A person is first judged by their appearance but the role of good communicative skills in people’s interaction should never be underrated. Moreover, in the current information age effective communication is a crucial factor that enhances person’s career and self-developmental opportunities, advances their job promotion and presents an overall positive impression of an intelligent, highly qualified professional. It may seem apparent that people are born with inherent abilities to speak and socialize but surprisingly, competent communicative skills, eloquence and rhetoric should be taught to supply students with universal knowledge about individual and corporate business communication that would facilitate their social acceptance, boost their confidence and authority and advance their problem-solving skills.
The Interactive Learning Skills and Communication Module has been designed for the purpose to provide students with necessary skills and competencies for oral and written interaction. The course is divided into thirteen weeks; twelve of them are aimed at learning and practicing, and at the final week students should prove their knowledge by passing an exam. Every week is devoted to a particular topic, has its aims and guidelines.
Introduction
The first week provides students with a set of techniques and strategies which should improve and advance their overall performance in academic study. Since the first week is an introduction to the whole course, we studied only general information about communication. This module concentrated on some basic concepts of oral and written communication. This week I learned that oral communication is ranked prior to written communication, which is natural as people use speech in every day situations to socialize with other people in any sphere of human activity, at home, in schools, colleges, universities, at work and the like. I completely agree that excellent communication skills advances person’s chances to get a good job and be quickly promoted to higher positions. Moreover, I learned that communication is not confined to oral or written; it also can be non-verbal, i.e. body language. In this module the teacher outlined the main communication skills that the students should acquire during the course. We were told to work individually and in teams. According to the teacher, these ways of practice allow students develop their skills in public speaking techniques, time-managements skills, analytical, critical, and objective thinking.
Besides, students were provided with information about the UK higher educational system outlining five degree types and classification of the achievements, which helped me to understand better the procedure of studying. In conclusion, I realized that this module helps student benefit in their academic and further professional life by giving them invaluable knowledge about communication skills.
Presentation Skills
The second module concentrates at the techniques of public speaking which is of crucial importance in academic and business relationships. The second week I understood what the basic premises of my fears to speak in public are. The teacher told us that the feeling of anxiety and fear are different but they are natural. Knowing the physical processes that trigger fear helped me to overcome it. During this week I tried to apply positive thinking method and regulate my emotions when speaking in public. I consider that the major benefit for me this week was that I got to know the techniques how to keep the audience interested and involved, appealing to the audience’s emotions and common sense, trying to channel important information gradually to avoid switching of attention. From my perspective the knowledge that I got could be applied in any sphere of my activity. For this reason I practiced hard on my speech trying to make it sound logical and well-structured according to the format required. The topics studied advanced my comprehension of techniques of oral communication and pointed out to me that excellent result depends on thorough preparation and profound research.
Listening Skills
This module concentrates on listening efficiency training. The most important thing that I learned was the fact that effective listening skills are as vital as speaking skills in personal life and business relation maximizing student’s placement potential and social and career integration. The lecture taught us that a person should learn how to listen to understand what the interlocutor is speaking about as effective communication may be aggravated by person’s inability to listen. This means that hearing is different from listening. There are a number of barriers that prevent effective listening including physical barriers, such as noise, low voice or poor speaking skills of an interlocutor. Due to this module, I know that the listener should express interest during the conversation, encourage the interlocutor to speak, and never interrupt. Hostile facial expressions and interrupting hampers communication between people. Thus, to become a good listener a student should be attentive and objective, concentrate on every word of the speaker, maintain eye contact, control his/her body position and facial expression. Now, I am able to differentiate between four categories of listeners: attending listener, encouraging listener, reflective listener, and active listener. Despite every type of listener has its own peculiar features, each of them should follow certain rules of communication to make it more effective. Having a good command of these skills increases the effectiveness of students’ performance in academic studying and in business.
