GOOD COMMUNICATION SKILLS

MA. ELIZABETH Y. BAGANG

Communication skills are some of the most important skills that a student needs to succeed in the school, and in the future, in the workplace.

Students must be taught how to communicate clearly, articulate thoughts and ideas effectively using oral, written and nonverbal communication skills in a variety of forms and contexts, and to listen effectively to decipher meaning, including knowledge, values, attitudes and intentions.

Both teachers and students can use communication for a range of purposes, like to inform, instruct, motivate and persuade. Multiple media and technologies can be utilized as well, so that students may know how to judge their effectiveness.

Communicating effectively in diverse environments and collaborating with others in this day and age is a must. Everyone should be able to demonstrate the ability to work effectively and respectfully with diverse teams, and to exercise flexibility and willingness to be helpful in making necessary compromises to accomplish a common goal.

In the classroom, students should be taught to assume shared responsibility for collaborative work, and value the individual contributions made by each team member.

If teachers and students want to be expert communicators, they need to be effective at all points in the communication process – from “sender” through to “receiver”.

They must also be comfortable with the different channels of communication – face to face, voice to voice, written, and so on. Poor communicators usually struggle in development beyond a certain point.

In teaching effective communication, teachers should tell their students that before starting communicating, they should take a moment to figure out what they want to say, and why. Time should not be wasted in conveying information that isn’t necessary. Saying more does not cover all the points. It would just lead to confusion. In planning communication, we should understand the objective, understand the audience, plan what we want to say, and how we’ll send the message, and seek feedback on how well the message was received.

When we are able to do this, we will be able to craft a message that will be received positively by our audience. Less is often more, and good communication should be efficient as well as effective.

— oOo— The author is Teacher III at Sinura Elementary School