Language skills_English for General Purpose.ppt
- 1. Language skills Compiled by MUKASIBO Lainilde
- 2. Speaking skills Speaking skills are defined as : The use of oral sounds the use of verbal skills to communicate the reading of written information to an audience that has come together for a function or an event. the use of oral or verbal sounds to communicate. techniques of communicating using verbal sounds.
- 4. Public speaking in everyday life and teaching In everyday life situations, people interact with each other for purposes of achieving certain goals: At school At church In the media At home At hospital At the market
- 5. Characteristics the main characteristics of a good speaker is the ability to communicate effectively. Bodily actions : These are what the speaker does with parts of the body : the eyes, movement of the whole body, use of parts of the body to communicate certain messages and facial expressions.
- 6. 1.Bodily actions Eye contact Facial expressions Movement Gestures 2.Proxemics 3.Personal appearance 4.Rehearsing CHARACTERISTICS:
- 7. Activity: discuss each of the characteristics of public speaker. What are bodily actions? Why should a speaker keep eye contact with the audience? What message can facial expressions communicate? What are gestures? Provide some examples. Why are they important in communication? How does personal appearance affect speech delivery? Why should a speaker rehearse his/her speech?
- 8. Rehearsing a. The speaker is made aware of the content, so the speaker is able to give the speech without making mistakes. b. The speaker is already aware of the vocabulary, the content and is free to use gestures, to pause and so on c. speaker can estimate the duration of the speech when he or she has rehearsed it. e. To perfect paralinguistic features.( volume of the voice, the pace of the speech, the stress given to important information and the proper intonation during the speech) F. Master his or her speech G. Refine bodily actions
- 9. Factors to consider • Time and duration • Use of equipment during presentation • The venue • The audience Age .sex . educational level .Size of audience Status in society .Purpose of interest .Level of understanding
- 10. STEPS FOR SPEECH DELIVERY Selecting a topic Considering the audience Collecting information Making an outline Delivering the speech Ending the speech
- 11. Purpose of the speech/presentation To inform : informative speech To persuade : persuasive speech Goodwill/entertaining: Goodwill/ entertaining speech
- 12. COPE WITH YOUR NERVOUSNESS: tips a. Think positively b. Be at your best physically and mentally c. Concentrate on communicating with your audience rather than on worrying about your nervousness d. Take a couple of deep breaths before you start to speak e. Work especially hard on your introduction f. Make eye contact with members of your audience. g. Use visual aids
- 13. Tips for effective speech delivery: Be prepared Use visual aids if necessary Use body language appropriately Pause Use appropriate tone and intonation Be accurate Be expressive Show empathy Be sincere Keep eye contact Relax Be alert
- 14. REFERENCE
- 15. INTERVIEW SKILLS Once you have been selected for a job interview, it's important to prepare properly. That means practicing interview questions and answers, dressing in appropriate interview attire, and market you
- 16. a. Job interview tips and advice i. Practice: Practice answering interview questions and practice your responses to the typical job interview questions most employers ask. Think of actual examples you can use to describe your skills. Providing evidence of your successes is a great way to promote your candidacy. Also have a list of your own questions to ask the employer ready. ii. Research : Search for information about the company and try to relate what you know about the company when answering questions. iii. Get ready : Make sure your interview is neat, tidy and appropriate for the type of organization you are interviewing with. Bring a nice portfolio with copies of your resume. Include a pen and paper for note taking.
- 17. CONT’D i. Be on time :Be on time for the interview. On time means five to ten minutes early. If need be, take some time to get to the interview location ahead of time so you know exactly where you are going and how long it will take to get there. Here's more on preparing for an interview. ii. Stay calm : During the job interview try to relax and stay as calm possible. Maintain eye contact with the interviewer. Listen to the entire question before you answer and pay attention - you will be embarrassed if you forget the question! iii. Show what you know :Try to relate what you know about the company when answering questions. When discussing your career accomplishments match them to what the company is looking for.
