What Are the Barriers to Effective Listening in Public Speaking?
You cannot overstate the importance of listening when it comes to public speaking. In spite of the role that listening plays in the realm of public speaking, there are a host of barriers that hinder an audience from being fully aware of and totally engaged with a speech. Recognizing those barriers and how they affect your ability to listen will put you on the road to more effective listening.
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Perceptual Barriers
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Every person has her own perception of how things are and how they ought to be. Because of this, perceptual barriers can severely limit a person's ability to effectively listen to a speech if the speech is controversial or does not coincide with her beliefs. Perceptual barriers occur frequently in politics when candidates and elected officials of a certain party may endorse a course of action but have an audience that strictly opposes the idea purely because of the political party to which the speaker belongs to.
Physical Barriers
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Physical barriers might be the most immediate and recognizable of listening barriers. Physical barriers include external noises that drown out the voice of the speaker such as chattering audience members, a speaker who speaks too softly, and even faulty acoustics. Cellular phones and annoying noises are also physical barriers to effective listening. Physical barriers are among the most deleterious of barriers because they thwart effective communication at the most visceral level. It's difficult, if not impossible, to listen to someone you cannot hear because of palpable distractions.
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Language Barriers
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While language barriers may not be as common as other types of listening barriers, they do affect an audience's ability to listen to a public speaker. At its most basic level, a language barrier usually occurs when a speaker and some members of the audience do not speak the same language. On a deeper level, language barriers can also result from persuasion techniques such as innuendo and metaphor. While a speaker may say one thing, he actually means another, but it is up to the audience to figure out what he means.
Expectation Barriers
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The expectations that audience members' have of a public speaker can have a large bearing on whether they will effectively listen or not. If they are excited to hear the speaker, they are much more likely to diligently listen. If the speaker is somebody who they are not as fond of or hear regularly such as a school principal, they are likely less apt to effectively listen to everything that she says. Expectation barriers often affect young children as they are typically more limited in their interests and do not always recognize what's best for them.
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