Module – 1

Communication Skills

1.1 Public Speaking

Public speaking can be defined as a presentation which is given in front of a live audience. It is a performance-based art. The goal of public speaking may be to educate, influence or entertain the audience.

Public speakers often implement visual aids such as power-point presentations; relevant objects etc. to get their content across more easily.

Public speaking is different to an online presentation is the sense that an online presentation is made as per the viewer’s discretion whereas public speaking is performed at a specific time and place.

Public speaking consists of five main elements:

It is significant to note that one of the most important rules of public speaking is to know one’s audience. In other words, the speaker must know how to talk to and influence his audience, to know which words will carry more effect, how his audience will react to a certain idea, what is the knowledge base or background of his audience etc.

Below are some reasons why the skill of public speaking is important and should be incorporated in one’s skillset:

Guidelines for practicing public speaking:

Watching other efficient public speakers is a good way to learn and practice but everybody is different. That means that there aren't any rules for what makes an efficient orator. Part of being an authentic orator is knowing the way to be yourself when underneath the spotlight. Acting like yourself instead of trying to imitate somebody else allows you to behave more organically, which may be a boon when attempting to connect with an audience.

2.     Knowing the Purpose of the Speech:

One should always know whether they want to influence, educate or inspire the audience and depending upon that one should decide how to formulate their speech.

3.     Expanding Knowledge Base, Presentation tools and Vocabulary:

Reading about various topics is a great way to expand one’s horizons. ‘Always keep learning’ should be the motto of every public speaker. The speaker should be updated with current affairs and should have a vast vocabulary to incorporate within his speeches. One should also learn how to use electronic slideshows and other presentation tools as they provide an edge to the speech.

4.     Playing to One’s Strengths:

Some people are good at storytelling others are good at using information to influence people. One should find out his strengths and practice them time and time again. The most efficient speakers are ready to effectively identify their strengths and use those strengths as tools to make a presence that's authentic and relatable.

5.     Improvisation:

While speaking it is rare that things go exactly as planned. Therefore, one should practice how to improvise when he fumbles or goes blank. Sometimes the presentation tool may malfunction, a listener may ask a question that the speaker is not prepared to answer or the speaker may simply forget one of their points, in situations like these, improvisation helps to get back on track and prevents the audience from losing interest.

6.     Audience is the Center

The speaker is not the focus of the event, the audience is. All good orates cares more about the audience than themselves. This can be difficult if one has speech anxiety, which tends to fill them with bursts of anxiety and self-consciousness. However, focusing fully on the audience lifts a tremendous burden from your shoulders in terms of worrying about your performance.

One should practice taking the audience’s reactions into notice.

7.     Using Body Language and Gestures:

Body language and gestures say as much as the words themselves. One should practice employing gestures as much as possible while speaking. Smiling and being active in general is useful for keeping the attention of the audience on the speaker.

8.     Recording and Reviewing:

One of the most effective public speaking practice techniques is to record oneself while speaking, preferably video recording. Although few people like their own voice, the audience’s viewpoint is more important. Are you gesturing with your hands too much? Is the intro too long? Should you include a story in the middle, so you hold the audience’s attention? All of these questions are important to answer, and it can be easiest to do so by seeing yourself.

9.     Practicing in front of Friends and Family:

Asking family or friends to be practice audience members is a good way to know where one is going right or going wrong. In most cases, these two groups of people know you better than anyone else in your life. That means that, although you may not want to hear it, they know your bad habits better than anyone.

In addition to your bad habits, your family and friends will also be able to tell you if you don’t quite sound like yourself.

1.2 Group Discussion

Group Discussion Meaning

A group discussion is a communicative situation that consists of more than two participants who share their views and opinions with other participants. It is an organized way of exchanging information, views and opinions about a problem, issue or topic among the members of a group who share some common objectives.

A group discussion is less formal when compared to meetings as it may have no structured order or specific agenda depending upon the requirement. The leadership is also less directive in group discussions as compared to meetings.

Group discussions emphasize process over product. Meaning, the emphasis in a group discussion is on how the participants interact with each other rather than the ultimate outcome of the discussion.

