Communicating effectively in spoken English in selected social contexts

Introduction: If you are currently learning English in a school, college or institute of further education, you join approximately one billion other people around the world who are engaged in the same pursuit. However, as you try to memorize proper grammar, and try to avoid the mistakes common to most students of English, you may wonder why you are learning the language in the first place. International Language: English is the fourth most widely spoken native language in the world, and in terms of sheer number of speakers, it is the most spoken official language in the world. It is the primary language used in international affairs. The English language has official status even in nations where it is not the primary spoken language. English is indisputably the primary language of global trade and commerce. In many countries, most tourism authorities and other officials in contact with the public speak English to interact and engage with tourists and immigrants. If you are in the global business world, then you know how important it is that you can communicate smoothly and efficiently with many different people from different cultures and countries around the world. This can be very difficult since there are so many customs and languages that people speak. The good news is that English is a universal language. If you want to do business everywhere from Singapore to China, you will need to make sure that your spoken English skills are up to par. Many people can speak enough to get around, make friends, and even do some business. But when it comes to doing business at the big level where there is a lot of money at stake, you cant take any risks. You need to make sure that your speaking skills are flawless. This is why its so important to concentrate on spoken English language studies.

In the old days, spoken English language studies were done in either a classroom or at home through books and tapes. The problem with the classroom is that its expensive and not necessarily convenient. If you are at work all day and you have a family to take care of or just want some time to yourself, you cant expect to spend your evenings going to classes. The problem with books and tapes is that you cant get the one on one help you deserve. You can only learn enough English through books and tapes to be a tourist and make casual conversation. The future of spoken English language studies is on the internet. By using the internet, you can work at your own pace anytime you want. You set your own schedule. When its time to study the language, you just have to log onto your computer, get onto WebEx, and put on your headset. Then you can work with a native speaker who will guide you through the language. You can work on your professional conversation skills and pronunciation. You can also sit through real time presentations on your desk top while listening to explanations from your instructor. Digital Age While progress has been made in language-translation software and allied technologies, the primary language of the ubiquitous and all-influential World Wide Web is English. English is typically the language of latest-version applications and programs and new freeware, shareware, peer-to-peer, social media networks and websites. Software manuals, hardware-installation guides and product fact sheets of popular consumer electronics and entertainment devices usually are available in English first before being made available in other languages. Higher Learning In universities and colleges in Great Britain, the Unites States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, which attract the most number of international students, the primary language of instruction is English. Most of the top business schools, medical centers and advanced-study institutes are located in North America and Great Britain, and English is the language used in every activity.

Basic Principles of Effective Communication Effective communication is the pathway to build a strong relationship but unfortunately it's so often overlooked. This article will provide some basic principles and tips for effective communication. From my experience, the three most important basic principles of effective communication are: 1. Always listen when someone is talking. 2. Make sure that it is a two way process. 3. Affirm and acknowledge results. The most frustrating thing about communication is when the person whom you are talking to is not listening to you. Before you even finish a sentence, he cuts you off. A lot of the misunderstanding and misinterpretation are caused by not listening to other party. Two way process Communication should always be a two way process. Make it safe for other to express his views. Effective communication means ideas are exchanging freely. Effective communication is about the result you get. This is perhaps the most important thing in any communication. It means the person you are communicating to totally understands your point. And you also understand his point. So to ensure that your communication is effective, you must always confirm understanding. Thats the three most basic principles for an effective communication. It sounds simple but in practice, it is perhaps the hardest principles to follow, and has to be constantly worked at.

Oral Communication While primarily referring to spoken verbal communication, typically relies on words, visual aids and non-verbal elements to support the conveyance of the meaning. Oral communication includes discussion, speeches, presentations, interpersonal communication and many other varieties. In face to face communication the body language and voice tonality plays a significant role and may have a greater impact on the listener than the intended content of the spoken words. Oral communication describes any type of interaction that makes use of spoken words, and it is a vital, integral part of the business world, especially in an era dubbed the information age. "The ability to communicate effectively through speaking as well as in writing is highly valued, and demanded, in business. The types of oral communication commonly used within an organization include staff meetings, personal discussions, presentations, telephone discourse, and informal conversation. Oral communication with those outside of the organization might take the form of face-to-face meetings, telephone calls, speeches, teleconferences, or videoconferences. Conversation management skills are essential for small business owners and managers who often shoulder much of the burden in such areas as client/customer presentations, employee interviews, and conducting meetings. For oral communication to be effective, it should be clear, relevant, tactful in phraseology and tone, concise, and informative. Spoken communication occurs in many different settings during the course of successful innovation and change. These may be divided into three main types:

The formal and informal networks in which peers exchange information, such as professional associations, work units, work teams, etc. The activities of change agents, opinion leaders, etc. The contacts established at team meetings, conferences, training courses, etc.

