Communication Skills Needed in India

chillibreeze writer — Aparajita Bhattacharjee

We’re not dumb. We are sentient beings, some of us with the gift of the gab. But that doesn’t account for our not listening to others. We have every right to give others a chance. Many of us find ourselves talking without knowing whether it makes any sense at all to the listener or not or is the other person listening?

Communication: A very profound word in the field of education, sports, health. Who do you think are at the root to make this understanding functional both in the personal as well as the public front? Yes, it is the teachers. Parents do play a significant role but teachers save us from being too hard-hearted to the world outside where people are screaming their nerves out to be listened.

How good is active listening?
Well, it gives you an idea of the content spoken or makes sense if at all. There are people who listen with a half minded pose making the speaker dubious about having made an impact. The classroom scenario can be a best example. No matter what the age is, the art of active listening must be inculcated in the student right from childhood.

Need for communication skills.
The ubiquitous social problems like child labor, poverty, malnutrition, overindulgence with the physical contact, corruption, unemployment etc is directly proportional to the lack of communication skills in the present day youth. Movies reflective of human ingenuity in projecting life as it is in the mother tongue or the national language best tickle the national sentiment and has no influence over the tongue. When ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ made millions very few went to watch the English version.

Remember Ishaan Avasthi in ‘Taare Zameen Par’ voicing dyslexia in English class where letters conglomerate haphazardly to make no sense at all? That’s the kind of lot passing out of most of the schools and colleges. They either resort to cheating or pick their father’s pockets. Incoherence in presenting coherent thoughts in the form of written answers for which they are tested is one of the reasons they score less. What is undervalued by the present teenagers is the curriculum design which needs to be immensely taken care of by the education system if the world has to see India at her best. Many a times parental pressure, conflicts at home, and peer pressure inhibit the blossoming of critical thoughts which naturally thwart the organizational skills in a student. Thanks to the internet that has done more harm than good by allowing the students to access prohibited sites and adopt malpractices at an age when they need to keep their sanity at place.

Is it only the school scenario?
No, definitely not. It is the school at the base. Workplace injunctions merit quite a lot of degeneration in the communicational skills written or otherwise. An aspiring candidate may not understand the intent behind a question out of nervousness or not having been well prepared. An annoying employee breaking the trust of his/her colleagues or an imposing boss can hover like a vampire in minds making work burdensome and uninteresting. There are thousands of us valuing our reserves to maintain decorum to the satisfaction of others but finally who is at the receiving end when the output turns out to be a mess?

Has technology no role to play?
Yes of course, it does. Here’s the root cause of all other dysfunctional and paralyzed communicational skills. It’s the hand and the brain doing the work of all. Manpower counts nil and companies value people with more of technological skills than communication. It won’t be surprising if Chetan Dube’s IPSoft sees a number of people waving bad-bye to their jobs as expert systems will be capable of ‘self-healing, self-learning and autonomously solving a majority of the problems that arise on the computer networks.

Summary:
Political leaders, movie hunks, under-qualified teachers apart from others (for the list is endless) have unknowingly contributed to the major disadvantage of the communication skills. What must be kept in mind is that, we are human beings and we have the tongue to execute the intentions our minds envision. To help the world see a better India lets anticipate the following points:

Primary Level to Post-Post Graduate Level:

i. Teaching skills: English does have an important role to play and making it mandatory at level one in all schools regional or otherwise will have a scientific effect in the grooming of the child. A child’s power of retention is the best during this stage. Teachers must also take special care to clarify to the parents that the right learning attitude and understanding of the subject will not make the child look down upon them. Instead make them feel proud.

ii. Reading skills: The students must make it a habit of reading what is given, aloud with understanding. Reference to a dictionary and practice of writing the mind out can result in good organizational skills. Many a times we fail to read and understand due to absent mindedness, sloppiness and make blunders in the bargain. Intelligent reading is crucial to one’s preparatory stage to keep the creative instinct kindling.