Guidelines for Group Discussions

Below are the areas which are to be kept in mind for developing group discussion skills:

A)    Contents: What you say during a conversation is viewed from two perspectives - complementary and holistic. The participant may have said a lot to GD, but he or she may have deviated from the topic too much, where the content was considered inappropriate without further scrutiny. If the content is relevant to the topic, the panel assesses whether your content management is excessive or in depth, a distinction that we will discuss in more detail in the next few posts.

B) Analytical skills: The panel is confident about your facts, but also likes to see if you can explore anything 'why' and 'how' about a subject matter. This is put to the strongest test in the case study article.

C) Consultation Skills: The panel looks at how you support your position, and how you respond to others, how you can 'strengthen or weaken' the debate, how reasonable you are in your handling of the topic.

D) Organizational Skills: You can have facts, supports, explanations, but are you able to present them in the right order to maximize the impact of your good content? The panel wants to explore this.

E) Communication Skills: You may be able to demonstrate all of the above-mentioned skills, but can you get your point across in a language that is simple (not simple) that they understand, with relevant images that they can understand?

F) Authorship: Are you able to bring to the table an idea of ​​a passage on a topic? Can you look at the problem differently from the other ten participants and suggest a solution? Can you translate a mysterious article in ways that others can? If yes, the panel considers you to be one of the rare personality symptoms.

Modules of Group Discussion

Given below are the basic Principles for conducting group discussions:

Importance of Group Discussions

Below are the reasons why group discussions are considered important:

1.3 Gestures and Body Language

Gestures and body language are a part of nonverbal communication skills which occupy a pivotal role in professional communication. Nonverbal communication is the type of communication that is carried out without the use of words. Nonverbal communication is usually utilized as an aid to verbal communication. This type of communication employs gestures, body language, symbols and expressions.

Nonverbal actions office set the tone of the conversation. Nonverbal communication is useful for expressing one’s mood, opinion or reaction.

Following are the various appropriate uses of gestures and body language:

1. Replacing speech

Gestures and body language are an effective way of communicating without speaking in both formal and informal settings. Not only can one express a lot without words through their expressions and gestures but one can also use non-verbal signs to supplement speaking.

Below are some ways by which gestures and body language can replace or supplement verbal communication:

2. Controlling conversation

During a conversation, both parties take turns to speak to express their thoughts. Therefore, if a conversation requires one to take control such as in a debate, non-verbal communication can be used to drag the ball into one's court.

Below are some ways by which one can take control of the conversation using gestures and body language:

3. Impression through Appearance

As Non-verbal communication goes beyond bodily actions to anything that sends subtle messages, one's attire and the way they look in general can affect the audience in many ways. Thus, one's appearance can be a useful tool to create an impact on the listener.

Below are some things which can be used to create a lasting impression:

4. Expressing emotion

While Verbal communication is useful for expressing thoughts, Non-verbal communication such as gestures and body language is useful for expressing emotions and subtle feelings. The tone of one's voice, their expressions and their body language can tell much more about a person than words can. In particular, if one feels that he is unable to express emotions verbally, their words and body language can easily be in contradiction, sending messages that may be interpreted as stress or deceit.

Below are some fundamental strategies for using gestures and body language during presentations:

Walk with confidence. Have good posture. Stand tall. Walk confidently to the presentation area.

Engage in direct eye contact. Look into the eyes of your audience. Don’t look at the walls, floor or ceiling.

Use hand gestures to reinforce your message. This is an important one. When using hand gestures, make sure they look natural. Over-rehearsing gestures makes the speaker look like a mechanical robot to the audience. Gestures, when they come naturally, are interpreted as genuine and honest by the audience. With that said, be careful of a few things: Don’t over-exaggerate. Don’t use repeated gestures because they can distract the audience from your message. An example: If you have a tendency to scratch your head when you are thinking and talking, then you don’t want to continue scratching and scratching as sooner or later the audience will start paying more attention to that gesture and forget about what you are saying.

Move a little. Movement is good for presenters. Too much movement is distracting. If you walk from the front of the room to the back of the room, that’s fine. Do not move around the entire length of the room or stage as the audience will get tired of adjusting their necks and chairs to your movement. A little movement is fine. Avoid repetitive movement such as pacing back and forth as it will have an almost hypnotic effect on you audience. Watching you walk back and forth again and again in the same motion will most likely make the audience uninterested in your non-verbal cues. Robotic pacing is a death knell to any presenter.

