The Challenge to Teach Effective Listening in the Decade of the 80's

Abstract

Who is not listening? It would appear that at least one-half of Walter Stromer's students are not doing so in his speech communication classroom. In his article, "Reducing Compulsory Listening," Professor Stromer asks, "Is there a point at which listening to other students speak becomes redundant and self-defeating?" He goes on to state. "I have persuaded myself that it is not profitable to compel students to listen to all the speeches of their classmates." His argument proceeds to "can we justify forcing students to listen to mediocre models." His way of dealing with students observing "mediocre models" (his choice of words. certainly not mine) is to divide the class in half on speech days. "I would rather have them doing almost anything than having them be bored and inattentive." According to the article most of the time he does provide other learning experiences for his non-listening students on speech days. However. my objection to his practice is a result of a philosophical and a theoretical difference of opinion regarding the objectives of a speech communication class. While I do believe Professor Stromer's "outside" assignments are good learning experiences. I feel that he is being somewhat short-sighted in not providing students with listening skills and techniques that can be practiced in the speech classroom in the same manner that speaking skills are developed.

Journal Title

Iowa Journal of Speech Communication

Volume

Issue

First Page

Last Page

Language

File Format

application/pdf

Recommended Citation

Watt, Bill (1984) "The Challenge to Teach Effective Listening in the Decade of the 80's," Iowa Journal of Communication: Vol. 16: No. 1, Article 7.
Available at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ijc/vol16/iss1/7

Copyright

Download

Comments?

COinS