"ROLE OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS IN TEACHING"
What is meant by ‘communication’? According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary the word ‘communication’ means ‘the act of imparting, especially news’, or ‘the science and practice of transmitting information’. These definitions clearly show the link between ‘teaching’ and ‘communication’. Teachers are constantly imparting new knowledge, or transmitting information.
Teaching is all about communication- listening, speaking, reading, writing and presenting. Teachers who hone their communication skills are prepared to instruct, advise, counsel and mentor students entrusted in their care. Additionally teachers must communicate their ideas, views and thoughts with genuine interest with fluency so that every student could catch up ideas explained and they would collaborate with colleagues and update administrators on student progress and performance. Frequently, parents call, visit or email, so teachers must be adept at answering questions verbally and in writing as well.
Communication skills are important for many professions but are crucial for teachers. Teachers communicate with students, parents, colleagues and administrators every day. Whether communicated face-to-face, on the phone, in print, electronically or through the public address system, using social Medias, the message must be constructed carefully and delivered clearly to be properly received and understood. Good handwriting, spelling and grammar are very important in all forms of written communication.
Some teachers like to talk, and expect the students to write down what they say and to learn it (this style encourages superficial learning – and rapid forgetting!). other teachers see their role as one of helping the students to learn at a deeper level – to understand new ideas and concepts so well that they can apply them in a work situation. Either way, these teachers will do a better job if they communicate well with their students.
An important element of communication in teaching is the use of teaching aids. We have all heard the saying: ‘what I hear, I forget; what I see, I remember, what I do, I know’. Pictures, written posters and practical demonstrations improve communication and we should use them as much as possible. Most of us have access to paper, posters, a chalkboard, or an overhead projector. We can use these to prepare aids for our lessons: summaries of important facts, or pictures and diagrams. The overhead projector is particularly useful, because it allows us to face our students while using it.
Communication is a skill – and we improve our skills by getting feedback on the way we perform them. We can get such feedback by asking an experienced colleague to sit in on our teaching, and to give us feedback. We can also ask someone to record us on a videotape which we then inspect critically afterwards. In either case the feedback will be better if we use a checklist to judge our performance.
When communication is effective, both the student and teacher benefit. Communication makes learning easier and enjoyable. It helps students achieve goals, increase opportunities for expanded learning, strengthens the connection between student and teacher, and creates an overall positive experience.
Self Esteem-
In general people want to be heard. If a teacher shows interest in a student’s opinions, that student will feel that their thoughts or ideas are appreciated and welcomed. This increases self esteem, self trust, self pride and it will boost up their confidence. A confident student is less likely to second guess his answers on tests, and a self-assured student is more likely to speak up in class. Student will not become passive learner. Class participation leads to increased learning for the entire class.
Class performance-
Teachers who reward student communication and class participation will notice an improvement in overall class performance. A teacher can gauge the effectiveness of a lecture by student feedback. By asking questions, a teacher can determine if students were able to retain the imparted information. If there is a lack of response from the class, it is likely that the students were unable to understand the lecture. This can lead to poor performance on exams.
Professional Growth-
A degree of communication is required in every profession, and communication skills are necessary at even the most preliminary stages of career growth. For example, an applicant must be able to communicate his / her skills and abilities during an interview in order to acquire a job. All professionals need to acquire effective communication skills without which they cannot lead their team on the path of success and excellence. Good communication skills undoubtedly became a key factor in professional growth. Teaching is generally considered as only 50% knowledge and 50% communication skill. Teacher should have deep subject knowledge for delivering systematic lectures in the classroom and without effective communication skills it is not possible to convey message or content to the class. Teacher, with deep subject knowledge but poor communication skills will prove to be boring, dull, monotonous and uninteresting.
