Active Listening and Assertive Communication Style in LSP Teaching

Active Listening and AssertiveCommunication Style in LSPTeachingKsenija JURETIĆ and Kristina KAŠTELANUniversity of Rijeka, Faculty ofEconomics, Rijeka, Croatia

Active Listening and Assertive• MultitaskingCommunication Style…• Noisy Communication Channels & ContinuousPartial Attention (CPA)• Four Communication Styles• Active Listening and Assertiveness• Research Results• Conclusion

Multitasking vs. Continuous PartialAttention (CPA)• In computing, multitasking is a method wheremultiple tasks are performed during the sameperiod of time. (Multimedia - a classic example ofmultitasking that converges images, video, and sound)• Simple multitasking• Complex Multitasking- CPA (Linda Stone,1997)

Continuous Partial Attention (CPA)• Complex multitasking: People are hyper alert with thepace 24/7, anywhere, anytime, anyplace struggling with theirworkload asking their brains to attend to 4 I.M. conversations,a partially completed paper, a news website, a text messagecoming in on the cell phone and a conversation with theperson sitting next to them using CPA as their primaryattention strategy( Linda Stone, 1997, 2010)• Complex multitasking = CPA ( e-mail / screenapnea) compromised breathing +compromisedattention

Digital immigrants vs. Digitalnatives• Digital immigrants (prior to 1990s) - personalcomputing technologies ( focus on productivity and personalcreativity ; a value on self-expression, output and efficiency)• Digital natives - the personal communicationstechnology era ( focus is on the amplified accessibility andresponsiveness): combine ‘old media’ such as TV and music with ‘new media’ suchas computers, smart phones, and continually increase sources of input - they goonline while watching TV, talk on the phone, listen to music, surf the Web, useFacebook/ Twitter while text-messaging and studying.

Noisy Communication ChannelsDigital Immigrants are faced with• Environmental Noise (physically disrupts communication:standing next to loud speakers, works at a construction site making itdifficult to hear the speaker)• Semantic Noise (misinterpretation of the meanings of certain wordstaken out of the context)• Syntactical Noise (mistakes in grammar)• Cultural Noise (stereotypical assumptions )• Organisational Noise (poorly structured messages )• Psychological Noise ( anger, sadness or anxiety that may causesomeone to lose focus on the message itself)

The Noisy Communication Channels DigitalNatives are faced with:• Continuous PartialAttention• The consequences are apart fromstress-related diseases(compromised breathing andcompromised attention),continuous distractions that cancause anxiety, lack of activelistening and non-assertivecommunication.• Hypothesis as a startingpoint:• The paradox is the louder theenvironmental, semantic,cultural and psychological noisein communication channels, thelouder the “sound of silence”.• And in the naked light I sawTen thousand people, maybe more.People talking without speaking,People hearing without listening,People writing songs that voicesnever shareAnd no one daredDisturb the sound of silence.• ( Simon &Garfunkel lyrics, 1964)

Communication StylesPassivePassiveaggressiveAggressive• passive communicators(whose ‘voices nevershare’) do not defend theirpersonal boundaries• ‘’individuals appear passiveon the surface but are reallyacting out anger in a subtle,indirect, or behind-thescenesway• does not respect the personalboundaries of others and thusoften harms others while tryingto influence them , often beingverbally and/or physicallyabusive (‘and no one daredisturb the sounds of silence’).

Active Listening and AssertiveCommunication StyleActive ListeningAssertivenesstotal andundividedattentioninterestandconcernlisten notonly withour ears,but withour eyes,mind, heartandimaginationto absorbeverything thespeaker issaying verballyandnonverballywithoutadding,subtracting, oramending.”(Carl Rogers,1980)a person couldnot be bothassertive andanxious at thesame time,and thus beingassertivewould inhibitanxiety(Joseph Wolpe,1958)Assertivecommunicatorshave high selfesteem,whilebeing veryrespectful of therights of others.'I count myneeds. I countyour needs'position"

5 As + S IN EFFECTIVECOMMUNICATION• PAYATTENTIONATTENTIONAPPRECIATION• APPRECIATEDIFFERENCES• LISTENVERBALLY ANDNON VERBALLYACTIVELISTENING• YES AND NOIN THE SAMEPOLITE WAYASSERTIVENESSARGUMENTATION• FOR ANDAGAINSTARGUMENTS• In harmonywith onselfand othersSUCCESS

ResearchSample and Methodsexperimental group (50)- third year studentscontrol group (60) – first year students

• The test consists of two parts:• The first part – a reflective listening skills test with 10questions offering two possible response alternatives• The second comprised of 28 particles onmultitasking, active listening skills and CPA whichwere evaluated on the 5- likert scale. The data of thesurvey was analyzed by means of descriptivestatistics, specifically the t-test analysis.