iii. Writing skills: The purpose and objective of what is being learnt should be made clear in the school as well as the college level. The right use of grammar in ‘nominalization’ exercises must be made so functional that the interrelationship of all the subjects is viewed naturally by the student. Special education teachers as well as the primary and secondary level teachers must teach the grammatical rules of avoiding spelling errors to build the natural instinct in the child to refer to the dictionary whenever required. Parents must be made aware that certain skills at certain points of time must be honed in the right way to extract maximum results.

iv. Kinesthetic skills: The art of speaking, acting and doing in conformation to the needs of a situation is valued by all and sundry. An idea or a sense of discrimination goes a long way not only to establish long lasting relationships with others but also solicit managerial guidance for a quick promotion. The art of executing this skill is gifted to all, only we need to know and be aware of how to implement it in our lives.

v. Technological and presentation skills: Confidence and knowledge is at play in executing these skills. Amidst unaccustomed customers and corruption rowing the money to escalated levels these two skills work wonders. A techno honcho or a salesman must keep the customer in the mind and target the sophisticated group to drive the point home. Undoubtedly if these two are mastered the world will be at our hand. Given the resources that we have, a necessary input of these two skills can empower labor and expand human resources manifold curtailing unemployment problem and financial crisis.

vi. Leadership skills: The void of ‘no-matter-what-you-say-I’ll-do’ mentality can be curbed by powerful motivation and working skills shown by a leader. ‘Practice to preach’ then mindfully becomes the carte blanche to one’s life.

vii. Organizational skills: Good entrepreneurship lies in making the purpose and the objectives of the company clear to its employees. Clarification not only does justice to one’s natural skills but also help build trust and confidence in each other leading to quality produce. A step by step move develops analytical and logical skills thereby making the employee a rational factor and an exponent to the company’s extra income.

viii. Interpersonal skills: Be it a teacher, a professor a project manager, the smooth functioning core to the upgradation of the company’s objectives and mission lies in good inter-personal skills. Constant appreciation in some form or the other and reprimands on a similar justifiable front is like tonic to an employee. Ideas, in support of the employees’ welfare are bound to see additional feathers in the company’s cap. No sooner does the factor get its required domain to flourish, than all differences amongst company workers melt down to a microscopic level. Clarity of differences in opinions may see acceleration in the intrapersonal skill graph.

ix. Non-Verbal skills: Focused interactions can be well supplemented at required destinations with the right kinds of gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, handshakes peppered with patience, courtesy and a bit of curiosity. Under cross cultural contexts women have been seen playing a pivotal role undertaking communication challenges to optimize healthy relationships between two parties. Just as a certain amount of homework is done to buy the newest iPod or mobile, so also a basic history and understanding of cultural differences is key to see the economic crisis disappear under a steady flow of foreign income.

x. Performance Skills: A thorough understanding of the skills mentioned above can be a research paper for a candidate willing to see India shine. The willingness to do and optimism, backed by good oratorical skills, will polish performance skills. Problem solving mentality can be a challenging phase in one’s life amidst complications of the Indian business structure. One’s performance is at stake and if one has the health and the stamina to confront the intelligentsia, one has done one’s job.

Editor's note: Most articles submitted to Chillibreeze go through a selection process. Only 30 percent of submitted articles are accepted for publication on the Chillibreeze.com featured article list. All accepted articles are edited and proofread for glaring errors of punctuation and grammar. Sentence structure is changed in certain cases and sometimes, entire sections are rewritten. If you notice any errors that have slipped through the cracks, do let us know! (Email us at info at chillibreeze dot com).

Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in November, 2011. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.

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—About our writer:

Aparajita Bhattacharjee has done her M.A. in English and B.ED from the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning Anantapur. She has been working as a teacher in schools, both national and international, for 8 years now and is currently working with the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology at KiiT International School, Bhubaneswar. She has attended a number of workshops in English Language Teaching and Learning and organised workshops in her school for teachers to enhance teaching/learning sessions in class. She has also published her articles in magazines, revenue-sharing sites and recently issued a magazine for her school.

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