Effective communication – Unit 1 P2
General skills
Cultural differences
When communicating with others whether it be friends, work
colleagues or strangers it is fundamental that you understand there are
cultural differences. Cultural differences can vary from being in a different
city to being in a totally different country, for example going from Manchester
to Liverpool the accent people use changes vastly. A change in accent may cause
problems with communication and lack of understanding of some words so you must
take time to reiterate sentences if someone is finding it hard to understand
what you are saying. Also in some other countries some words may mean different
thing in their language an example would be if you said “back” this could be
misinterpreted in Japanese to “baka” which means idiot.
Techniques for engaging an audience
Engaging an audience is a key factor of communication, this
is because if you cannot grab the audience’s attention and keep them focused
they will get bored and begin to stop listening. Key techniques used to engage
an audience include confidence, voice projection and movement of the body to
attract attention.
Confidence is one of the key techniques because without
confidence you may stutter or forget what you are talking about due to the
pressure of the audience. Voice projection is also a key technique as you need
to make sure everyone in the room can hear you, though you should change the
projection of your voice dependent on the venue, this is because you may seem
like you shouting or over exaggerating if you project to much in a small venue
and you may seem to lack confidence if you are quiet in a large venue.
Also
body movements are useful for engaging an audience as people naturally look
towards objects that move so if you are constantly moving and using your hands
people will take more notice of you whereas if you stand in the middle of a
stage with your hands in your pockets then you may seem boring and lacking in
confidence.
Adapting content and style to suit audience needs
Adapting the content of your work and the style of your
communication is very good for communicating with people of all ages and
intelligence. A way in which you may change the way that you communicate to a
different age group may be using smaller words and explaining your points in
more detail, this particular change would appeal more to younger people.
Another way in which you may change to appeal to other audience would be for
example changing a presentation from having lots of colours and animations to
something more formal and direct, this would be changing from something that
would appeal to younger people to appeal to older people.
Interpersonal skills
Positive and negative language
Dependent on the reason you are communicating with people
you may have to use positive or negative language, if you are praising somebody
for a piece of work you would use a positive attitude and have a light voice,
for example “Good job on that work Joe.”. Alternatively if you are using
communication to tell someone off for making a massive mistake then you would
have a harsh voice and speak at a higher volume, an example of negative
language would be “You idiot! How did you lose all the paperwork?!”.
Barriers
Barriers cause a lack of communication from you to others,
an example of a barrier could be sound from a projector fan or perhaps an
exterior source like a construction site. Another barrier that may get in the
way of communication would be faulty equipment like a PA, if the microphone is
broke or the cables are faulty then this could stop sound coming through the
system. Also barriers like people looking away from you could cause problems as
they probably will not be focusing on you.
Active engagement
Active engagement requires constant information coming from
you to the audience in a way that keeps the audience’s attention. For example
if you were talking to school children you would continuously use images and
videos to keep them engaged in the subject. Whereas with adults you would
probably use informative images to keep them occupied for example in a meeting
pie charts are used in presentations to inform and keep them engaged in the
meeting.
Written communication skills
Written communication is key when sending formal letters of application
or giving information in meetings via worksheets, for example if information is
given to a person using massive paragraphs that go twenty lines down then the
people who have the sheet might get lost or lose interest in what they are
reading, whereas if it is split up into smaller sections of information then
the readers may read more into the document without losing track of where they
are.
Email, letters and fax
Emails are the most common form of communication this day in
age. This is because they are a fast and easy way to send a message from one
person to another, whether that be in the same building or over thousands of
miles away, they are also good for sending files for work to others.
Letters are an old fashioned form of communication but they
are good to grab a person’s attention as they take time to write out and will
seem more important than an email that can just be sent. Also people might be
more eager to open a letter than to check their emails. For example personally I
don’t read my emails often but I always open letters and parcels on the day I receive
them.
Faxing is a good way to send documents from a computer to a
person somewhere else, faxing is good because it saves the recipient from
printing off the information themselves. An example where faxing may be used is
sending signed documents from a scanner to a fax machine somewhere else in the
country, this kind of process is used when a child needs a parent to sign their
application for a passport but their parent isn’t with them. The application is
emailed to a parent then the parent prints it off, scans it and sends it back
via fax to the passport office.
Emoticons
Emoticons are used to mainly in phone texts and instant
messaging, they are a friendly way to show the how you are feeling to someone
else. It also allows the other person so see how you are feeling and respond appropriately
an example of an emoticon in use would be in the phrase “I've had a bad day L” this emoticon shows
that they are feeling sad because they have had a bad day oppositely a person
may put “I've had a great day J”
to demonstrate how they are feeling.
Spelling and grammar
Spelling and grammar is one of the most important thing when
communicating with people as if works are spelled wrong or incorrectly placed
in a sentence then the sentence could make no sense or mean something totally
different.
