Communication Skills: Oral and Written

COMMUNICATION
A single most important quality of an instructor is the ability to communicate. An instructor may have everything else; all the knowledge, skills and proper attitudes, but if he/she cannot communicate effectively, then learning won’t take place. Therefore, all teaching is about communication, though not all communication is about teaching.

Communication means establishing “commonness” between two or more parties through a particular medium.

Often, in a classroom setting, this medium is the language. And essentially a language consists of words, symbols, phrases, gestures and gesticulations. Now, while communicating, the teacher should ensure that the medium (singular) or media (plural) should meet the following criteria:-

• Simple and down-to-earth.

• Clear-cut - to refer to one common meaning and interpretation.

• Familiar - to both the teacher and learners.

• Understandable - brings out the desired idea and interpretation.

• Unambiguous - is not bound to cause confusions in the learners.

• Stimulating and exciting - can convey clarity and vividness of a situation, object or example being used or given.

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
In communicating, the initiator of the communication process (in this case the instructor) seeks to influence the receivers (Learners) in terms of their perception of the knowledge communicated through:

•Behaviour          - what the instructor wants them to do.

•Meaning            - what they ought to understand.

•Message/idea    - what they need to think about.

•Value/attitudes - how they should feel about what is communicated.

Difference between Oral and Written Communication would be discussed followed by :

Sub-Skills of Writing
1. Mechanics - handwriting, spelling, punctuation

2. Word selection - vocabulary, idioms, tone

3. Organization - paragraphs, topic and support, cohesion and

4. Syntax - sentence structure, sentence boundaries, stylistics, etc.

5. Grammar - rules of verbs, agreement, articles, pronouns, etc.

6. Content - relevance, clarity, originality, logic, etc.

7. The writing process - getting ideas, getting started, writing drafts, revising etc. (Stages of writing: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and publishing)

8. Purpose - the reason for writing, justification