Writing for Business Success/Understanding your audience/Video signpost Keele
View video series – Keele University: KeeleStudentLearning. These five videos on active listening and reading include The Importance of Listening [7:45 min.], Concentration [5:28 min.], How to Listen to Others Effectively [6:25 min.], Reading Techniques. Part 1: Common Reading Difficulties & Techniques to Overcome Them [5:28 min.], and Reading Techniques. Part 2: Survey, Question, Read, Recall & Review (SQ3R). [8:20 min.]. These tutorial videos progressively build on concepts and skills, so it’s best to watch them in the order presented. To enhance their learning value, try to identify your own listening and reading strengths, and challenges, while viewing the videos. What learning goals would you set for yourself?
The first video discusses the health, relational, learning, professional, and social benefits of active listening.
The second video describes concentration as a core skill in active listening, and discusses useful concentration strategies, such as preparing, questioning, selecting key information, summarizing, and perception-checking. As you view this video, why do you think people tend to listen passively although it is less effective than active listening?
The third video highlights awareness of self and others in questioning skills. As you view this video, assess your own listening habits. Identify some issues that you see as preventing you from listening and questioning as effectively as you could. How can you improve your listening based on the suggestions in this video?
The last two videos present useful techniques to develop more efficient reading skills, and overcome common reading difficulties, like unfamiliar terminology, reading load and speed, and lack of motivation and/or organisation. What would you say are your reading strengths and challenges?
