Communication Skills

Communication is a two-way process through which information or message is exchanged between individuals using language, symbols, signs or behaviour. Speaking, listening, reading and writing are the parts of communication, which help us to understand others.

Communication skills are needed to communicate effectively with people and customers.

Speaking more than one language can help a person communicate well with people around the world. 

To learn a language, one needs to develop four key skills

ActIve Listening 

Communication involves a sender, who encodes and sends a message through a channel, and a receiver, who decodes the message and gives feedback 

Feedback is important in communication as it helps in knowing whether the receiver has understood the message or not 

Active Listening 

Effective communication involves skills that can be utilised to send messages that are clear, concise and accurate 

A clear statement is one which conveys the exact message that you are trying to convey to the other person 

(i) He went to his manager and said, “Please allow me to reach office at 11 AM on Tuesday, 11 June 2019, as I have an appointment with a dentist.”

(ii) He went to his manager and said, “Please allow me to reach late to the office on Tuesday, 11 June 2019, as I have an appointment with a dentist.” 

In the first sentence, you must have noticed that the time is mentioned, which makes the statement clear. 

A concise statement is appropriately brief or to the point. Now, let us consider the two sentences given below. 

(i) The manager replied, “Alright, you may come late.”

(ii) The manager replied, “Alright, you may come late. But it is a matter of great concern that most employees come late and you are also developing the same habit.”

 Now, you can see that in the second sentence, there is no need to tell the employee about the concern that the employer had at the moment. This could have been shared at a different forum or separately. 

An accurate statement is one that is factual, i.e., its correctness can be verified.

 Now, once again, let us learn through examples.

 (i) She informed the office that 50 per cent of the books given for binding have been completed. (ii) She informed the office that most of the books given for binding have been completed. 

Now, you can see that in the first sentence, a measurable information is mentioned, which makes the sentence accurate. 

It is, thus, important to ensure that our communication is clear, concise and accurate. 

Effective communication skills help us to communicate the message correctly, precisely and completely. Lack of communication skills can result in confusion, frustration, wasted effort and missed opportunities. 

Listening skill

Every effective conversation starts with listening. Listening skill is one of the most important skills in communication. 

Some reasons why listening  attentively is important.

1.  We listen to obtain information.  2. We listen to understand. 3. We listen to enjoy.

4.  We listen to learn. 5. We listen to build and maintain relationships.  6. We listen to resolve conflicts.

The various factors that affect active listening are as follows.

Eye contact:  Gestures: Avoiding distractions:  Giving feedback:

Eye contact: Maintaining an eye contact with the person you are talking to sends a signal to the speaker that “Yes, I am talking to you or listening to you”. Avoiding eye contact could mean that you do not want to listen to the person speaking to you

Gestures: These indicate to the speaker if you are listening or not. Keep your hand and feet still

while talking to someone.

Avoiding distractions: You need to identify the things that distract you. You must physically remove the distractions in order to listen attentively. For example, reducing the ringtone of your mobile phone or switching it off while attending a meeting or listening to someone will avoid distraction.

Giving feedback: Feedback can be positive or negative. But in both the cases, one needs to be

polite so that the person to whom the feedback is being given is not hurt or offended.

Stages of active listening : The five stages of active listening are as follows.

1. Receiving: It involves listening attentively.  

2. Understanding: It is an informed agreement about something or someone.   

3. Remembering: It refers to the retrieval or recall of some information from the past.

4. Evaluating: It is about judging the value, quantity, importance and amount of something or someone.

5. Responding: It is about saying or doing something as a response to something that has been said or done.

How to ensure active listening?  You can remember the acronym ‘RESPECT’ to ensure active listening

Remove distractions ,Eye contact,  Show that you are listening attentively to the speaker.  Pay attention and focus on what the speaker is saying.Empathise and feel the emotions of the speaker. Empathy is the ability to share someone’s feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person’s situation. through gestures. Clarify doubts: Ask questions to clarify doubts. Tune yourself to the timing of the speaker, i.e., wait for the speaker to finish, and then, respond.

Parts of Speech

Punctuation : There are 15 basic punctuation marks or signs used  in English. These include full stop or period, comma, question mark, exclamation mark, apostrophe, colon, semi-colon, dash, hyphen, parenthesis, quotation mark, bracket, brace, ellipsis and bullet point 

WrItIng Sentences

Types of sentences — Category II There are mainly four types of sentences, i.e., declarative, interrogative, exclamatory and imperative.

Paragraph: A group of sentences forms a paragraph. While writing a paragraph, make sure the sentences have a common idea. When you want to write about a different idea, make  a new paragraph. For example, if you are writing about your school, the first paragraph can be of sentences about the name, location, size and other such details. In the next paragraph, you can use sentences to describe what you like about your school.