ELTWeekly Vol. 3 Issue#98 | September 19 | ISSN 0975-3036
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Dr. Sitaram Bhargava works with the Department of English, Government College, Jhunjhunu (Rajasthan).
The use of communication skills has become very important in our lives.Without proper communication skills we are losers. Learning a second language is ,in fact, learning the four slills,viz. listening,speaking,reading and writing. The first two skills are intimately related to each other , though one is a recognition skill and the other is a production skill. Also, both skills depend almost entirely on the learner’s knowledge of the pronunciation of words and the articulation of sounds in the language. Language is a means of communicating thoughts and feelings,though not only the means. Cries ,signs,gestures,pictorial representations,etc.,also serves as a means.Animals other than human beings too communicate with another. They employ a variety of methods including vocal signals and body movements as well as facial expressions like the baring of teeth. They stimulate one another to action by means of cries. Many birds utter warning calls at the approach of danger ; some animals make mating calls. Most of the animals utter cries that are expressive of anger, fear pleasure ,etc. But these modes of communication differ from human language. The sound or cries made by animals are not articulate. That is to say, they lack the kind of structure that enables us to divide a human utterance into words; a human language is a signaling system which uses vocal sounds and is based on man’s ability to speak.The written language is derivative and secondary;it is derived from the spoken language.The basis of language is speech which in turn means the production of meaningful sounds according to a system.
The paper focuses on the design and effective use of communicative tasks as a tool to teach spoken communication skills in English to students at college level and at professional set ups before and after the course.There is a need for communication as the world has become global market due to the needs and changes in the field of economy, business and other things.To meet those needs,human resources should be improved with required communicative skills.These can be required by the effective teaching through the suitable methods and materials. Among them, communicative tasks could be used effectively through cue cards to basic and general communicative fluency among the students.These tasks develop naturalistic and meaningful communication, interaction in real life communication and also give emphasis on communication and meanin rather than form, which will be suitable in the context of large class rooms and heterogeneous groups in India.
The paper is also an attempt to throw light on the role and significance of interviews in developing our interactive skills in this competitive society.In the English language class rooms interviews are useful not only because they force students to listen carefully but also they are so versatile in their subject matter. Since the students chances of asking a lot of questions are not very good in language ‘ oriented lessons, interviews are a good compensation.If the class is divided into groups of three and two of them should interview the third .As a rule students should make some notes on the questions they are going to ask and of the answers they get.In this maneer they would be able to prepare a good questionnaire on a particular topic.
Communication is a cumulative process between two parties whether they use it verbally or non- verbally. The verbal part of commnunication consists of words , their use and relevance in a given context. The challenge in verbal communication occurs when the users of different countries and cultures interact for a common purpose.The users who have been communicating since their birth find it difficult to improvise their experiences and set habits and that brings the basic purpose to a halt. The problem deepens more when the users take resort to non- verbal since the interpretation of non- verbal things differs from one country to another , one region to another and even from one community to another.
The present paper is also an attempt to exemplify how culture affects communication both in terms of verbal and non- verbal.An attempt will also be made as how to overcome these cultural interferences in order to communicate effective in an ever changing cosmopolitan world.
The aim of the present research paper is to define the communication skills and to explore the use of them in class room teaching and among rural area based students.
Communication skills:
– It is the ability to use language and express information.It is the set of skills that enables a person to convey information so that it is received and understood.
– It refers to the repertoire of behaviours that serve to convey information for the individual.
– It is the ability an individual displays in consistently demonstrates the ability to effective communication with clients,collegues,subordinates, and the supervisors in professional manner and in the perssonel department.
– It is generally understood to be the art or technique of persuasion through the use of oral language and written language.
To understand the basis of communication skills, one needs to understand that communication is one of those words that is most hyped in contemporary culture.It includes a large number of experiences , actions and events,also a variety of happenings and meanings,as well as technologies.This means that every platform for communicating is a commnuincation event.This includes formal meeting ,seminars,workshops,tradefairs etc.Then there are the communication media such as radio,TV, newspapers,etc,.The communication technologies include pagers,phones etc,.The communication professions include advertisers ,journalists,camera crew,etc.
‘The ability to communicate is the primary factor that distinguishes human beings from animals.And it is the ability to communicate well that distinguishes one individual from another.In order to develop these habits ,one needs to first acknowlowdge the fact that they need to improve communication skills time to time.They need to take stock of the way they interact and the direction in which their work and personal relations are going on.’1
The paper also presents certain parameters for testing the speaking and listening skills that are the results of a study undertaken on sample students.It also proceeds its discussion on the administration and assessment of the the two tests on the sample students and presents the parameters that are tested and proved to be worth enough for testing the two skills.