Figure 1: Percentage of students according to the total achieved value classClass 1st year 3rd year15-20 17,39% 26,32%10-15 63,77% 57,89%5-10 14,49% 15,79%0-5 4,35% 0,00%

• The t-tests analyze the degree of respondent’s activelistening skills according to individual particles in thequestionnaire based on the respondent’s belief (seeTables in Appendix 2)• Even though, while observing the total mean for allparticles there is a slight difference in the averagemean of the control and experimental group (3. 36and 3.55 respectively), the statistical analysis provesseveral statistically significant differences betweenfirst and third year students regarding theirbehaviour while listening to the speaker.

• The third year students had better results inactive listening as they:• more commonly make eye contact nod theirheads in agreement while listening to the speaker.• more frequently give their full attention to thespeaker and the speaker’s body language• have more patience in waiting for the speaker tofinish before making mental judgments and arenot prone to interrupting a serious discussion inorder to make a personal call• For more detailed statistical analysis data, see tables in Appendix 2.

• the descriptive statistical t-test analysis accordingto gender showed no statistically significantdifferences for the first year students and onlytwo significant differences among the third yearresults.• The third year female students more frequentlyfind themselves thinking about what they aregoing to say whereas the male students pay closerattention to the speaker’s body language whenlistening to the speaker

Mean 3rd Mean 1st t-value df p Valid N Valid N Std.Dev. Std.Dev. F-ratio1 3.953488 3.550725 1.96056 110 0.052459 43 69 1.090074 1.036627 1.1057762 3.604651 3.666667 -0.28962 110 0.772655 43 69 0.979298 1.171558 1.4311913 3.372093 3.246377 0.61730 110 0.538310 43 69 0.900351 1.129885 1.5748734 4.116279 3.579710 2.26710 110 0.025339 43 69 1.051287 1.310655 1.5542985 4.023256 3.391304 2.82898 110 0.005551 43 69 1.123099 1.165905 1.0776826 3.418605 3.086957 1.90907 110 0.058858 43 69 0.879192 0.903248 1.0554717 2.813953 3.188406 -1.86825 110 0.064389 43 69 1.006072 1.047060 1.0831408 3.372093 3.579710 -1.01113 110 0.314173 43 69 0.951772 1.116794 1.3768319 3.837209 3.231884 2.61495 110 0.010175 43 69 1.044948 1.273542 1.48538010 3.883721 3.507246 1.56022 110 0.121581 43 69 1.117167 1.313092 1.38151111 3.186047 3.231884 -0.22702 110 0.820833 43 69 1.139252 0.972337 1.37279712 3.000000 3.115942 -0.55522 110 0.579875 43 69 0.899735 1.169920 1.69076313 3.511628 3.304348 0.97630 110 0.331057 43 69 1.054968 1.115458 1.11796414 4.139535 3.797101 1.49775 110 0.137061 43 69 0.940653 1.301353 1.91395415 3.279070 3.246377 0.18063 110 0.856993 43 69 0.983811 0.897804 1.20077116 3.860465 3.246377 3.05199 110 0.002850 43 69 0.888589 1.116794 1.57959117 3.441860 3.579710 -0.62137 110 0.535640 43 69 1.097667 1.168279 1.13279718 3.441860 3.434783 0.03868 110 0.969214 43 69 0.958727 0.931132 1.06015019 3.395349 3.289855 0.57384 110 0.567244 43 69 0.694863 1.072400 2.38185420 3.837209 3.478261 1.64304 110 0.103229 43 69 1.044948 1.170830 1.25544821 3.930233 3.478261 2.00546 110 0.047369 43 69 1.032688 1.232032 1.42332922 3.906977 3.565217 1.63975 110 0.103915 43 69 0.995560 1.117748 1.26052823 3.162791 3.173913 -0.05731 110 0.954406 43 69 0.998337 0.999360 1.00205024 2.883721 2.985507 -0.46537 110 0.642587 43 69 1.117167 1.131017 1.02494825 3.953488 3.565217 1.90649 110 0.059196 43 69 0.998892 1.077555 1.16370326 3.325581 3.275362 0.23488 110 0.814738 43 69 1.128018 1.083079 1.08470627 3.116279 3.333333 -1.10838 110 0.270117 43 69 1.117167 0.934103 1.43036328 3.813953 3.043478 3.68512 110 0.000356 43 69 1.006072 1.117176 1.233061