- 18. Most common interview mistakes Dressing inappropriately Arriving late Bringing a drink with you Your phone ringing during the interview Not knowing anything about the company Fuzzy resume facts Not paying attention Talking too much Not being prepared to answer questions Badmouthing past employers
- 19. 2.LISTENING SKILLS Listening can be defined as: “an active process of receiving aural stimuli.” (De vito, 1987 :26) It is the process of receiving, attending to, and assigning meaning to aural as well as visual and tactile stimuli. (Steven R. Brydon et al. 2006, p103). In short, it is an active, deliberate, selective process by which a message is received, interpreted, and acted upon by a purposeful listener. As for listening skills, they are those capacities or abilities that a person has and which enables him/her to listen and respond to oral stimuli.
- 20. Listening vs Hearing A clear distinction should be made between listening and hearing. Hearing happens automatically as it is an involuntary physical act; it is a passive automatic process. It is simply the act of receiving sounds. So, it does not require the conscious involvement of the listener. For listening , you pay full attention to verbal and non- verbal messages and seek to get the meaning of the what you hear to understand, interpret, judge, evaluate it and finally give a feedback.
- 21. Importance of listening in our everyday life At school At church At home using media At hospital At market At work Etc.
- 22. ACTIVITY Discuss the importance of listening skills for the above settings
- 24. Barriers to effective listening. These barriers are anything (s) that hinder /distort the communication Barriers to effective listening can emanate from the speaker, the listener or the circumstances of communication. They interfere with the listening process, creating misunderstanding, confusion and may sometimes lead to communication breakdown. These barriers can be physical, psychological, linguistic or cultural.
- 25. 1.PHYSICAL BARRIERS i. Physical barriers These include physical distractions or disturbances that can disrupt the process of listening (noise, physical discomfort, physical distractions, distance, etc.) To overcome this: Avoid any distractions /Pay full attention. Switch off your mobile phone if it is an important communicative situation Ensure that the infrastructure is comfortable and available (seats, lighting,...) Sit at a proper place and maintain appropriate distance Be comfortable and at ease.
- 26. ii. Psychological barriers These barriers result from the listener’s state of mind; psychological or emotional turbulence or disturbance which can prove to be a barrier to effective listening because it leads to lack of interest and concentration. These may include feeling of anger, frustration, sadness, anxiety or fear.
- 27. iii. Linguistic barriers This happens when the listener cannot decode correctly the message and this leads to confusion and misunderstanding. The listener should concentrate on the linguistic code. Listening to something in a language or dialect you are not conversant with leads to communication breakdown
- 28. iv. Cultural barriers Listening could become a difficult process if the speaker and the listener belong to different cultures and share different values. It is the listener who assigns meaning to what is said, and meanings are assigned in terms of the listener’s frame of reference. So, the interpretation of meaning can create misunderstandings during inter-cultural communication due to differences in norms and values. Values are personal guides to thoughts and behavior and they exert a strong influence on them.
Editor's Notes
- #1: To master a language, one needs to be equipped with four skills namely speaking , listening , reading and writing skills. They are inter-related. This means that to achieve one skill you might need another or other skills. For instance, to be a good writer, you need reading skills to learn how words and sentences are written; you might need speaking skills to tell people about what you have written.
- #2: We use speech organs to be able to produce sounds: lips , tongue, jaw and teeth . The organs are called articulators.
- #6: -Keeping eye contact is very crucial while delivering a speech: the speaker is able to control the audience. If they understand or not , The speaker will know if they are following or not; if they are tired and need a pause; if information is clear or not; if they have questions, etc. -Facial expressions are messages we can read in the face of a speaker: happiness, sadness, confusion, surprise, etc. -Movement in front of the audience from one side to another is good. A speaker should not stand still. -Proxemics means the distance between the speaker and the audience. This distance depends on hierarchy. -Personal appearance : this is the way the speaker presents him/herself for the presentation . It concerns the way of dressing, hair style, etc. We should opt for “decent” and avoid “ extremes”.
