Improving Counsellor Listening Skills to Enhance Responding Ability in Counseling

Abstract

An understanding attitude of the Counselor is communicated to the client through verbal, para-verbal and non-verbal communication which helps in information gathering in the counseling encounter.  When the client perceives that the counselor listen to and respond appropriately, it makes the client to open up deeply because he feels understood, free and so wants to talk more. The focus of this paper is to sensitize counselors to be aware of the need to listen in order to discover, understand, interpret and respond appropriately to the client message using verbal, non-verbal, vocal auditory or para-verbal communication. An experimental study design of pre-test and post-test was used to collect data from diploma two students studying different courses in Institute of Education, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. From a population of 1,175 students in 2013/2014 academic session, a sample size of 30 students was randomly selected to take part in the study. An instrument titled Couples Communication Skills’ on Improving Listening communication was administered as pre-test and post-test to the students on the first and last week of the experiment. A four point likert scale was used for rating of responses by the respondents. A t-test technique was used to analyze the data collected. The result of the study revealed that the participants had learn about non-verbal, para-verbal, and vocal auditory communication components which helps in listening to and understanding client’s messages thereby responding appropriately. Recommendations were outlined that will help counselors listen, discover, interpret, understand and respond appropriately to clients messages during counseling interaction