |Listen critically |Evaluate inferences | Responding empathically | Provide supportive comforting statements.

Bad Listeners : May not hear what a person is saying, Fidget in chairs, look out the windows, and let their minds wander, Visibly react to emotional language, Listen the same way regardless of the type of material, Hear what is said but are unable to understand or assign different meaning to the type of words, Ignore the way information is organized, Fail to anticipate coming information, Seldom or never mentally review the information, Ignore non-verbal cues, Interpret message accurately but forget it, Assume they will remember, Rely on memory alone, Understand but unable to weigh or consider it, Accept information at face value, Pass of joy or hurt, change the subject.

Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information (Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997). Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking. It is often spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving.

Speaking requires that learners not only know how to produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary (linguistic competence), but also that they understand when, why, and in what ways to produce language (sociolinguistic competence).