Life Skills: Communication

Communication skills are essential to performance in the workplace, society, and interpersonal relationships. Communication includes many forms, including: Verbal: listening and speaking Non-verbal: electronic communication (texting, email), body language, dress and appearance Active listening Ability to express feelings and to give feedback Ability to cooperate and express respect Indicators of Communication: Selects, plans, and organizes ideas to communicate Communicates with clarity, purpose, and understanding of audience Actively listens, responds appropriately, and acknowledges the ideas of others Integrates and uses a variety of communication forms and skills (eg, verbal, written, electronic, listening) Recognizes, analyzes, and evaluates forms of communication To Teach Communication: 1. Write the word communication on the board. Ask students what the word communication means. What does it include? Write their responses on the board next to the word communication. Make sure that they include nonverbal communicationprompt them if they dont bring it up themselves. Nonverbal communication includes texting, email, written letters, and even body language, dress, and attitude. 2. Give an example of a time when communication went awryyou can give one from your experience or ask the students for an example from their own lives (texting is a great example of thisespecially if you accidentally misspell a word and the receiver gets a totally different message than you intended). Make sure that students understand that had there been effective communication, things would have gone as planned! 3. Give an example of effective communication. Use one of the activities given (on the following pages) and do it with the students. You can do more than one activity if time allows. 4. Review the importance of communication with students. 5. Sit back and pat yourself on the back for completing an awesome lesson on communication J

Possible Activities: 1. Play telephone! Remind students to keep words/phrases class appropriate!! Give it a few tries and see what happens. Have a short de-briefing session after each round where you discuss what the original word/phrase was, and how it got distorted. Who heard what? Where did it go wrong? Did anyone intentionally mess up the message, and if so, why? Make sure to point out how this can happen in real lifeoften something we say or even didnt say out loud (non-verbal) gets interpreted wrong regardless of what we do. How does that affect the message that gets communicated to the receiver? 2. Give Directions! This requires some planning. You can make anything that requires directions, but here is my idea. Bring bread, peanut butter, jelly, and a butter knife to class (plastic, just in casewe dont want any stolen knives). Tell students that they need to help you, so they need to give you directions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Then make sure you do EXACTLY as they tell you. If they say, Put the peanut butter on the bread, do JUST THATwithout opening the jar or opening the bread bag, put the peanut butter jar on top on the bread bag. Take everything they say literally! Point out to students that they need to be as specific as possible when they are communicating. Often we dont realize that other people dont understand the unwritten directions of opening the bread bag, getting out bread, opening the peanut butter jar, etc. 3. Dress for success! I have included some pictures for this activity. Show students the attached pictures of people who are well-dressedsuit and tie, women in business suits or dressed for a fancy occasion, their hair combed and styledand ask the students what their dress communicates about the person. How might they be treated at a job interview, a bank, a Mercedes dealership, or a fancy restaurant? Now show them the picture of someone dressed very sloppilyin pajamas, wearing slippers, stains on their clothes, undone hair, etcand ask students what this person is communicating about himself or herself. How might they be treated at a job interview, a bank, a Mercedes dealership, or a fancy restaurant (you could show up in your pajamas, looking disheveled, and discuss what your dress communicates)? You can also do this with your posture. If you are sitting up straight, head forward, making eye contact, what does that communicate? Now, if you are slumped over, shuffling your feet, not making eye contact, what does that indicate (if youd like, you can also talk about how attitude is conveyed in our body language)? Make sure to explain to students how our non-verbal cues communicate just as much, and sometimes more, than verbal communication. Use the example of a job interviewyou would need to speak appropriately (no slang or swearing), but you would also need to dress appropriately, and have a confident posture! 4. Background Noise! Have one student recite the Pledge of Allegiance while another student sings a simple song, like Row, row, row your boat or Yankee Doodle or whatever. See if they can both do it without messing up. If they can, make it harder. Give them each a passage to read and see if they can read it aloud, without messing up, and then be able to tell you what they just read. Can they tell you what the other student was reading out loud as well? Tell students that effective communication requires listening and paying attention. The old saying is that God gave us two ears and one mouth so that we could listen twice as much as we talk! 5. Um contest! Have students tell you a story: about their weekend, something