The dominating question that comes here is –How to improve communication skills ? There are also experts who conduct workshops and seminars based on communication skills of men and women. In fact , a large number of companies are bringinging in trainers to regularly conduct sessions on the subjects in order to help their work force maintain better interpersonal work relations. As we are the teachers , we have to develop the four skills such as—Listening,speaking reading and writing.
Listening:
Listening is a very complex process which involves various steps and stages to make it effective and the reason that most of us are not very good listeners.It is said that good listeners are good communicaters .We tend to remember only half of what’s said during a 10 minutes conversation, and forget half of that within 48 hours.
The present paper proposes to analyze the barriers of good listening and how to overcome them to be a good listener and it will also look into the role of non- verbal communicational skills in understanding and enhancing one’s communication skills.
‘Listening ability can be cultivated through listening practice.Familarity with the English sound system and an ability to articulate English sounds prepare the sounds for listening to English utterances with understanding. And listening that should precede speaking paves the way for them to develop oral fluency and accuracy..Listening is often said to be apassive skill while speaking is also an active skill. Listening can be developed through systematic teaching.Listening is found to be most effective when it is done in preparation for speaking.There are many exercises which the teacher himself can devise for doing remedial work. One such exercise for developing all round effenciency in listening is the answering of multi-choice questions on pieces that have been heard.one can start by setting single questions on single spoken sentences, and work up through pieces of insteadly increasing length .’2
Speaking:
Of all for skills ( listening, speaking,reading and writing) speaking seems intuitively the most important. Primary motivation to learn a second language is to able to converse with speakers of that language. There is often a gap between what the students want to say and what they can say. The paper focuses on this aspect and this aspect and the activities- in particular on storytelling, debate, interview which can transform the text into aunthetic speaking practice thereby improving their fluency.
We have seen that practice in listening should precede practice in speaking . At the phonological level this is particularly helpful.The students should be able to recognize a sound before they attain an ability to produce it.But listening does not lead naturally on to speaking and oral fluency in communication unless listening is followed by practice at the grammatical level and lexical levels too. So, listening attention should be sharpened with particular emphasis on grammatical and lexical items.Listening is a receptive skill like reading and speaking is a productive skill like writing.While giving practice in speaking , the teacher may start with dialogues on simple situations may be tried between pair of students.Then the teacher should control and guide the students without curbing their freedom and expression .This will give the students enough opportunities to practice certain phonological, grammatical and lexical items. Since speaking is such a prominent part of the English language , the teacher is obliged to possess knowledge of how to improve students’ proficiencies in an efficient way.The question is how to use this language when the teacher is supposed to compose different methods for lessons, evaluate the exercises and give proper feedback to the students.This investigation is based on various literary sources , interviews with teachers and questionnaires with students and the background information is the basis for the interview questions and the questionnaire.In order to evaluate exercises, the teacher not only needs to be prepared and know what to focus on in the exercise as it is in progress , but also listen to the students’ opinions since they have learned anything or not.Correction of spoken errors should be handled cautiously by the teacher.
Reading:
Reading like listening is a decoding process, but it is a very complex process, involving many physical, intellectual and often emotional reactions.It entails the ability.
To recognize graphic symbols and their corresponding vocal sounds.It is impossible to learn to read without the ability which extends to complex groups of sounds called words, pharases,sentences, paragraphs and chapters. There are two kinds of reading skill; the skill of reading aloud and the the skill of reading silently. Reading aloud is primarily an oral matter; it is closer to pronunciation than to comprehension. The skill of silent reading, however, varies fro person to person and depends on several factors including each person’s requirement.
‘The second language teachers should pay special attention to silent reading .Reading becomes easy to the students if he is trained to comprehend the patterns of relationships between words—the semantic patterns of lexical items’.These patterns of relations are mainly three;-(1) the relationship that exists between the author and the text,(2) the relationship that exists between the reader and the text. (3) the relationship that exists between the text and the culture.So, good silent reading presupposes a knowledge of cultural value of words and expressions and the ability to identify the thematic content of what is in text.’3
An efficient reader must possess the following skills:–
1. -ability to read fast and with good comprehension texts that are easy in language and content , or difficult texts that are familiar.
2. –ability to read slowly, but with excellent comprehension, difficult texts on professional, academic and technical subjects in which he has a special interest and requires specialized knowledge.
3. – ability to skim and dip;
4. – ability to use works of reference;
5. – ability to size up a book quickly.
