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Active Listening Textbook

A free, self-paced textbook in 7 chapters. Read a chapter, then drill it with the 169 companion flashcards using spaced repetition.

7 chapters · 169 cards · Updated

Chapters

  1. 1Foundations of Active Listening

    Active listening is the practice of giving someone your full attention so that you can understand their complete message — words, tone, and non-verbal cues — and respond in a way t...

  2. 2Verbal Micro-Skills for Listeners

    The active listener uses a small toolkit of verbal moves to confirm understanding and encourage the speaker to continue. Paraphrasing restates the speaker's message in your own wor...

  3. 3The Body in Listening

    Much of what we communicate is carried by the body rather than the words. Non-verbal signals include facial expressions, eye contact, posture, gestures, proximity, touch, and tone...

  4. 4Barriers, Bias, and the Listening Brain

    Even motivated listeners fall into predictable traps. Common barriers include external distractions, formulating a response while the other person is still talking, emotional react...

  5. 5Empathy and Deeper Dimensions of Listening

    Active listening goes beyond understanding words to understanding the person behind them. Empathy means stepping into the speaker's frame of reference and understanding their exper...

  6. 6Listening in Coaching and Change Conversations

    Active listening is the engine of almost every coaching conversation. Its purpose is to help the coachee feel deeply heard, which builds trust, and to pick up on meaning, emotion,...

  7. 7Advanced Practices, Pitfalls, and Specialised Contexts

    Beyond the core skills lie a wide range of specialised practices and common pitfalls. Skilled listeners track both content — what the speaker says — and process — how they say it,...

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