The Importance of Listening: A Review of Julian Treasure's Video

This essay reviews Julian Treasure's video on the importance of listening and its impact on analytical skills. It highlights the difference between listening and hearing, important points emphasized in the video, personal realization, and the message conveyed. The essay concludes with the importance of practicing the art of listening.

Running head: HEALTH CARE
Health Care
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1
HEALTH CARE
Video Taken: https://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_5_ways_to_listen_better#t-445882
The art of listening is different from the art of hearing (Goodman, 2017). The
following essay aims is based on the video of Julian Treasure who has provided his opinion
on listening and its importance in shaping up the analytical skills. The essay begins with
highlighting the reason behind the selection of video followed by important points
highlighted in the video, personal realization and contradiction with personal philosophies of
beliefs. Finally the essay sums up with the important message shared in the video.
Reason for selection of this video
Listening is defined as a mental process or a process of extraction of information via
auditory impulses (Bond, 2012). However, according to Turner (2013), people are gradually
losing their ability to listen. Julian Treasure in the video has opined that people spent roughly
60% of the communication time in listening. However, even in this 60%, people are not
listening attentively, they are only hearing. As a result, they can retain only 25% of what they
have listened during the conversation. Moreover, decay in the art of listening is making it
difficult for people to pay attention to something subtle, quiet and something which is
understated. According to the recent reports published in The Hindu (2015), human have two
ears and one mouth and here comes the importance of listening over speaking. Bond (2012) is
of the opinion that when one is hearing and not listening, the words fall on the deaf ears and
fails to reach the brain. Thus in the juxtaposition of listening and hearing, the live flow of
information between the people is getting stagnant and thus there is decreasing the quality of
effective communication. This different between listening and hearing along with the
importance of listening has been highlighted in the video of Julian Treasure, making it a topic
of interest. Moreover, the video also discussed the different strategies employed for listening

2
HEALTH CARE
along the practises that must be undertaken in order to increase the power of listening and
thus further making it a topic of interest.
Important points emphasized
The points highlighted in the video of Julian Treasure is the importance of listening,
its difference between the hearing and different examples of listening. According to Julian
Treasure, one of the important examples of listening is pattern recognition. The concept
proposed by Julian Treasure goes in sync with the findings of Turner (2013). According to
Turner (2013) pattern recognition is an important aspect of listening as it helps in the
definition of relation of speech perception towards the perception of the non-verbal auditory
patterns. Julian Treasure further stated that there is a whole range of filters like culture,
language, values, beliefs, attitudes, expectations and it is these filters we pay attention to and
thus listen to the conversation that encompass these filters. Julian Treasure further opined the
listening means understanding and it helps in refining the analytical skills of the person.
According to Yang (2013), listening is a thinking function and demands analytical skills.
Under the listeners hear the speaker carefully; they will not be able to make accurate analysis.
Hearing on the other hand is prerequisite of active listening. However, the majority of people
fail here, as the data that are being delivered by other person fail to reach a meaningful
conclusion until they focus on the words pronounced by other persons. In the video, Julian
highlighted that listening promotes understanding. According to Noddings (2012), the sense
of understanding comes from reading or listening, when one listen’s carefully, he or she feeds
the data inside the brain through the input devices (ear). The focus on the words refines the
art of listening and thereby increasing the skill of understanding and analysis.
Personal level realization

3
HEALTH CARE
I completely agree with the message shared in the video. At present people is more
important in personal broadcasting and this is hampering the listening capability. When they
are not engrossed in personal broadcasting, they are immersed inside their smart phones and
listening to music or surfing social media sites. While taking part in a scientific seminar I
have visualised that people are pretending that they listening but are not mentally present
within the conversation. Perhaps, he or she is only hearing and not listening to the sentences.
As per my understanding, the people are so mugged up with their own thoughts or ideas that
fail to pay attention to the words of the speaker. I think they all cared about remembering
their own speech and thus are not bothered enough to listen to the speech of the co-speakers.
Moreover, Julian Treasure have highlighted that the advent of the concept of recording has
disrupted the art of listening. I completely agree with this statement. This is because, with the
advent of the facility of recording, people have developed a tendency that they will listen to it
afterwards as per their convenience. However, there is sharp difference between the live
listening and listening to any recorded audio files in a fast forwarded or rewind manner. So
as a whole I truly agree with the reasons highlighted as the importance of listening by Julian
Treasure and this proposed approaches to practise the art of listening.
Philosophies of believes
Viewing this topic has challenged my own philosophy related to listening. As per my
understanding, listening creates fatigue and this goes against the concept proposed by Julian
Treasure that listening is increases the analytical skills. My mode of understanding is derived
from the findings of the McGarrigle et al. (2014). According to McGarrigle et al. (2014), for
normal hearing population, everyday listening is effortless job but listening in the midst of
the noisy environments creates a stress over the brain. This is because, brain is required to
carry out all the necessary “backstage operations” that enables selective processing of definite
sound and simultaneous filtering out of irrelevant sound. However, the concept proposed by

