Why Is It Important to Spend Our Time Studying Communication?

  WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO SPEND OUR TIME STUDYING COMMUNICATION?

Communication is the process of conveying information between two or more people. Communication can be verbal, nonverbal or written. Competence in oral communication; in speaking and listening is a prerequisite to students’ academic, personal and professional success in life. It is indeed true that teachers deliver most instruction for classroom procedures orally to students but students with ineffective listening skills fail to absorb much of the material to which they are exposed. Their problems are intensified when they respond incorrectly or inappropriately because of poor speaking skills. Students who cannot articulate what they know maybe wrongly judged as illiterate and poorly informed. In addition, some styles of speech students’ use can trigger stereotyped expectations of poor ability; expectations that may become self fulfilling. While on the same, students who are not able to effectively ask for help from a teacher will not receive it and typically reserved students progress more slowly despite what maybe a normal level of ability. The communication discipline should be viewed as central in college compasses because humans are born with the ability to vocalise but not with the knowledge, attitudes and skills that define communication competence. Given the importance of the ability to communicate competently, the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately is learned and must therefore be taught. The American national communication association in response to requests for communication departments and administrators for evidence supporting the centrality of their discipline has collected nearly 100 articles and publications which call attention to the importance of the study of communication in contemporary society. Here I will tackle four major themes, just to mention afew that support the importance of communication education. These are; communication education is vital to the development of the whole person, it helps improve the educational enterprise, it is vital to society and to crossing cultural boundaries, and finally it is vital to career success and the business enterprise.

Being able communicate is vital to the development as a whole person. Effective communication skills are critical in our everyday life in that they are needed for developing and maintaining friendships, participating in the community, being effective in the educational setting, successful parenting, and maintaining intimate relationships. Most people learn their communication skills from their family, teachers and friends. The problem arises when these people are bad role models. Communication sounds and appears to be easy but in reality it involves a set of very complex skills. Educators and researchers expressed concern that as young people develop in contemporary society, they may not be learning the critical language, verbal and oral skills that they will need (Baker, 2006; Warner, 2003). These concerns were related to the development of an array of communication competence by young people of all ages and at all grade levels including those with disabilities (Downing, 2005).  Oral communication competence can contribute to a person’s social adjustment and participation in satisfying interpersonal relationships. Children with poor communication skills are sometimes viewed as unappealing by their peers and have few friendships. Reed and Spicer (2003), in a study of 143 teachers in 17 private and provincial high schools, found that interpersonal communication is fundamental to forming and maintaining relationships, including student-teacher relationships. These researchers argued that the ability to communicate effectively is recognised as a key factor that influences how individuals are perceived and the quality of their relationships with others. Antisocial and violent behaviour often accompany underdeveloped social and conflict management skills. The ability to communicate orally supports sound and psychological development. Oneself concept is acquired through interaction with others, in psychological terms achieving self-actualisation involves communication activities such as making contributions in groups, exerting influence over others and using socially acceptable behaviour. As an individual matures and become working adults, communication competence continues to be essential; communication skills are required in most occupations. In their report American’s number 1 fear: public speaking (Bruskin & Goldring, 1993), presented the results of a nation-widespread survey of adults who were asked to rank their greatest fears. The result indicated that "speaking before a group was the greatest fear among respondents” women reported more fear of public speaking than men did. Communication education helps develop the ability to communicate with an array of different types of people in different situations including peers, parents and teachers (Reed et al,1999).communication training also aids in the development of self-confidence and human relation skills (Shannon,2004). Levine (2005) wrote the following statement in support of this theme: ‘Many young adults are growing up in a nonverbal culture that makes few, if any demands on language skills. This has been considered as one of the reasons why more college students today have development problems such as difficulties in processing language or communicating verbally (both speaking and writing) an inability to focus attention or reason quantitatively and a serious lack of problem solving skills’’. As indicated, the better the communication skills, the more effective and successful people will be. The good news is that communication skills can be taught. Effective communication skills can be learned and improved through practice. When people learning effective communication skills, it is important for them to identify their areas of weakness, learn more effective ways of communicating with other people and find ways to practice these critical skills.

The second reason why we should study communication is that communication education helps improve the educational enterprise. It enhances classroom instruction and is a key to successful collaboration in the education environment. It emphasises nonverbal communication in teaching methods, many people think that most messages come from speech but on the contrary, they come from non verbal communication. Researchers in social communication noted that nonverbal communication skills are actually more important in communicating one’s emotions than verbal skills because people pay attention not just to the words that are said, but also to the way they are said. Some children are very skilled at nonverbal communication; they naturally know how to communicate their feelings using nonverbal communication and how to read the feelings of others. Other children are poor at non verbal communication. Some children may have a nonverbal learning disability which may be associated with serious social, emotional and behavioural problems with severe deficits in both expressive and receptive components of nonverbal language, these children may seem strange to the casual observer. This is so because nonverbal communication include body language and paralanguage; the former consists of gestures, eye contact, posture, facial expression, an awareness of physical distance also called proxemics and even physical appearance while paralanguage consists of everything about the way we communicate orally, except for our actual words, this includes voice tone, voice volume, voice inflection, accent and any unusual articulation differences. Each element of a child’s nonverbal behaviour sends a visual message to other children, as well as to adults. Like spoken communication, nonverbal communication is a two- way street. To improve their social success, children must learn to be aware of the nonverbal messages they send others and to read the emotional meaning behind the messages they receive. As stipulated above, effective communication does not come naturally to all as such he others can benefit from more intensive training in nonverbal communication and other social skills and some children may need more practice in certain areas than others. As children learn better nonverbal skills, many aspects of their social and emotional development can improve; by consciously controlling their own nonverbal expressions, presenters can maintain positive relationships’ with the audience while maintaining participants attention, transitions and directions. This allows educators to teach content more effectively. On the same issue about helping improving education enterprise, communication skill is an important attribute for school administrators. communication is important in order to maintain organisational success, members need to know how to communicate effectively taking into account the content and relational aspects of verbal messages and realising the importance of perceptions, positive reinforcement, active listening, flexible listening styles and nonverbal messages, these are all essential for effective communication. For example people in leadership positions like principals at school or managers at work dean of students in colleges, teachers and so many more need to have managerial skills like conflict resolution skills which can be achieved by effective communication. They also need effective communication skills in order to be able to achieve the goals they had in mind for example to inform, persuade of build relationships. The John J Heldrich centre for workforce development conducted a national survey of American workers asking them what should be done to improve education. Of 1015 adult workers, 87% rated communication skills as being very important and said that schools need to prepare people with skills and attitudes that are important to workplace success such as communication skills and critical thinking skills. Communication skills are also essential to successful research scientists. Researchers must be trained in the art of communicating the results and conclusions of their research orally and in writing. Skills in oral representations can be enhanced by giving them a chance to rehearse before small group and training in the preparation and use of visual aid such as graphic and text slides. Reporting results is essential because it let others know the discoveries and avoids replication of results by other researchers (Heldrich, 2000).