ORAL COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIES
Dyadic Communication
The term “dyadic communication” is general reference to an interaction between two persons. Even if more than two persons are present in a situation, it is only two communications that play fundamental role. The formal dyadic communication with which we are concerned demands artistry that can be acquired through practice, dyadic communication may take a number of forms but we shall discuss only the following file, face to face conversation, telephonic conversation, interview, inspection and dictation.
Face to face conversation:
Conversation is the most common form of dyadic communication. It links people together to be in social or personal life. Conversation may be defined as oral and usual informal or friendly exchange of views, ideas etc. In a conversation the participants has to play the role of a speaker or a listener interchangeable the role that the best practice for conversation itself holds true.
Helpful hints for successful face to face conversation
1. The conversation should be of interest to the participant and may being with a topic in which both have some interest. As it flow into new channels adjusts yourself to be comments and new point of view this needs not bother you because often during this spells new thoughts are generated.
2. Be alert to the attitudes that others may have and don’t be surprised when you realise that the attitudes are likely to change.
3. Occasionally call the person by name and look at him while speaking, if you speak the name aloud you would be generating a more friendly feeling to cop it all take care of a language and oral demeanour.
4. Be always courteous and cheerful. Feel interested in what is being said.
5. Being dogmatic and argumentative may spoil your conversation. But it is useful to have a point of view.
6. Avoid pet and superfluous words and phrases
Telephonic Conversation:
One form of dyadic conversation is interaction between two persons on a telephone. In this form the advantage of using body language and eye contact is lost. But it is one of the common and fastest ways of contacting persons. It is simple handy in the long run economically, therefore it is termed as prices less means of communication.
Guidelines for telephonic conversation:
1. Cultivate a cheerful and friendly tone.
2. Modulate your voice.
3. Never sound hurried, flustered or impotence.
4. Pronunciate your words clearly.
5. Do not use slang.
6. Speak distinctly if you use a word which is likely to be misunderstood, spell it out.
7. Listen attentively to the caller.
8. Be courteous in all the circumstances.
9. Don’t engage your telephone longer than necessary.
While receiving and making calls bare the following points in mind:
Lift the receiver promptly.
Reveal your identity
Obtain the caller’s name and designation
Give the required information accurately
Keep a job pad and pencil, Handy to note message
While calling keep all the materials ready before you dial the number
Telephone is the best answer to transact with an officer busy interacting with others.
Interviews
The word “Interview” is derived from interview meaning sight between. It is a meeting between two persons with a specific purpose. An interview demands direct and dynamic interaction. One of the purposes of interview is to elicit information, which is not available from written records or other sources.
Therefore various steps of interviews ranging from the one conducted by a journalist for a newspaper reporting to that by a psychiatrists with a patient. The purpose defines the type of interview. Here we are interested in the following two types of interviews :
1. Employment interviews
2. Data collection interviews
The term employment interview refers to interviews of a candidate for a job in a particular organisation. Promotional interview and annual interviews are conducted in respect of the employees who are already in service.
Employment Interview:
The main purpose of the employer is to judge the stability of applicant to the job and that of the applicant to find out whether the needs and requirements of the job wood suit him also whether the environment to his professional growth and intellectual or social pursuits.
Disposition:
A vital piece of information that the employer would like to have is whether the candidate has the ability to work with others.
Circumstances:
A peep into the interview’s previous environment and family circumstances may give some clue to the candidate capacity to work.
Data Collection Interview:
Very often one would be called upon to collect data for specific purpose and present it in the form of a letter, memo, report etc. This information may either be available with your officers in your own organisation or other organisation.
Instructions:
Directing others to perform a particular function of a profession infant giving instructions in an art can be cultivated. While giving instructions to sub-ordinates and junior officers the following things must be keep in mind:
1. The background knowledge of the recipient.
2. His physiological recipient.
3. His capacity to group.
4. His ability to act upon your instruction.
Dictation:
Dictation is another type of communication very frequently used in professional organisation. It is an art in which every profess prospective employers main aim is to judge your sense of values, your attitude towards the work.
Each applicant must plan to be successful. Failure in interview certainly injures the ego of a person temporarily. So to be successful must pay the close attention to the following:
1. Physical appearance creates the first impression and tells something about the personality of the individual.
2. Good department and good manners generates a proper atmosphere and put you at ease, nothing should appear to be artificial and imitative.
3. Care should be taken not to in judge in certain mannerism in speech and behaviour.
4. Does not use long and highly colloquial long wage the tone should be friendly but not imitative.
5. One must be careful not be in the habit of making add gestures while taking.
6. Listening is an art one should create an impression that he is a good listener.
7. Speech must be cultivated by listening to recordings one’s own voice to get job and to move up on the ladder of career.
8. Most important of all these is to be clear doubts and those thoughts must be expressed in plain language.
9. Avoid giving uncomplimentary references to your former employers.
Employer’s expectations:
We may classify the information which an employer seeks while considering a person for job into the following sub-headings.
State of Health:
Every organisation desires its employees to be in a healthy state. A part from judge at the interview the organisation requires a new entrant to undergo a medical examination the standards of which differ from profession to profession.
Attainments:
A probe is made through searching question to verify what the candidate in the bio-data writes and to asset nature and quality of his achievements.
Intelligence:
A close observation is made of the reflex and response of the interview to discover the extent of his grasp and confidence.
Attitude:
Certain questions are directed merely to find out the candidate’s attitude for the job he has applied for.
Interests:
An attempt is made to understand the other dimensions of the responsibility of the candidate by encouraging him to speak about his day today business. Some of the hints given below would prove helpful to you in learning the art of dictation.