fun, their favorite restaurant, whatever. Count how many times they say, um, er, uh, like, you know, etc. You can even tell them beforehand and see if they can tell their story without using those filler words. Give an example of how, when talking, those filler words can make someone sound less intelligent or they can muddle up the intended message. Encourage students to get rid of those words while speaking. It will improve their eloquence, give them confidence in their message, and improve their communication skills. 6. Misspelled Bee! Use the example below (about Che Guevara) in which many of the words are misspelled or missing. Have students mark the incorrect words. Ask students how the message is confusing, or even wrong, when words are misspelled, missing, or incorrect grammar is used. What did students think of the person who wrote the piece? Point out to students that using incorrect spelling or missing words when we write something makes the writer seem unintelligent or too hurried too care. To effectively convey our message, we need to have correct spelling, grammar, and make sure we PROOFREAD our work (ALWAYS). 7. To Whom it May Concern! Have students read the example below that is intended for a person in a leadership position but it is written using slang, is poorly spelled, and uses a tone of familiarity not appropriate for someone in a leadership position. Ask students what your boss reaction might be to reading such a piece of literature. Now have students read the example from a college-level textbook. Did they understand any of it? How did they feel reading that passage? A high-school level textbook is written easier than a college-level one, and for good reason! Also, it is hard to understand something without contextknowing what came before and what the passage is actually describing is the context. Reading that passage out of context is really confusing! Remind students that effective communication means you have to understand your audience and make sure to tailor your message appropriately, and you also need to be aware of contextwill your audience know what you are talking about right away or do you need to discuss some background first? 8. Live Performance! Use the attached sheet with the behaviors on it. Cut these into strips, fold them, and put them in a container. Ask for a volunteer to be the teacher. Have the teacher stand in the front of them room, and have the rest of the students each pick a strip of paper. Have the students communicate NON-VERBALLY what their behavior is. They can use their body language and even get up and move around the room but they cant talk. Then have the teacher try and guess what behavior each student is portraying (you can give them a list of behaviors to make it easier). You can switch teachers and do this again as many times as you like. Make sure students understand that their actions and behavior in class communicate things to the teacher as we try and teach. Let them know how to act appropriately and how to communicate respect and attentiveness.

Writing samples:

Misspelled Bee: Incorrect: Che Guevara was a Argentine-born Marksist revolutionary and cuban gorilla leader. guevara is admired for his sprit of self-sacrifice. He is single out from other revolutionaries by many young people in the west because he reject a comfotable background to fight for global revulution. And when he gained power in cuba, he gave up trapping of privilige and power in cubs in order to return to the revolutionery battlefield and, ultimate, to dead. after his death, Guevara became a hero for revolutionery movements, as a theorist and tactcian of assymmetric war fare. Correct: Che Guevara was an Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary and Cuban guerilla leader. Guevara is admired for his spirit of self-sacrifice. He is singled out from other revolutionaries by many young people in the West because he rejected a comfortable background to fight for global revolution. And when he gained power in Cuba, he gave up all the trappings of privilege and power in Cuba in order to return to the revolutionary battlefield and, ultimately, to die. After his death, Guevara became a hero for revolutionary movements, as a theorist and tactician of asymmetric warfare. To Whom it May Concern: Leadership example: Hey boss man! whats up. I need Friday off work. my mom is having surgey and needs someone to watch her stupid cat. I hate that cat but since i loves me ma I gotta do it. I know i was suposed to do that presentation but no one really cares anyway so its no big deal right, ha ha jk. I can just do it monday hope thats cool. alright then Ill see you Monday have a good weekend. Textbook example: The advantage of Skinners apparatus is that the animal, after completing a response and experiencing its effect, is still in the box and free to respond again. With Thorndikes puzzle boxes and similar apparatuses such as mazes, the animal has to be put back into the starting place at the end of each trial. With Skinners apparatus, the animal is simply placed in the cage and left there until the end of the session. Throughout the session, there are no constraints on when the animal may or may not respond. Responses (such as lever presses) can easily be counted automatically, and the learning process can be depicted as change in the rate of responses.

BORED HYPER DISTRACTED DISRESPECTFUL SAD HAPPY DISRUPTIVE RESPECTFUL ON TASK ATTENTION-SEEKING ANXIOUS ANGRY SLEEPY HELPFUL