How Can We Improve Our Oral Communication Skills?

Having strong communication skills are crucial in life for both personal and professional reasons.

Oral communication, according to the Ontario Curriculum is defined as; through talk, students not only communicate information but also explore and come to understand ideas and concepts; identify and solve problems; organize their experience and knowledge; and express and clarify their thoughts, feelings, and opinions. Listening and speaking skills are essential for social interaction at home, at school, and in the community.

The Oral Communication strand has three overall expectations, as follows:

Students will:

1. Listen in order to understand and respond appropriately in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes

2. Use speaking skills and strategies appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes

3. Reflect on and identify their strengths as listeners and speakers, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful in oral communication situations.

The curriculum also states that in order for students envelop their oral communication skills, they need numerous opportunities to listen and to talk about a range of subjects, including personal interests, school work, and current affairs.

Since good oral communication skills are so important, how can we actually improve these skills? According to Day Translations, here are 12 ways:

1. Listen well and avoid interrupting

In order to become a better communicator, you must first become a good active listener. By being able to understand the message better, you’ll be able to provide a better quality response. This applies directly to overall expectation #1 as students need to listen in order to understand. 

2. Practice paraphrasing

Being able to put things into your own words ensures you got all the details right and allows you to see if the information actually makes sense to you or not. This applies directly to overall expectation #2 - paraphrasing is a speaking skill and strategy to help them communicate with different audiences.

3. Be Mindful of minor details in the content

What may seem like a minor detail, actually in fact may make the biggest difference.

4. Note the quality of your voice, tone and pitch

When speaking, it is important to use a voice that is the right tone and pitch to make sure that you effectively send the right message to your audience. This also relates directly to overall expectation #2 and adjusting your tone and pitch is a speaking strategy that can be adjusted based on your audience.

5. Always use accurate words to express context

Always make sure you understand the points that you are trying to share as accuracy prevents any misunderstanding.

6. Practice completeness and clarity in message delivery

You can’t just give your listener half-baked information that leaves them hanging.

7. Learn to spot the most important part of the message

Paying attention to the most important part of the message can make a difference and being able top ick out these points is a very beneficial skill to develop. This meets overall expectation #1- active listening to pull the most important information out of a speech.

8. Use the right speed or pacing when you talk

Effective communicators don’t speak too fast or too slow and know how to pause for emphasis to both engage your listeners and increase their understanding of what you’re trying to say. Once again, overall expectation #2 - pacing is a great speaking strategy to change up your dialogue.

9. Practice appropriate gestures

Hand gestures, as well as eye contact, are a great accompany to your speech to emphasise your point and create more engaging speech. Overdoing it however isn’t great – we want our listeners to connect with us and understand, not feel awkward and distracted.

10. Ask questions

Asking questions is always encouraged so never hesitate, especially to avoid any misinterpretation. Asking questions relates to overall expectation #3 - reflect on what you know, or don't know, in order to improve.

11. Avoid beating around the bush. Get to the point.

Unnecessary words don’t help get the meaning across - they just confuse our listeners.

12. Have a full grasp of whom you are talking to

Knowing your audience is the most important thing. By knowing your audience you can shape your speech and your pace and know how to connect with your listeners.

Still want more tips on how to improve your communication skills? Here is a great video by Improvement Pill with some great tips to develop great skills:

Now that we know some tips on how to improve these skills, you might be asking yourself "but how exactly can I do this?" These are some ways courtesy of the Global Digital Citizen to specifically work on improving these skills and can be used to help develop these skills in your students: 

1. Watch films that model conversation skills

-Effective conversations include a give-and-take exchange that consists of the following elements:

-body language

-eye contact

-summarizing

-paraphrasing

-responding

2. Use technology 
- Especially in these times, there are an unlimited amount of resources you can use from audiobooks to apps to help improve student communication skills.

3. Reinforce active listening
-Communication isn’t just about speaking; it’s also about listening. Teachers can help their students develop listening skills by reading a selection of text aloud, and then having the class discuss and reflect on the content.

4. Group presentations and assignments
-Team-building exercises can also help students sharpen both oral and written communication skills. Not only does it offer students the chance to work in small groups, thereby reducing some of the pressure, but it also gives them the opportunity to debate their opinions, take turns, and work together towards a common goal.

5. Ask open ended questions
-Open ended questions are vital for inspiring discussion and demonstrating that there are multiple ways to perceive and answer a question. You might set a timer for short informal conversations and challenge students to use open-ended questions.

Communication is an important skill for every student to master, especially in order to better yourself and advance in the future.