listening response strategies in this concept video we're going to go over the four response strategies and then we'll do a quick exam prep and reflection question all right so let's talk about a few listing response strategies of effective communicators so first there's a nonverbal component and this is just the the signals and illustrations that we give to people to show that we're listening and understanding so that's going to have like the actual numberable component which is like head nod smiling or throwing our eyebrows or matching their facial expression uh maybe positioning our body so we're facing them showing we're listening but there's also kind of a verbal component where you know you might say things like right it's kind of like when in the numberable chapter when we heard like where we learned about vocalized pauses this is kind of the same thing so even though it's a verbal component it's still kind of a non-verbal because you're not really communicating a message per se as far as what the words are saying but what you're really doing is you're communicating like oh I want to keep hearing you keep talking all right then you have emotional support So support strategies create an environment that encourages the other person to talk about and make sense of a distressing situation so I don't I can't remember if we've talked about this already if we're going wait we're going to talk about if we have it um but this is basically what we call like uh communication environment or communication climate excuse me communication climate and this is kind of the climate of how someone feels when they're talking to you are you rushing them it's kind of like when you think back about the the different styles of listening are you nodding trying to get them to hurry up are you being a time oriented listener or are you slowing down to say okay I'll be a people-oriented listener especially if this is something where you're needing support so sometimes it's appropriate to um obviously that we need to our response needs to be just to reassure encourage soothe console and cheer up um you know something that I think is the best thing that we can do for people is right away maybe ask that clarifying question like okay you're telling me about the that's just before we get started do you are you wanting advice or do you just want me to to listen that's a good way to know okay do I need to go into like the listening response strategy of just emotional support being there not necessarily trying to correct or fix just providing support for someone what this doesn't mean is that we make up false statements or we say things that are untruthful or like oh you're so right like say they're telling you about a situation and you're going on about how they're so right when really maybe they aren't the right person in that situation um that's not that's not helping or that's not being supportive you want to always say truthful statements no matter what but you can still support and be emotionally supportive of another person next we have constructive criticism so this has to do with like actual like listening to someone constructively criticize you and you know some people don't like this I actually in in some formats I do like I really like constructive criticism if it's done well um but anytime that we're doing this or we're hearing it or we're hearing somebody then we want to give this like constructive criticize or criticism um back we want to make sure that we uh that we do a few things so when we can't agree with a speaker in what they're saying it's best if we kind of come up with a response that demonstrates respect even if we are criticizing what they are saying so I know that we don't like the word criticize it sounds mean but it's really not it's really just staying okay we may disagree but here's a respectful respectfully here's what I think and so the best way to do that is to follow these guidelines which is use I statements I'm not saying you you but saying I I feel that this is anytime that you say I it takes uh it takes a level of that like um someone feeling defensive off of it because you're not saying it's them or speaking for them you're just speaking your own truth so use eye language use specific language and examples so vagueness is one of the worst things to do whenever you're um providing any type of constructive criticism even if it's like a friend who you're trying to say like maybe you're you're not the right person in the situation being vague or beating around the bush you know not using direct communication isn't great but remember direct communication does not mean being rude or being um being hurtful at all you know you want to still be thoughtful about what you're saying but one of the best things you can do is be specific about the language and examples that you use and then finally find something positive before your critique a lot of times I'll say something that's positive about what they're saying that something I understood remember we learned earlier you can understand without saying someone thinking someone's right or changing your opinion but you can understand them so um one of the things that I try to do is I could say I might say something about what they said I I'll mention that and say I can totally understand blank like you know and let them know I get that I understand why you think that um and then I'm then I'll switch it to you know from from my perspective I see that and I think that softens that blow to say look I'm not saying you're wrong I'm not saying like absolutely and I'm not trying to fight with you I'm saying you know I see it I get where you're coming from this is my perspective and then that makes them more willing to hear you out right okay and then lastly have speech critique and this is um this is like performable speech critiques so what we do a speech critique in a couple of weeks but this is basically if you're ever in a situation where you're having to get some kind of critique to someone like for me I do like I told you all before I do lots of interviews uh here at uaptc so I try to you know I think a lot about that when we have to write our feedback on those forms so I'm always very even though the person's probably not ever going to see that I'm still very respectful I'm honest I would give helpful feedback I'm not ever sure if they see it or not so I always try to give some feedback in case they do um but when they say it's somebody giving a speech or uh somebody's asking you to help them with a presentation or um in business you may need to like if you're working with a group upon a project you may have to give some you know some um critiques or like you know like I do a yearly evaluation with my boss that's another area of critique so in those those situations these formal situations we want to focus on these four things so one like like I said you want to use you want to use all the things that you do in constructive criticism like you want to make sure to still use the eye language be specific um you know and then say something positive but whenever you do finally get to the criticism part or the critique part then you want to First make sure that's respectful honest helpful but then you want to look at content so you're going to look at or sorry you want to look at these four things you want to comment on content so that means focus on the purpose of the speech or the situation if it's a project whatever it is um the formal situation so you want to focus on the purpose did they meet that purpose and then two you want to focus on structure this focuses on the introduction and the organ organization of um maybe the project or the presentation or how or if it's a speech to speech in general then you want to think about delivery and this is talking about the focus focus on like voice and use a body and then finally visual aid so the visual construction that they've used you'll do a visual aid for your next speech and so that's something that like I'll be commenting on and helping you with but these are the four things the four strategies that we can do and it kind of goes from like interpersonal to the more formal situations across the board so you know if we can accurately apply all these we will become really good uh listeners active listeners but we'll also be really good communicators about the information that we have taken in time for some more exam prep questions make sure to pause the video answer your questions and write down the why behind your answers now for your reflection question which of the listing response strategies is easiest and hardest for you to implement an interpersonal conversations