Writing:
Writing is a thinking process and is much more than an exercise in transcription or copying. It is purposeful selection and organization of ideas, facts, and / of experience. Writing is different from speaking in that it aims at compactness and precision in expression as well as grammatical,idiomatic and orthographic accuracy and in that conventions of writing tend to be less flexiblethan those of speech .We shall aim at both accuracy and fluency . We should expect our students to master the elementary mechanics of written work, such as- handwriting, spelling,capitalization,punctuation, word order and word division and sentence structure ( syntax) and construction before they given a free to develop ease and fluency in writing. The main aims of a writing course are to train the students in expressing himself effectively in good English. That is to say, he must be taught to present his information in a format acceptable for the occasions, be that an informal friendly letter or a matter of fact business communication , a report to the teacher or an article for publication. Dictation is also form of written exercise. It is an effective way of correcting these errors.
‘Since composition or writing involves both accuracy and fluency, the problem arises of which of them should be the first goal.There are some who believe that fluency must be given priority over accuracy and that the student should be encouraged to produce extensively with little regard to the number and type of of errors and infelicities he may make’. 4
Today, effective communication has become a predominant factor even while recruiting employees,while interviewing candidates, most interviews judge them on the basis of the way they communicate They believe that skills can be improved on the job, but ability to communicate well is important ,as every employee becomes the representing force of the company.Every individual needs to be well equipped with the tools to communicate effectively ,whether it is on the personal front ,or athe work.In fact, according to the management experts, being a good communicator is half the battle won.
After all , if one speaks and listens well ,then there is little or no scope of mis-understanding. Thus, keeping this fact in mind, the primary reasons for mis-understanding is due to inability to speak well.,or listen effectively. There are trainers , who specialize in delivering custom made programmes on the subject. Through the session they not only facilitate better skills in the department of communication but also look into the problems that come in the way of being able to convey messages effectively. They discuss these issues with the management and then sought to design problems accordingly. For instance, the mismanagement becomes a cause for stress and frustration , which then hampers the possibility of healthy communication at work . TThen in weeks to come the company organizes a programme on time management.
Effective communication enhances every aspect of one’s life and paves the way to success in both personal and professional life.
‘Communication skills is the buzz word in today’s education and job market , but many undergraduates from rural India struggle to communicate in English .This inability has become a stumbling block to their career progress .Some applicants from rural are good in academics but still they donot get selected by industry because of their lack of communication skills.The need oh the hour is to develop their communication skills.Many college teachers face the challenge of teaching communication skills to the students from rural background ,who are deficient in grammar and vocabulary.5
There are some activities to improve the listening skills. –
1. Tell the students an event or story and stop at an interesting point and ask the students to continue .This will improve creativity,listening comprehension and speaking skills.
2. An incident or story can be narrated.Follow this with questions on facts and information .
3. The teacher can facilitate group discussions ,brain storming sessions giving the students some interesting topics or recent issues.
4. The mock interviews can be introduced .The students get an idea as to how to conduct themselves and respond to the questions in an interview.
5. Telephone conversations can be role played , the teacher giving the class differe-nt situations and teaching them certain etiquettes on telephone conversation.
Some tips for the teacher—
‘The teacher at college level should be quite friendly and must build a healthy learner-teacher relationship.The teacher should be more of a facilitator rather than a stern traditional type of infra-structure. Encouragement is a great tonic for students at all levels.They will be eager to to look for some kind of appreciation from the teacher and the teacher must never disappoint themthem.Praise the students for correct answers ,and even for partly correct anwers..In this way ,they will feel they are making progress.Avoid humiliating students or making them feel that making a mistake is bad correct errors quickly.A teacher should give sincere appreciation , should make the class student-centred; should smile and encourage , should be good and patient listener , should remember the name of the student,
address him by their first name.’6
Conclusion:
Activity based instructions pave the way for very effective learning. The teacher can bhild a lot of activities into teaching the lesson.Teachers should have a wide range of imagination, talent and enthusiasm, so that they create more activities and teaching methods with the minimum resources available.It should be kept in mind that many colleges in rural areas have no proper infra structure or teaching facilities and the teachers should be able to compensate for this lack of facilities through their enthusiasm and dedication.The students from rural background have realized the importance of communication skills for their career and development. Developing communication skills in English has a special place in the vision of every student from rural area and the teacher has to nurture and help them to make their dream, a reality.
References:
Doff, Adrian, 1988 teach English-A Training fort.Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bowen J.Donald,Harold Madson and Ann Hilferty. 1985. TESOL Techniques and procedures.
Boston: Heinleand Heinle
Broughton,Geoffery and Others, Teaching English as a foreign language.p.119
Lado , Robert, Language Teaching, p.146
Erazmus, Edward, T., ‘ Second Language Composition Teaching at intermediate level’ ( quoted on p.265 of Teaching as a second language, Edited by Harold B.Allen)
Bright,J.A. & MCGregor,G.P., Teaching English as a Second Language p.169.
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