Effective Communication Skills

Communication Skill Training – How to develop effective communication skills?

Communication is an integral part of our day to day lives. We use several verbal and non verbal modes to communicate with people around us. It is important that we develop effective communication skills for all over all progress. An individual has 10-30 seconds to make an impression on another individual. You can make a lasting impression if you have effective communication skills at hand. People are born communicators, we just need to polish and sharpen our skills to communicate effectively.

Communication is broadly categorized as verbal and non verbal communication. Verbal communication involves use of words to express the thoughts whereas non verbal communication relies on body language to display the person’s state of mind. Verbal communication is categorized as oral communication and written communication. As an individual we need to master the art of verbal communication.

You can develop effective communication skills by using different techniques. You will need to practice daily as developing effective communication skills isn’t a child’s play. Let us look at how you can improve your oral communication skills.

Oral communication plays important role in face to face and over the phone conversations. One should keep few tips in mind while communicating over the phone. One should not hold the receiver close to the lips as the person on the other end may be able to hear your muffled breathing spoiling the quality of conversation. One should practice to speak slowly and clearly. Do not eat up words while speaking as the sentence may lose its meaning or the statement can be misunderstood.

Practice clear diction techniques to learn global English or Received Pronunciation. Stress on your vowel sounds to slow down your rate of speech. Read national news papers to improve your vocabulary. If you like reading novels, underline the words which you didn’t understand and look them up in the dictionary. Speaking in English with your family and friends will help you to develop effective communication skills.

Now let us look at another aspect of verbal communication. Written communication is used in corporate offices and work places hence it becomes doubly important to have effective communication skills in this area. Your emails represent your personality to the reader. One should strictly avoid using SMS language while writing emails. Always have salutation or greeting at the start of your email. Mention a one liner as the subject.

Your subject should be indicative of the purpose of mail. Do not use subjects like hi, imp etc as they do not indicate a purpose. Adhere to basic grammar rules while writing mails. Most importantly do not use block letters in your emails as they indicate anger. Always spell check your mails and look out for any typos. You may represent yourself poorly if your mail has spelling mistakes, typos and grammatical errors.

It is important to understand the developing effective communication skills takes time and you need to be patient and dedicated to learning the techniques. Always measure your performance and improvement by taking various online tests. Over a period of time you will master the art of communicating with people.

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