1. Tell the steno the form of communication you are going to use and the situation promoting it.
2. Picture the entire composition i.e. the total matter to be dictated in verbal terms.
3. Take care in dictating homonyms. E.g., pale, pail, ascent compliment, etc.
4. Dictating all the punctuation marks.
5. Match the speech of dictation to the speed of your steno.
6. If you dictate into a machine listen to the material recoded before asking your steno to type it. This should be also with a steno new to the job.
Meetings:
The word meeting is used in two sense; one to refer to a small group meeting committee, meeting of board of directors, cabinet meeting, meeting of sectional heads etc. And the second to refer to any meet of two or more persons, what ever be the label application to such a group, the meeting is perhaps the most commonly used form of discussion in a professional organisation. The person who chairs the meeting act is the leader of the groups and usually has a higher status or enjoys authority over other members. Every meeting is result oriented and therefore the discussion is directed towards a specific end.
Purpose:
There are number of purpose for which meeting are held, some of the following are typical of most situations.
1. To save time and communication.
2. To convey information to a group at one time.
3. To brief members on plans already made or work already done.
4. To give and get new ideas.
5. To get immediate reactions, a new ideas, proposals and pans.
6. To exchange ideas and experience.
7. To discuss and solve problems.
8. To resolve conflict confusions and disagreements.
9. To arrive at widely acceptable decisions persons in power to take decisions.
Chairmanship:
The chairman generally concerns a meeting of the member of a committee or any other constituted body or a member authorised by him. In other cases an authorised official calls it whose wishes to use it for any other purpose mentioned earlier.
In this case he acts as the chairman and he may name a member of group to act as a secretary of a particular meeting. The following points should be born in mind by the person who calls the meeting:
1. The announcement for any meeting must be made in written at least a week before the fixed date.
2. The notice should be sent to all members, even if it were known that some of them would not attend.
3. The notice should clearly state the agenda.
Chairmanship:
Chairing a meeting requires a lot of patience, a sense of humour and sound knowledge of the technique of making people discuss a meeting intelligently and arrive at well reasoned conclusion, when you are called upon to conduct a meeting read through the agenda carefully and prepare a discussion plan. Before the meeting begins ensure that the proper physical arrangement has been made and aids and materials to be used are available at the venue.
A discussion plan is nothing but a guide prepared by you reflecting your own thinking and the subject to be discussed. A logical sequence of the ideas is expected to be presented. The questions likely to be raised to the members and the conclusions that might be reached you should also estimate the time you should like to be devoted to each item in the agenda.
In every meeting the beginning is crucial; don’t wait for those who are not present, think of those who are present. After you have set the discussion in motion invited response but don’t get unnerved if there is silence for some time. Do not rush the group at arrive at a discussion. Let the meeting problem entered and discussion oriented. Give a fair chance to every member to speak and don’t take sides. Be especially alert about problem participant, the commenter and monopolizes and the reticent.
The conclusion of the meeting put special responsibility on the chairman. As chairman’s duty is to take a position of the authority and to state firmly, the result of the discussion are namely to obtain the maximum benefits, the summary and closing of the meeting are of equal importance.
To sum up the chairman performs the following functions which are necessary:
1. He draws preliminary plans and makes the arrangements for the meeting.
2. He invites, directs and controls the discussion.
3. He facilitates or directs the plan of action for implementing the conclusions.
Participation:
The role of participant is an equally important aspect of a meeting which very much depends upon the kind and quality of contribution made by the participants, when you are asked to attend a meeting and to go through the agenda, carefully collect the useful information and develop a tentative point of view with an open mind.
Be a good listener and try to read the thoughts behind the expression, whether relevant or not to listen to every speaker attentively. Don’t hesitate to volunteer and relevant information you may have on the topic under discussion and with confidence. Sincere participation should be your goal. Note down the important points briefly at the meeting for reference in future physical arrangements.
A good physical arrangement contribution to the success of the meeting is the most favourable seating arrangement is around a large table.
In case of rectangular table is used the chairman should seat himself at a position from where he can face everyone.
Group Discussion:
The term group discussion is used to refer to a situation in which a small number of persons meet face to face and through free oral interaction among themselves, exchange information or attempt to reach a decision on shared problem if it is difficult to specify the number of participants that would make the group discussion useful. Research indicates that if the number is kept between 5 to 9, fruitful discussion can take place. It is also observed that group of even numbers of participants tend to be less stable and rewarding the groups. As the discussion precedes one of the participants emerged as a leader. One of the advantages of this type of discussion is that there is a self imposed discipline on the discussion and greater responsibility on the participants for making it useful to keep the discussion on the track it may be worthwhile for a participant to summarise the point.
Occasionally when the group discussion takes place some persons may be invited as observer that may be done for two purposes.
1. To let the observer learn the process of group discussion and
2. To evaluate the contribution by members purpose.
Very often group discussion is used in addition to written test/interviews for employment. Therefore a representative of the prospective will judge each individual’s personality traits such as intellectual ability, creativity approach to solve problems, qualities of leadership, tolerance and group behaviour. In this process he would also note the clarity of thought and felicity of expression of each member.
Sometimes a group discussion is also an instrument to develop and judge the student personality trails mentioned above. It trails the student to function in the professional world efficiently.
Organisation:
There are two ways of organising a group discussion.
1. The topic is announced before hand and participant is expected their homework before coming to the discussion table.
2. The topic is announced after the members have assembled and five to ten minutes are given to them for collecting their thoughts.
The room where the group discussion takes place should have proper ventilation and sufficient height. The chairs should be arranged in a circle so that a member’s expression can be seeing all by others.
Case-study:
Case –study means analysing a case subject to a problem. Every now and then in a day to day life we come across crisis, problem, etc which might have multi dimensional solution which might vary from one person’s perception to another person’s perception. Choosing the ability of the person analysing the case the detailed study performed would only make it possible to find the most feasible solution.
