To be a good listener
I have taken it for granted that successful communication means frequently oral interaction with others. I never know listening sometimes is more vital than talking. My English is poor. When I meet some nice and talkative American people, I usually response to them with some quick and short words because I find it is hard to express myself by couples of long sentences smoothly. But it is totally differently when speaking my mother language. Sometimes my friends complained of my interruption when they were talking to me. I know what “keeping silent” means to me: patience, control and self-discipline.

Today, I have talked to one of my friend in our mother language to see whether I can make our communication last longer and more successful by keep myself silent. However, it’s pretty difficult. I am an egoist and I am glad to listen to topic that I’m interested in. but when they switch to other topic, I usually interrupt and let my topic return subconsciously. My friend was talkative today and covered various topics, such as her opinions toward the differences in American education and Chinese education, her family, how she was doing during Chinese New Year, what she learned from her successful uncle and her instructors. Although I was disagree with some of her opinions, I always forced myself to be silent during the talk. It’s interesting to find that some of her opinions sounded ridiculous to me at first. However, when she developed her argument, the points were proved to be reasonable to me finally. Even though silence means good listener to some degree, one successful communication needs some responses anyway. Sometimes, my friend would like to have some feedbacks to her argument. I had to use body language to express myself. But, it’s not enough. So I broke silence several times by laughing and some modal particle. Listening means get the main idea of the topic. After that, appropriate response is more important. I found my friend was very glad to share her ideas with me when I was a good listener. Anyway, to be a good listener is the first step to the successful communication.