Communication Skills I

Today the skill that we are going to learn is Communication Skills. Let us ask a question first from ourselves, what do we mean by communication skills? The first answer that comes to our minds is the way of expressing your feelings or the way of saying what you want to say. Well this is the half definition.

Definition of Communication Skills:

The first thing that should be clear in our minds is that communication is a two way process. The definition presented above, only highlights the sending. So the complete definition of communication will be sending or receiving of information or message is called communication.

In the same way communication skills can be defined as, the skills with the help of which we can perform the process of communication in a perfect way are called communication skills.

Misconception:

Well there is a big misconception about the communication skills in many parts of the world. Communication skills are thought to be good if your English is good. Well that certainly is not the case. What if you land in Saudi Arabia and then speak good English? All goes waste because they can’t understand English and so communication skills are zero.

Ways to Communicate:

Communication is interaction with people in a better way. This interaction can be of three different types.

·         Writing

·         Oral

·         Kinesics (body language)

Parts of Communication:

Communication can be divided into 4 main parts.

·         Source

·         Sensor

·         Message/Information

·         Response

Attention:

When communicating it is better to make the person intended to receive the information or message attentive. The receiver on the other hand should know when to be attentive and what sensory organ should be made sharp.

We can give examples about attention.

·         If a teacher says in class to be attentive then the students should instantly sharpen their sense of hearing and seeing.

·         When asked about how the food tastes we should instantly sharpen our sense of taste.

·         If a person asks, ‘hey do you smell anything burning?’, then instantly our sense of smell should go up.

·         Similarly when asked about the hotness or coldness of a thing then our sense of touch should be attentive.

These examples clearly state that being attentive and making our senses attentive is one of the most important parts of communicating in a better way. A good communicator is a one who knows which sensory organ to sharpen and at which time.

Losses When Communicating:

Many problems arise when we communicate with other persons. These problems can totally change the shape of a communication e.g. if we are sending a circle then these problems may change the shape to be a square.

These problems are called losses. Losses can be of many types like noises, not being attentive etc. But the main reason for losses is the noises that are produced when communication process is in progress.

So now let’s talk about noises that occur during the communication process.

            External Noise:

These are the noises that can be heard by both the source and the receiver/sensor and which disrupts the communication between them.

Internal Noise:

Internal noise is the noise that is present at the receiver and which disturbs the interpretation of the communication at the receiver.

Well what can be done to avoid the wrong interpretation of the information/messages is very important. This thing will be discussed in the second part of this skill.

Stay connected to read the second part.