Academic Written Submission
During this module students learn the strategies to conduct research on particular topic through effective defining it, gathering and analyzing data and providing the most important conclusions in the report. From my perspective, this week is one of the most important during the whole course. Personally, I learned how to make a concise and brief thesis identifying the main key elements of the topic. I have been always experiencing difficulties with this part of assignments, so, the techniques learned in class were very helpful. Furthermore, I became proficient in gathering information, eliminating non-academic sources, selecting relevant information, analyzing it and making conclusions, dealing with various citation styles. On top of that, the lecture warned us that plagiarism is prohibited in any kind of academic writing; therefore it is important to follow all the requirements of citation styles to avoid accusations in plagiarism. According to the lecture, the most efficient way to use relevant information in papers is to paraphrase it to avoid intellectual property law infringement. Additionally, I got to know that style and format of business writing communication are of immense importance. Since business letters and reports should provide concise information about some findings of research or some business information, they should be written in plain, clear, easily understandable English according to grammar rules of punctuation, semantics and stylistics to avoid any misunderstanding or misinterpretation.
Advanced Presentation Techniques
The module in question summarizes strategies of lowering level of anxiety of the speaker, mentions several factors that should be taken into consideration when preparing for public presentation and provides advanced techniques which facilitate students’ performance in public, team collaboration and acquisition of important techniques of body language. Earlier in this course I learned how to avoid fear during public speaking. This week I understood that the way the speaker presents information is even more important than the text of the message. Moreover, the venue, video and audio equipment, even the temperature also influence audience’s perception of the information. Due to this module, I learned that physical comfort and appearance are of paramount importance: correct use of body language brings a lot of benefits. The lecturer told us that in order to successfully bring the message to the reader, the speaker should be dressed appropriately to create a positive image, keep confident but natural posture, demonstrate efficient knowledge of the topic without being monotonous, use humour and creative approach. In fact, the students knew that before but the module helped us to arrange this knowledge in a proper way and practice these techniques. On the whole, I learned that successful presentation comprises three major criteria: consistent, logical, interesting report, the way of presentation, the appearance of the speaker. I believe this knowledge is very helpful in my university life. I have already applied writing skills acquired this week and got A for my report.
Practicing Delivery Techniques
This module is important in terms of practice of framing, ‘questioning opening’, ‘cold closing’ techniques and deep breathing session. This week continues to advance students’ knowledge in careful delivery of a message on a given topic and presenting oral summary by assessing the performance. We were allocated points to each aspect of the task including clarity of message and voice, level of interaction with audience, framing structure of the message, successful conclusion for a three minutes presentation. I found this module very useful as it gave the opportunity to put the acquired skills into practice. Preparing for this module, I studied the notes taken previous weeks and found more details on how to improve my speaking, listening, and writing skills.
Relaxation, Oral Communication Practice, Summary and Assessment
The module is designed for students to master their ability to use oral communication techniques in groups, to deliver message in front of the auditory and objectively assess their performance. This week I learned that team collaboration is a very important aspect in developing communication skills. However, it is obvious that good communication requires some effort on the part of interlocutors. I found it interesting that team collaboration boosts not only collective but also individual productivity since team member can objectively assess every speaker and point out his/her weaknesses and strengths. As a result, the speaker would be to make certain amendments in the way of his/her presentation.
Advanced Writing Skills
The module starts with deep breathing session to tune in the working process. This week the students consolidated knowledge of writing skills and practiced them by writing academic essays and reports. I worked over the structure of my report carefully paying attention to concise clear paragraphs and sentences, appropriate style, tone, and format. I understood that good writing skills will help me to achieve better academic results in future developing my skills in analytical thinking and abilities to effectively communicate thoughts and ideas, and present effective summary of the research.
Preparation for an Exam, Revision and Exam Techniques
In this module I elaborated my individual learning style, worked out revision plan and effectively prepared for the exam. The lecture told us about the types of examinations, questions, rules and regulations applied to exams, which helped me to understand the importance of exams.
Writing Apprehension
The module discusses various writing techniques which help present material in a more readily-accessible way. I learned that written communication in some cases is more beneficial since it may convey complex messages, specific data and complicated information. The lecturer taught us how to make our academic papers more efficient by organizing the text according to special requirements.
Check of Assessments and Attendance
This week the teacher checked students attendance and summarized the results of the modules.
Revision
The concluding week was devoted to the revision of the material studied during the course.
In conclusion, it should be stressed that communication may be oral and written, verbal and non-verbal but it is of paramount importance for every person since it increases chances to become successful in all spheres of life. The skills and techniques acquired during this course are applicable not only to academic and business interaction but to a day-to-day communication.