- #7: 1.Bodily actions are what a speaker can do with parts of the body. 2.A speaker should keep eye contact so as to be able to control the audience by reading various information in their faces and behaviours. 3.Facial expressions can display message of happiness, sadiness , surprise, tirediness, agreement, negation,etc. 4.Gestures are movement of the hands. Examples : waving to s.o., pointing,etc. They are important because they can complement, repeat information, substitute or contradict verbal message. 5.Personal appearance is all about the way the speaker dresses; the way he/she present oneself in front of the audience. This can depend much on the occasion and the audience to adress. The speaker will avoid extremes and so stick on decent way of clothing. 6.Rehearsing:
- #8: Rehearsing:a. The speaker is made aware of the content, so the speaker is able to give the speech without making mistakes. b. The speaker is already aware of the vocabulary, the content and is free to use gestures, to pause and so on c. speaker can estimate the duration of the speech when he or she has rehearsed it. e. To perfect paralinguistic features.( volume of the voice, the pace of the speech, the stress given to important information and the proper intonation during the speech) F. Master his or her speech G. Refine bodily actions
- #9: 1.Time and duration: Morning speech delivery can differ from afternoon one. Evening speech delivery can require accommodation , lightning,…The duration depends on the time allocated to the speech delivery. The speaker will think of time when the speech will be delivered and the duration allowed so as to adjust everything. 2.If the speaker needs microphone to adjust the volume of the voice; a projector, camera, a flipchart, audio-visual material,… 3.The venue is the place/room where the presentation will be held. The speaker consider the location; size according to the number of the audience; ability to use required equipments , etc. 4.The audience is the group of listeners. The speech preparation depends much on the kind of audience to address. A speaker will need to have some information about the audience. This is what we call audience demographics: Age ;Sex; Educational level; Size of the audience ; Social Status; Their interest and level of understanding. ACTIVITY: Discuss how each of these about the audience can affect speech preparation and delivery.
- #10: You should have a topic and make sure you understand it. It has to be narrow enough. Then think of the audience because the speech is meant for them. Consider all information about them ( audience demographics) (we talked about this earlier). You will collect information from different sources : books, interviews, websites, life experience, observation, etc. The outline will serve as a guide. It is the skeletons of the speech. It contains key ideas and their supporting ideas.At this stage , you can write out your speech or keep only the outline. Then you deliver your speech. At this stage, you should remember everything that can help you succeed: bodily actions, being well prepared which help cope with nervousness, pausing, tone and intonation, accuracy, empathy, Clarity,etc. When ending your speech, you can give the audience time to ask questions, summarize the main points of the speech, tell the what to do later and any other needed information.
- #13: Good preparation help fight fear and so cope with nervousness. It has good sequence which ease presentation. Visual aids help audience understand better some concepts and scenarios Body language can complement, repeat, substitute the verbal message Pausing help the speaker breathe and regain energy. The audience get time to internalize the message and relax. Tone and intonation add weight to words and help avoid monotony rendering the message meaningful. We should provide true information: accurate information. The speaker should be empathetic vis-à-vis the audiences. Do whatever to help them understand the speech. Sincerity means that the speaker should not tell lie. Keep eye contact help the speaker control the audience as s/he reads information from them throughout the talk and react accordingly. Relaxing means feeling confident enough, mastering the content and delivering the message having a natural mood. Being alert means that the speaker should be aware of whatever going on among the audience and make whatever effort to succeed delivering the speech.
- #19: Careful listening helps you understand very well what you hear. According to the same author, “people spend more time listening than any other communicative activity; [...] regardless of your profession or walk of life, you never escape the need for a well-trained ear”. In other words, we need to improve our listening skills or abilities. Lucas, E.E (2004)
- #26: To avoid this, you must ensure that you are in a normal state of mind before you take part in a communicative interaction. The listener should be tension-free and should not upset himself/herself by too much thinking and speculation.
- #27: How to avoid this, the speaker should use a language that the listener understands. Whenever the speaker uses difficult words, jargon, or technical terminology, the listener should feel free to ask for clarifications. If the speaker uses ambiguous language open to several interpretations, the listener should ask for more clarifications and explanations.
- #28: To avoid this, the listener should be sensitive to cultural differences and take into account the speaker’s values while interpreting an oral message. There may be misunderstanding if the listener interprets other’s views in his/her own cultural frame of reference. If he/she interprets others’ points of view from his angle, he/she allows his/her preconceived notions and prejudices to start working for him/her. His/her frame of reference is individual to him/her as it is based on his/her experiences, exposure, educations, personality and several other elements peculiar to him/her. The listener should understand this and try to put him/her in the other person’s position.