Enhance student learning with effective communication skills-
It is not enough for you to be an expert in your chosen subject matter. If you want students to truly learn the material, you must go beyond mere lecturing and apply a broad range of communication techniques. Studies consistently show that classes with the proper communication climate affect performance positively. Students become more motivated and get engaged in classroom activities. They interact with the teacher and fellow students in meaningful, impactful and mutually satisfying ways.
Benefits-
Teachers with effective communication skills are credible teachers. The content and style of your communication is the most powerful predicate of how credible, clear and influential students consider you. Several benefits of effective communication skills are building classroom contentedness, promoting students learning gains, enhancing teaching clarity through the use of constructive and relevant examples, communicating more effectively in and out of class activities.
The teachers of English should have proficiency in the language to develop students’ communication skills through language and literature. Not many teachers of English literature in the state of Maharashtra have been trained to use the communicative approach in the literature class. Not all teachers of English speak flawless English. They cannot deliver systematic lectures to justify students instead they just read literary pieces and dictate notes they had plagiarized from substandard books. Many teachers teach nicely but they never allow students talk in between. The students become passive listeners. Some of the teachers encourage students to read abridged versions of novels and buy ‘bazaar’ notes to prepare for examinations. By such practices students get good marks but they lag behind due to poor communication skills. It hampers students’ critical thinking skills.
Interactive sessions make classrooms live and healthy. To maximize exposure for enrichment and enhancement of effective communication skills positive motivation, appropriate body language, good presentation skills, sense of humor and interpersonal skills are very much needful.
The need of the hour is to introduce the communicative approach in the literature class. In a typical communicative literature class, students will be engaged in class / group activities such as reading various literary pieces, interpreting them, narrating, describing, listening, speaking, group discussions, debates, explaining personal feelings, stating personal problems, arguing and giving presentations etc. the classroom environment should be conducive for developing their creativity, critical thinking and communication skills.
The only reason behind the students’ poor communication skill is teachers’ ‘inability’ to enhance the students’ communicative competence. It is my subjective observation that most students have communication apprehension and they are not trained to overcome it. Remedial measures are not taken up to improve communication skills. Even after completing post graduation degree in English; students are unable to speak and perform in better English. Many of students qualify B.Ed. and become teachers at the secondary level but failed as successful and happy teachers due to poor communication skills. Some of the students do M. Phil. / Ph. D. and become teachers at the tertiary level.
Developing learners’ communicative competence is one of the main responsibilities of a teacher of English. It is true that most of the students suffer from communication apprehension which refers to “a feeling of fear or anxiety about a situation in which one must communicate.” It is possible that they can manage and control their communication apprehension to some degree.
Teachers are expected to acquire skills and experience in communication skills to develop themselves and to develop their students. A lack of proficiency in the target language can cause communication difficulty and create apprehension. A lack of interpersonal skills can also cause communication difficulty. So, it is important to gain language skills and also the skills of effective interpersonal interaction.
Today’s teachers should focus on success to be a good communicator than to be a translator. Giving oral presentations, attending job interviews, taking part in role playing and similar tasks are anxiety-provoking largely because they are highly evaluative. “The more you perceive a situation as one in which others will evaluate you, the greater your apprehension will be.” Prior success generally reduces apprehension and prior failure increases apprehension. It is important to train students to think positively and visualize others giving them positive evaluations. Today’s students and teachers need constant and positive motivation, appropriate body language, good presentation skills, sense of humor and interpersonal skills in order to be effective communicators.
Works Cited:
Farrell, T. S. and Tan K. J. S., Language Policy, Language Teachers’ Beliefs, and Classroom Practices. Applied Linguistics, Vol. 29, No. 3, 2007, pp. 381-403
Garrido, Cecilia and Alvarez, Inma (2006), ‘Language teacher education for intercultural understanding’, European Journal of Teacher Education, 29:2, 163-179
Jones, J. F. and Fong, P. M. (2007), The impact of teachers’ beliefs and educational experiences on EFL classroom practices in secondary schools, Asian Journal of English Language Teaching, 17, 27-47
0 Comments