4
HEALTH CARE
Julian Treasure says that listening is a feel of joy under every condition for example in an
environment filled with cacophony. Julian Treasure further opined that understanding the
difference in tempo of two sounds under a crowed environment like in a music bar helps to
increase the listening skills of a person. Thus my mode of understanding of listening and
brain stress is contradicted with importance of exercise of listening.
The message
The main message provided in the video is the practising the art of listening. This is
because according to Julian Treasure, “active listening creates understanding”. Julian
Treasure proposed three approach to practise the art of listening and these includes Silence of
at least 3 minutes of per day, listening to the mixer in order to detect how many sounds one
can hear, enjoyment of the mundane sounds which Julian has described as hidden choir or
savouring and different listening positions. Here the importance of silence per day, is
symbolised as the importance of practising medication which helps to increase the
concentration skills. Julian also proposed an acronym that can be helpful for practising
listening and this is RASA. RASA is a Sanskrit term meaning juice or extract and Julian
abbreviated as
R: receive
A: appreciate
S: summarise
A: ask
Via indicating RASA, Julian meant that the best approach to listening is carefully
conceptualise the speech of the other person (receive) and then via analysing the same either
contradict or agree with the speaker (appreciate) and they try to cast you own approach based

5
HEALTH CARE
on the listening (summarise) and at the question the speaker if you encounter any query (ask).
Another important message that is given in this video is importance of practising listening
among the school children. This message opined by Julian scores immense importance in the
domain of skills of primary school children. According to Davies (2017), practice of listening
helps to increase the analytical skills of the children. The message is indeed powerful and will
help to increase the awareness in the domain of active listening.
Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that art of listening is gradually
dying among the present day population. They are getting more engrossed in their self-
thoughts or their mind is getting so much pre-occupied with other activities or information
that they are failing to cast attention to others words. Decline in the art of listening in turn is
hampering the analytical skills of a person thereby causing a drop in intellect. Therefore,
proper practise of art of listening is crucial in order to sustain the concept of attentive hearing
or listening.

6
HEALTH CARE
References
Bhardwaj. S., Listening as a dying Art. (2015). The Hindu. Accessed on: 3rd April. Retrieved
from: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/listening-as-a-dying-art/
article7600559.ece
Bond, C. D. (2012). An overview of best practices to teach listening skills. International
Journal of Listening, 26(2), 61-63.
Davies, B. (2017). Life in the classroom and playground: The accounts of primary school
children (Vol. 17). Routledge.
Goodman, L. E. (2017). Listening and Hearing. Society, 54(2), 163-170.
McGarrigle, R., Munro, K. J., Dawes, P., Stewart, A. J., Moore, D. R., Barry, J. G., &
Amitay, S. (2014). Listening effort and fatigue: What exactly are we measuring? A
British Society of Audiology Cognition in Hearing Special Interest Group ‘white
paper’. International journal of audiology.
Noddings, N. (2012). The caring relation in teaching. Oxford Review of Education, 38(6),
771-781.
Turner, K. (2013). Developing listening skills. Aspects of Teaching Secondary Modern
Foreign Languages: Perspectives on Practice, 61-81.
Yang, Y. T. C., Chuang, Y. C., Li, L. Y., & Tseng, S. S. (2013). A blended learning
environment for individualized English listening and speaking integrating critical
thinking. Computers & Education, 63, 285-305.

7
HEALTH CARE