Blog Post #1

Last semester I had the chance to take one of the best courses offered here at BSU, listening. As odd as it may sound I really loved being involved with this course because it made me take the idea of communication and the idea of listening to a whole new level. There are concepts that I had never thought of before. The class taught me to appreciate the small things in life and pay closer attention to things in my life that I brushed off my shoulder. What I took away from this class was how to be a better listener. I think we all assume and believe that we are good listeners, but in reality, we usually aren’t. Forbe’s wrote an article in 2012, 10 Steps To Effective Listening. This is what really tied me into listening within communication. It is an easy read (which helps when you are a tired college student) and it opens your mind to concepts that you didn’t realize were tied in with listening (I strongly recommend taking Listening from Thomas Lobaugh, it is amazing!).

Over the summer I took an online course, nonverbal communication. I was interested in taking this because I was hoping to further my interest in communication skills that would tie in with listening. This course was very interesting because it was online, so there were no nonverbal cues that we got from our instructor (semi-ironic, right?). In our world, we are surrounded by technology and that is what we know, we may not be aware of the nonverbal communication language. Along with reading, we were given a link to a YouTube video that is short and sweet with the explanation of nonverbal communication and the ideal ques that are given. Nonverbal communication is what people subconsciously pay attention to when you are talking with one another when you are at a job interview when you are on a first date. People pay attention to those things whether they are aware of it or not, it is human nature. The ‘vibe’ you send out to others is made of your nonverbals.

The reason I wanted to start my blog with the ideas of listening and nonverbal communication skills is that each culture is different in the way they communicate. I think it is important to note in this class that each generation, each culture, each person will see listening and nonverbal communication differently and each person will understand your listening cues and your nonverbal communication cues differently. It is important to understand that each of us is almost our ‘own culture,’ because we each come from somewhere different, we each are raised differently than the person sitting next to us and we each believe different things (even if it isn’t a huge difference). I think that communication and culture are made of the nonverbals and the listening skills. I know that in different cultures, different hand gestures mean different things or looking someone in the eye while speaking could be a sign of disrespect while in other countries and other cultures NOT looking someone in the eye is disrespectful. It is important to be aware of these things and to be aware of what YOU are doing at all times. Some things we don’t really pay attention to most of the time, such as crossing your arms during a conversation, but this could come off to the speaker that you don’t care about what you are saying. Listening and nonverbal gestures tie together like peanut butter and jelly on a sandwich, one just doesn’t make sense without the other. And to better understand communication and culture, we must realize that our listening and nonverbal skills need to improve every day so that we become more aware of our interpersonal communication so that we can communicate successfully with those who surround us every single day.