In today’s time, effective communication skills are the need of the hour. To achieve success in academics and future jobs, students need to be good at communicating and sharing their knowledge, thoughts, and views with others.
A teacher-centered classroom doesn’t give enough opportunity to students to communicate in the classes. To make students grow, develop and perform well in academics, teachers must work to improve and enhance the communication skills of the students. Let us discuss some of the tips that teachers can follow to foster these skills in the learners.
Importance of communication skills for students
Communication skills are very important for students. To understand well in classes, speak up, share your thoughts and learn effectively, communication plays an important role. Let us discuss some of its benefits.
- To participate and interact better in the classes
- Foster interpersonal skills and relations.
- To ensure academic growth
- Overall personality development
- More job opportunities
- Success in future jobs and careers.
Why do students lack good communication skills
In today’s time, effective communication skills are the need of the hour. But because of a few reasons, students lack these skills in them which are
- Less confidence
- Lack of vocabulary knowledge
- Fear of public speaking
- Poor listening skills
- Shy and introverted nature
- Lack of nonverbal components of communication.
Tips for teachers to enhance communication skills in students
Have participatory activities
The teacher-centered method of teaching won’t work to enhance the communication skills of the students. In a monotonous classroom where teachers come to teach and leave without involving students in teaching lessons and discussions, communication skills in students can not be fostered. All teachers must avoid this and have participatory activities for the students that allow them to speak up, communicate and interact with one another. Some of them are
- Group discussions
- Recitations
- Project making, model making
- Extracurricular activities.
All these are examples of participatory activities that teachers can organize to make students participate more and become better at communication. This will make students listen to each other better, share ideas and make conclusions, furthermore enhancing their listening and communication skills.
Teach students vocabulary
Many students are reluctant to communicate and speak up in the classroom and at other places too because they lack good vocabulary skills. We widely use English as a language for communication and students who lack good English vocabulary skills become less effective at communication too.
All teachers must focus on improving students in this regard. Teachers must teach new words to the students daily. While reading the lessons in the class, make students mark, underline, and note down the new words, phrases, and more. This will help you to teach online as well in traditional classes better and improve the communication skills of students.
Interact with all the students
In a classroom, all students are different from one another. Some are quite active at speaking and interacting while some are shy, reserved, and speak less. Don’t interact with the active class speakers only. Try your best to interact with every student in your class.
Using ERP, teachers should manage their classes in a way that they get enough time to make all students a part of interactions. Make students speak up about anything related they know to the topic being taught. Also, you can have general discussions with them to improve their communication skills.
Create a safe and positive classroom
Many students communicate and speak up less in classes, because of the fear of being judged, criticized, and made fun of. This affects their participation and interaction in the classes too. To overcome this problem, all teachers must try to develop a safe and positive environment in the classes.
Make disciplinary rules such as not interrupting when one is speaking, not judging, laughing, or criticizing any student. All teachers must make students develop an optimistic attitude and teachers should also encourage them for the same.
Conclusion
Effective communication skills are very important for all of us. But lack of English vocabulary, less confidence, fear of speaking, shyness, and poor listening skills are some reasons behind students being less effective at communication. By following the above-mentioned tips, teachers can improve the communication skills of the learners. Creating a safe class environment, promoting positivity, teaching vocabulary, and enhancing participatory activities in the classes are some ideas that teachers can follow to make students effective at communication.
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