Express yourself! There are more than 100 muscles in the face which must be used to express all kinds of emotions. If you are sharing declining numbers, show it. If you are delighted that you exceeded year-end quotas, show it. If you are sharing a melancholic anecdote, show it. Your facial expressions reinforce your message. Just make sure that they are not in conflict with your message. While saying introductory lines such as, “I’m delighted to be here today to deliver this presentation” you should smile and show the audience that you are an emotional being like them, this will also help you relate to the audience and make them feel more open which will in turn allow them to listen to you better.

Enhance your image. Your appearance is the first thing people notice when you enter a room. It speaks volumes about who you are as a person and about your level of professionalism. Take a long, hard look at your professional attire. Look at the colors you wear. You want to look current, not dated. A good grooming session will also help you look more prepared and enthusiastic.

Pause and be silent. Well timed pauses, or silence while you are speaking is one of the most powerful nonverbal strategies that you can use while presenting. There will be certain points within the presentation that you would like to emphasize, using pauses before these points and silence after is a good technique to let them echo in the minds of the audience. Let silence help you. You can either say “Our year-end sales were up 25%” or you can say “Our year-end sales were up (pause) twenty (pause) five (pause) percent.” This latter, obviously, seems much more powerful.

1.4 Professional Presentation Skills

A presentation is a formal talk given on a specific set of topics to inform and educate. They may be short or long, include slides or other visual aids, and be done individually or in a group.

Planning and structuring a presentation is similar to the process of writing an essay, except the speaker needs to be conscious of a live audience and use spoken language instead of written.

Below are the four basic skills required to create a successful presentation:

Step 1: Planning:

While planning a presentation, the following questions should be kept in mind:

The presentation must be planned in such a way that it answers all these questions first before moving on to the structuring stage.

Step 2: Structuring the Presentation:

Like an essay, a presentation needs an introduction, body and a conclusion. The introduction may consist of an anecdote or provocative question to engage the audience right from the start. A question that includes your audience will make them want to follow through with you to find out the implications as they relate to them directly. The body will contain the main theme of the presentation where the ideas introduced earlier are explored thoroughly. The concluding statement should be a clear summary of what has been said in the main part of the presentation. It should also point toward further research or conclusive results if possible.

There are a lot of differences in speech and writing, and they must be kept in mind while preparing a presentation.

One of the most obvious ways in which to achieve natural speech is to speak sometimes in the first person - you can refer to yourself in a presentation, for example, "I'd like to start by..." or "Let me give you an example...", whereas in written projects it is best to keep the use of the first person to a minimum.

While preparing for a presentation, visual aids such as PowerPoint presentations could be very useful to illustrate one’s ideas more clearly. It can be very purposeful to employ such visual aids while discussing the central themes of the topic.

Step 3: Preparation:

Preparedness helps in easing nerves nous and boosts confidence. The following considerations should be kept in mind while preparing for presentations.

Time limits:

The presentation must be practiced a number of times to get the pacing right and to ensure the information can be contained in the time provided. Finishing too early might make the audience think that you lack proper material or understanding of the topic whereas finishing too late might make them feel boredom.

Speak from notes:

It's preferable to reduce the original paper to bullet points while presenting so as to not lose eye contact, intonation and good posture.

Body language:

Use of gestures and good posture combined with a smile keeps the audience engaged and interested.

Voice:

Loudness should be ample so that the audience can hear you clearly and the pace should be perfect so they can follow your arguments. Use silence and pauses effectively when making particular points, also speaking in monotone should be avoided.

Step 4: Presentation:

If all of the previous steps are followed carefully, one should be able to present easily and effectively. Questions should be welcomed and special attention should be given to the audience’s reactions and one’s own body language.

It should always be kept in mind what the purpose of the presentation is and all improvisations should be done in accordance to that purpose. The presentation should be ended with a polite “thank you” and all questions from the audience should be answered as clearly as possible.

Below are some useful techniques that may help you while presenting:

Public speakers, politicians, and professional actors get nervous before they get on stage, why shouldn't you? Ironically, a certain level of 'nervousness' works to your advantage because it keeps you alert and boosts your performance. However, learning to channel that energy takes time and practice. Delivery can make or break a presentation, so start planning it early. Prepare your delivery as follows: