Introduction to Effective Communication

INTRODUCTION TO EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

To begin with, let me ask you a simple question: What is communication? When I ask you this question, think of what comes to your mind immediately. It may bring to your mind an interesting conversation you had with your friend about the movie (s) he watched. You may think of it in this context communication as sharing of ideas. True, communication implies sharing or exchange of thoughts, ideas, and information between two or more people. When you hear an announcement being made about the arrival of a train at a railway station, communication is happening by way of passing information. Similarly, when the teacher teaches a lesson to you in the classroom, she is imparting knowledge by way of communication. I am communicating with you right now when you are reading this line-I am also trying to share with you the knowledge and information I have about imbibing communication skills. What is significant here is the commonness that is implied in all aspects of communication.

You probably hear people talking about communication all the time. Everyone needs it and wants it, but what exactly is communication? Let us try to understand it.

In Figure 1.1, you can see that communication is the 'sharing of information between two or more individuals or within the group to reach a common understanding. Interestingly, the word communication originates from the Latin communicare and the French communis, both of which mean, 'common. From this information about the origin of the word, we can note the importance given to the aspect of ‘commonality' in communication. Other related words as 'commune,' 'communicate,' 'communion, and ‘community' have the ‘common’ nature implied in them. To make communication effective, one should give emphasis to the commonality involved in any interaction. By commonality, I mean the sense of camaraderie or mutuality that is involved in a communication that makes any. interactive context a win-win situation and facilitates smooth flow of communication. Commonality principle in communication contributes to unity, harmony, cohesion, and sharing of aims with team spirit.

Importance of Communication

Your ability to communicate clearly and share thoughts, feelings and ideas will help you in all your relations with other people. As a student, you may study any language, but it is important that you are able to read, write, speak and listen well in order to communicate properly. Speaking more than one language can help you to communicate well with people around the world. Learning English can help you to communicate with people who understand English besides the language you have been exposed to in your family, for example, your mother tongue.

Communication skills are needed to

● Inform - for example, communicating the time of a meeting.

● Influence – for example, negotiating with a shopkeeper to reduce the price.

● Express feelings – for example, to say or show that you are excited about your success or about a given task.

As you can see, communication is a two-way exchange of information, i.e., giving and receiving. Speaking and writing to someone are examples of giving information. Reading and listening to someone are examples of receiving information.

Perspectives in Communication

Perspectives are ideas, views, or fixed ways of thinking. These sometimes affect our communication. For example, if you have a fixed idea that your teacher or father is strict, even when they are being friendly, you may think they are scolding you. In the same way, others may also have fixed ideas about you, which affects whatever you say to them.

Factors Affecting Perspectives in Communication

Sometimes, we are not able to communicate clearly because of barriers that stop us from sharing and understanding messages. Some of these are summarised in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 Factors Affecting Perspectives in Communication

Factor : How the factor can become a barrier

Language : In case of use of incorrect words, unfamiliar language and lack of detail, language can act as a barrier to communicate what one wishes to convey. For example, language can act as a barrier when an Indian who only knows Hindi and a Chinese who only knows Mandarin want to interact with each other.

Visual Perception : Judging people or situations by how they look. For example, a man wearing torn clothes is poor.

Past Experience : Letting our earlier experience stop us from understanding or communicating clearly. For example, “This shopkeeper cheated me last time. Let me be careful.”

Prejudice : Fixed ideas, such as thinking “No one in my class listens to me” may stop a student from communicating openly in the class.

Feelings : Our feelings and emotions, such as lack of interest or not trusting the other person affect communication. For example, “I am sad. Let me not talk?.”

Environment : Noise or disturbance in the surroundings may make communication difficult. For example, speaking while walking on road.

Personal factors : Your own feelings, habits and ways of thinking (for example, fear, low confidence) may make communication difficult.

Culture : Signs which have a different meaning in different cultures, such as showing a thumb may mean 'good job' for some people but may be insulting to others

Effective Communication

Effective communication can happen if we follow the basic principles of professional communication skills. These can be abbreviated as 7 Cs, i.e., clear, concise, concrete, correct, coherent, complete and courteous. These are further explained in Figure 1.3.

However, generally when we talk about communication, we use it as a very loose and vague term. We mean communication in an ordinary sense but we actually do not mean effective communication. Communication in an ordinary sense means getting our basic functions fulfilled through the use of language and communication strategies. For instance, in our everyday life we interact with vegetable sellers, milk vendor, newspaper distributors, etc. However, effective communication happens when you are able to achieve positive results using communication to express your desired goals. This means getting a huge project sanctioned by way of an effective written proposal and oral presentation. Or, at a personal level, it means winning the heart of a beautiful girl / handsome boy through an impressive proposal. That is why you should aspire not to be merely a communicator, but an effective communicator. And hopefully, the course Professional English-I is going to give you sufficient materials in building up your communication skills, and make you a very effective communicator.

Practice Exercises

Activity-1

Group Exercise – Role-play on Communication Process

Material Required: None

Procedure:

1. Form groups of three students each.

2. The situation is that you need to sell some items to an old couple who has come to your shop.

3. One person can act as the salesperson and the other two as an old man and his wife.

4. Act out a conversation between the three people.

5. Discuss what you learned from this.

Activity-2

Group Exercise – Factors Affecting Perspectives in Communication

Material Required: None

Procedure:

● Form groups of three students each.

● Each group selects any one of the eight factors (from Table1.1) which act as barriers to communication.

3. By which action can a sender send his or her marriage?

(a) Listening

(b) Speaking

(c) Sleeping

(d) None of the above

B. Match the following

Column A : Column B

Communication Barriers : Examples

1. Language : A. Taking an official call on your mobile where the mobile phone reception is poor

2. Emotional : B. Hugging a person in a foreign country where such an act is rude and disrespectful

3. Environmental : C. Talking in Hindi when others know only German

4. Cultural : D. Teacher is too angry and is not willing to accept any reason from a student who is late for an examination

C. Subjectwise question

1. Write down the seven factors affecting perpectivies in communication. Provide examples, explaining how each factor affects communication.