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Interpersonal skills to be effective in the classroom The importance of communication nowadays is evident, especially is its significance in organization and in groups. Success of such an organization depends much on communication skills of all the members. Group communication requires thorough developed interpersonal skills. There are several ways to increase an effectiveness of interpersonal skills. The first method is called improving interpersonal relationships and it is extremely important for groups success. Positive relationships produce confidence and trust in members and encourage them to freely communicate their opinions and meanings.
Trust may well be one of the most important determiners of person-person relationships. Research has determined that if people trust each other, they are more likely to be open in their communications. There are also other ways to be effective in the classroom. This effectiveness can be reached through using the feedback and disclosure.
Feedback refers to the verbal and visual responses to the messages. Feedback is also the only way to know whether messages are interpreted as intended. Feedback has some advantages and disadvantages while using it in the classroom. It is believed, that instructors who encourage their students to give feedback (to ask questions and make comments) find that feedback improves the accuracy of their understanding and productivity. Another advantage of feedback is that it increases students satisfaction with the work.
Everyone likes to feel that his or her ideas and opinions are of value. Thus, feedback can serve as an additional stimulus and motivator for the student, if it is properly using. Improper use of feedback can cause students to feel psychologically under attack. It does take time to make sure that everyone understands, however, by asking others if they understand, one risks to put pressure on them.
Instead of this, it is recommended to ask about what students understand and thus they need to paraphrase the instructor. For most people, disclosure is more difficult to use effectively than feedback. It is probably a good idea to be careful in using disclosure. In some climates, all fears about loss of control, personal harm and damaged relationships would probably come true. However, in open climates, such as classroom, fear should be replaced by mild concern over such things as when to disclose, how to disclose, with whom to disclose and so on.
Disclose should be used for the purpose of establishing and developing strong interpersonal relationships. However, such relationship cannot be established when only instructor discloses. Disclosure also involves a certain amount of risk, however, if it is mutual, all members of relationships are equal. Understanding of how to improve the listening skills can be very beneficial for instructor. By improving own listening skills it is much easier to understand what listening process is, what the most typical communication barriers are and how they can be overcome. It is very important to learn how barriers can be avoided.
Physical barriers are very difficult to control and eliminate, that is why it is necessary to control ourselves when they are present. Personal barriers such as stereotypes or prejudices are natural processes of human behavior, but when they interfere with the ability to listen effectively and impartially, they can lead to problems. Semantic problems originated from different word interpretation. Many ideas, objects, and actions can be referred to by more than one word. Conversely, many words have several definitions or meanings associated with them. Semantic barriers can be frustrating because the problem stems from a breakdown in the communication system, not from the persons lack of effort.
Among many different methods to improve the effectiveness there is nonverbal communication, which is very crucial for the classroom interaction. The eyes are the most expressive part of the face and have significant effect on communication. Eye contact is very important for the instructor, because it is used to show interest and attentiveness. Speakers tend to look away at the beginning of an utterance, look back to check listeners response, and look again at the end of signal that the feedback is expected. However, according to experience and facts such scheme is not very effective. Researchers have found that an audience will like speaker more if his gazes are longer and less frequent rather than shorter and more frequent. (A.
Kendon and M. Cook, pp. 481 - 494) Eye contact can also be used to change the flow of communication. Movements and gestures of other parts of the body are even more closely tied to culture. Skilled communicators make sure that their body movements and gestures do not contradict their verbal message. There are also some other kinds of nonverbal communication which should be carefully considered by instructor to make own communication effective with students, such as clothing and personal appearance, distance and space, physical environment and time. Instructor always should be ready to perform a role of leader in the classroom.
One of the most important functions of the leader is to resolve the conflict situations appearing, since any group that meets for any length of time is bound to have conflicts sometime. Gary Keeps points out that interpersonal conflict provides organization members with important feedback about potentially problematic situations. The success of group often depends on how the conflict handled. In developing own conflict resolution skills leader or instructor, in particular case, should determine the following things: the strategy leader feels most comfortable, the strategy the group members prefer, and when each strategy is the most productive. If a split decision takes place, many leaders would urge the group to compromise. If it is also failed, they would then probably turn to forcing methods.
Group members not only would be unhappy with the wasted time and leaders decision, but probably would be beginning to lose the trust in a leader. Of course, sometimes it is impossible to reach a consensus agreement, and compromise or even force is necessary to reach a solution. However, it should be kept in mind that settling for just any solution could be worse than no solution. From all the evidence above we can conclude that effective communication in classroom as well as interpersonal skills should be thoroughly analyzed and then applied on practice.
Only practice is the valid criterion to prove the effectiveness of statements. Interpersonal skills should be developed in transition of listening skills, relationship maintenance, improvement of nonverbal skills and the study of leadership in groups. Works cited: Gary L. Keeps, Organizational Communication, 2 nd Edition, New York, 1990 A. Kendon and M. Cook, The Consistency of Gaze Patterns in Social Interaction, British Journal of Psychology, 1969
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Research essay sample on Interpersonal Skills To Be Effective In The Classroom
