Study guide: Communication Skills

📋 Course Outline

1. Communication Purposes and Forms
2. Effective Listening Process
3. Open and Closed Questions
4. Clarification and Verbal Communication
5. Improving Grammar and Speech
6. Non-verbal Communication

📖 1. Communication Purposes and Forms

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Communication: Enables people to share information, exchange ideas and thoughts, and understand each other better.
• Verbal communication: Uses spoken language to exchange information and ideas.
• Non-verbal communication: Conveys meaning without spoken words, including through body language and facial expression.
• Written communication: Exchanges information and ideas through written messages.

📝 Essential Points

• Effective communication skills help workers understand clients and colleagues and become better team members within their organisation.

💡 Memory Hook

VNW: verbal, non-verbal, written

📖 2. Effective Listening Process

★ Must-know

• Good communication involves listening and watching thoughtfully, asking for clarification if needed, and summarising or reflecting on what was said to confirm understanding.

• Good listening enables a person to: seek clarification, give effective feedback, form strong positive relationships, learn more when working with colleagues and clients

Further detail

• Attentive listening makes people feel valued and important, which can make them more responsive and willing to engage and share information.

💡 Memory Hook

Listen and watch → clarify → summarise or reflect

📖 3. Open and Closed Questions

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Open questions: Usually begin with words such as “why,” “how,” or “tell me about” and generally require longer, more detailed answers.
• Closed questions: Can be answered with yes, no, or a simple word or fact.

★ Must-know

• Open questions can: encourage people to express opinions and feelings, start conversations, identify wishes, needs and problems, test understanding through an explanation in the person's own words

📌 A series of closed questions can limit conversation and be less informative than one good open question that promotes deeper discussion.

Further detail

📌 Closed questions are useful for obtaining quick responses and confirming facts, especially when time is limited or a person may only be able to give a yes-or-no answer.

💡 Memory Hook

Open questions expand conversation; closed questions narrow it

📖 4. Clarification and Verbal Communication

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Clarification: Checks that a person has understood a situation or message correctly and shows interest in understanding the other person better.

📝 Essential Points

• The two main ways to clarify information are asking questions and reflecting or summarising information back verbally or by repeating a message in writing.

📌 Workers should never assume that they know what another person is thinking or feeling; they should ask open and closed questions to obtain information.

💡 Memory Hook

Clarification prevents assumptions → shared understanding

📖 5. Improving Grammar and Speech

★ Must-know

📌 Correct grammar makes speech easier for others to understand and makes it sound more professional.

Further detail

• 🔄 Grammar can be improved by: listening to high-quality speeches, reading to improve vocabulary and grammatical knowledge, paying attention to grammar while speaking, asking others for corrections, practising speeches

💡 Memory Hook

Listen, read, notice, ask, practise

📖 6. Non-verbal Communication

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Body language: A form of non-verbal communication that can provide clues about what a person is feeling.

📝 Essential Points

• Watching a person's non-verbal signals, including body language and facial expression, can help determine whether the person is expressing genuine feelings or only saying what they think others want to hear.

💡 Memory Hook

Read the message behind facial expressions and body language

📊 Synthesis Tables

Open and Closed Questions