Communication Skills: The Skills Everyone Needs
At one time, all an ambitious youngster needed to get ahead in life was some skill with hand tools, an ability to memorize the songs and tales of his tribe and enough knowledge of a second language to barter in the dialect of a village in the next valley.
Today's young person needs more. Memorization and simple information transfer are no longer enough (if they ever really were). Now that same up and coming youngster needs not only to read and write in a variety of media, but to appreciate other viewpoints, quickly grasp new information from a variety of sources, develop informed conclusions and communicate them to others effectively.
Teachers agree that this ability to communicate well — the ability to express oneself clearly and concisely to others and the ability to understand, analyze and use information communicated by others — is vital to academic and personal success.
"Good communication skills really are the skills that everyone needs," says Claire Frankel-Salama, a French- and Spanish-language teacher who also teaches economics and history in French at Bishops College in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. Frankel-Salama points out that economic globalization, combined with modern communication technology, means that everyone — be they scientist, bureaucrat or businessperson — is now working in a multicultural, multilingual worldwide market. Nothing, including whether or not the person you're talking to understands your message, can be taken for granted.
Wendy Van Haastregt, a science teacher at Burnsview Junior Secondary School in Delta, British Columbia, remarks that multicultural student populations mean that it is increasingly common for there to be three or more "mother tongues" in any one class. Even communicating a lesson can't be taken for granted.
What are Communication Skills and How Do You Teach Them?
Obviously communication skills are more than the ability to hear and speak. But just what are they? Are they tangible sets of knowledge that can be explicitly taught, such as spelling and the rules of punctuation, or are they intangible skills assimilated in the course of learning another discipline? What can teachers do to develop good communication skills in their students?
Marlene Walther, a design technology and business English teacher at Westgate Collegiate and Vocational Institute in Thunder Bay, Ontario, thinks that communication skills can and should be explicitly taught. She suggests the best way to teach these tangible sets of knowledge is through what she calls authentic learning. "It's not enough any more to just to teach the rules of spelling and punctuation," she says. "They have to be put to use."
Walther identifies the following elements of good communication:
- reading, including analyzing what is read
- writing, including the ability to use different styles in different situations
- researching in various media, including interviewing
- proper use of grammar, spelling and punctuation
- criticism, both self-criticism and feedback from others, and the ability to plan for self-improvement.
Barry Lindahl, who teaches social studies and history at West Vancouver Secondary School in West Vancouver, British Columbia, lists the basic communication skills as reading, writing and listening, but believes that the full list is too broad and too varied to teach in just one course or one year. Just as it takes years for a youngster to gain proficiency in a mother tongue, it takes time to develop the other elements of effective communication. Time is necessary not only to acquire good communication skills, he says, but to practise, refine and polish them. As well, some communication skills are intangible and best assimilated in the course of learning another discipline. As he points out, "a physical education class will teach teamwork and co-operation. Both are necessary for good communication, but do nothing for sentence structure."
Lindahl explains that while there is no best way to teach these skills, "there are a few truisms."
- We all learn more if we're enjoying ourselves.
- Genuine rewards work better than bribes. (Lindahl comments that every student-teacher quickly learns this.)
- Give students the knowledge that success is possible — and how to achieve it — and they will usually strive to excel.
- Give students something interesting and they will hear every word. On the other hand, dull topics will bring on the sound of foreheads hitting desks as students lose their collective will to live.
- Emotion is a powerful tool in the memory process. We all remember most clearly the times we were outraged, overjoyed or saddened.
Frankel-Salama adds that learning a second language can lead to improvements in first-language skills: an understanding of the vital importance of grammar, and a better facility in developing and organizing ideas in order to express them. Again, these are benefits that will only develop over time. "Language is a communication system," she says. "Once you appreciate that, you gain an appreciation for your own language as well" (see "Second-language Lessons: For Older or Younger Students?").
It's important to remember, too, the teachers emphasize, that delivering a message (such as a newspaper, an essay or a foreign-language play that teachers can evaluate and mark) is only part of today's good communication skills set. Students need to acquire and assimilate information as well.
Thanks to our technological age, we're no longer limited to what is available at the local library. "Students are now skilled at collecting information from a variety of sources simultaneously," says Frankel-Salama. "As teachers, we need to recognize and adapt to this." At the same time, Frankel-Salama points out, today's workplace requires flexible, adaptive participants, ones that can find original, innovative solutions to problems.
One way teachers can both exploit this information potential and instil the independent, creative thought necessary for the new marketplace is to develop study projects that give students the opportunity to develop independent, original work. Westgate's Eye of the Tiger school newspaper is a good example of one such project (see "Keeping an Eye on Learning").
Such a demanding and complex project requires careful organization and monitoring on the part of the teacher/facilitator. "I never know exactly what each student is doing," Walther explains. "It's up to them to learn the necessary skills and keep me informed." While each student is assigned a task or role in the production of an issue, all students are responsible for keeping a journal and submitting a weekly report on what they are learning and accomplishing. "Some students really get motivated and throw themselves into the project and others don't do very much," she smiles. "While evaluation is a still bit of a judgment call, I can only evaluate what they show me."
In the course of publishing the newspaper, students explore more than just news. Since good communication skills include the ability to appreciate another's viewpoint, students examine various ethical issues: the public's right to know versus an individual's privacy, the value of a news item versus community standards, censorship and intellectual property. Constructive and critical judgments are also vital, and The Printing Press teaches the students important decision-making skills, too, Walther notes. "There are many decisions to be made," she says, "and I teach students which methods are appropriate in different situations."
Process and Content
Whether we realize it or not, effective communication involves both "process and content." Process is grammar, sentence and paragraph structure, spelling and pronunciation; all the necessary technical elements without which the best idea in the world is unintelligible. Content, on the other hand, is the critical, analytical thinking that creates and organizes the idea. Without content, process is meaningless noise. Without process, content is babble.
"Teaching kids to put the two together is my job," says Lindahl. When he began teaching social studies, he found that while his students seemed to know and understand what he was teaching, their written work didn't reflect it. "It was so frustrating," he relates. "They tried so hard, but I had to give them low marks."
Through carefully structured essay assignments, Lindahl shows his students their incomplete sentences, disorganized paragraphs and unsupported conclusions. Given the opportunity and guidance, they learn to write, read critically and rewrite until their work is perfect. And Lindahl is able to evaluate their understanding of the material and their conclusions, unimpeded by the complications of poor writing. As a result, his students learn the skills they need to research, prepare and write a major essay at a very sophisticated level and excel in their understanding of world issues (see "Essay Writing and Note-taking: Interconnected and Invaluable Skills").
Clarence Button, sciences and technology teacher at O'Donel High School in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland and Labrador, offers similar composition and writing training to his students. His philosophy of "What I hear, I forget; what I see, I remember; what I do, I understand!" is put into action in his classes. Button's students write funding proposals for classroom experiments, write technical papers on the results and deliver lectures to their classmates on those experiments. (See also, "Writing Densely to Communicate Clearly").
Indeed, as all the 2000-2001 Prime Minister's Award recipients realize and teach their students, good communication skills and effective communication are too important to be assumed or left to chance.
Frankel-Salama explains that improved skills, be they communication skills or anything else, carry over into other disciplines. Her French and Spanish lessons improve her students' performance in English. Lindahl's students newly developed ability to research and write effectively improves their writing in other classes and in post-secondary education and the workplace. Everyone in Walther's class, from the editor to the typesetter, knows that good communication skills are essential to getting their job done, at school and later in life.