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Listening Models and the Listening Process

1. Of the four listening models addressed in this week’s readings (see course content week

two) which model (Lunsteen, SIER, KURIER, or Wolvin and Coakley’s) do you feel most

accurately reflects the listening process and why? Be sure to include the model’s strengths

and weaknesses.

Of the four listening models discussed, I feel the HURIER model best depicts the listening

process. While the model does not specifically account for visual stimuli and focuses on hearing

alone, it does account for many important variables in the listening process such as skill in

understanding and remembering (UMUC, n.d.). I gravitate towards this model because visually,

it makes the most sense to me and was easiest to follow and understand. I do not believe

listening is a very sequential process as seen with the SIER and Wolvin & Coakley models,

rather it takes several steps in understanding, interpreting and evaluating based on personal

behaviors and experiences which may occur at the same time as shown in the HURIER model.

2. After you have the first three pages of the Listening, Understanding, and

Misunderstanding link above. Provide a sound description of each of the five elements in

Wolvin’s explanation of the listening process. Please include all five elements. Note how the

more current explanation offered in the Listening, Understanding, and Misunderstanding

article differs from the Wolvin- Coakley model in our online classroom readings.

Wolvin’s updated explanation of the listening process (Wolvin & Coakley, 1996) includes two

additional factors that were not included in his original 1988 model – perceiving and

interpreting. Together, receiving; attending; perceiving; interpreting; and responding create the

listening process (1996). The receiving process requires the listener to account for both audio

and visual cues. In this step, the listener should hone into all of their senses to take in the

intended message. After the message has been received, the listener then has to concentrate on

the in order for it to be transferred to short term memory. For example, if you are walking down

the street, you receive the sound of a dog’s bark so you attend to it by turning your head in the

direction you believe the dog to be located. Next, in a seemingly unconscious manner, you

perceive the message based on your background, experience, role, and physical or mental state

(Wolvin & Coakley, 1996). Using the same example, after attending to the dog’s bark, your

perception may be positive or negative based on whether or not you are a dog person. When a

message has been perceived, it is then interpreted. Similar to perception, the mind

subconsciously makes sense of the message based on former teachings. Finally, once the

message has been interpreted, the listener must respond to it appropriately through either spoken

words or a body movement. The response may also be mental or storing the message in too long

term memory.

3. Last, in a separate detailed paragraph analyze your listening skills according to the one

component that you feel is most difficult for you (receiving, attending, perceiving,

interpreting, and responding).

I feel I struggle most with attending to a message. The reading states that the human attention

span today undoubtedly has been limited further by the impact of the media (Wolvin & Coakley,

1996) which supports the claims made in the PBS video from week 1. My listening pretest scores

also reflect my inability to attend to longer massages, while shorter messages were easier for me

to perceive and interpret. I think I struggle with this because I am inundated with competing

thoughts and priorities at any given time. At work, I have a to-do list that spans 2 checklist pages

and 2 Excel spreadsheets of ongoing projects. Add that to the walk-in requests and phone calls

and it’s a noisy mess! At home, my mind is consumed with homework, cooking, laundry, etc. so

it is difficult to pay close attention to any one thing. If attending requires attention energy, I am

most certainly lacking that!