Use Oral Communication When:

The receiver is not particularly interested in receiving the message. Oral communication provides more opportunity for getting and keeping interest and attention. It is important to get feedback. It's easier to get feedback by observing facial expressions (and other nonverbal behavior) and asking questions. Emotions are high. Oral communication provides more opportunity for both the sender and the receiver to let off steam, cool down, and create a suitable climate for understanding.

The receiver is too busy or preoccupied to read. Oral communication provides more opportunity to get attention. The sender wants to persuade or convince. Oral communication provides more flexibility, opportunity for emphasis, chance to listen, and opportunity to remove resistance and change attitudes. When discussion is needed. A complicated subject frequently requires discussion to be sure of understanding. When criticism of the receiver is involved. Oral communication provides more opportunity to accomplish this without arousing resentment. Also, oral communication is less threatening because it isn't formalized in writing. When the receiver prefers one-to-one contact.

Forms of Oral Communication Intrapersonal Communication: Interpersonal communication is the process that we use to communicate our ideas, thoughts, and feelings to another person. Our interpersonal communication skills are learned behaviors that can be improved through knowledge, practice, feedback, and reflection. Interpersonal communication is usually defined by communication scholars in numerous ways, usually describing participants who are dependent upon one another and have a shared history. It can involve one on one conversations or individuals interacting with many people within a society. It helps us understand how and why people behave and communicate in different ways to construct and negotiate a social reality. While interpersonal communication can be defined as its own area of study, it also occurs within other contexts like groups and organizations. Interpersonal communication includes message sending and message reception between two or more individuals. This can include all aspects of communication such as listening, persuading, asserting, nonverbal communication, and more. A primary concept of interpersonal communication looks at communicative acts when there are few individuals involved unlike areas of communication such as group interaction, where there may be a large number of individuals involved in a communicative act. Individuals also communicate on different interpersonal levels depending on who they are engaging in communication with. For example, if an individual is communicating with a family member, that communication will more than likely differ from the type of communication used when engaged in a communicative act with a friend or significant other.

Overall, interpersonal communication can be conducted using both direct and indirect mediums of communication such as face-to-face interaction, as well as computer-mediatedcommunication. Successful interpersonal communication assumes that both the message senders and the message receivers will interpret and understand the messages being sent on a level of understood meanings and implications. Interpersonal Communication: Interpersonal communication is the process that we use to communicate our ideas, thoughts, and feelings to another person. Our interpersonal communication skills are learned behaviors that can be improved through knowledge, practice, feedback, and reflection. It can involve one on one conversations or individuals interacting with many people within a society. It helps us understand how and why people behave and communicate in different ways to construct and negotiate a social reality. While interpersonal communication can be defined as its own area of study, it also occurs within other contexts like groups and organizations. Interpersonal communication includes message sending and message reception between two or more individuals. This can include all aspects of communication such as listening, persuading, asserting, nonverbal communication, and more. A primary concept of interpersonal communication looks at communicative acts when there are few individuals involved unlike areas of communication such as group interaction, where there may be a large number of individuals involved in a communicative act. Individuals also communicate on different interpersonal levels depending on who they are engaging in communication with. For example, if an individual is communicating with a family member, that communication will more than likely differ from the type of communication used when engaged in a communicative act with a friend or significant other. Overall, interpersonal communication can be conducted using both direct and indirect mediums of communication such as face-to-face interaction, as well as computermediated-communication. Successful interpersonal communication assumes that both the message senders and the message receivers will interpret and understand the messages being sent on a level of understood meanings and implications.

Small Group Communication: Communication in small groups is interpersonal communication within groups of between 3 and 20 individuals. This generally takes place in a context that mixes interpersonal interactions with social clustering. A small group can be defined as more than three people and (depending on the definition) 12 to 15 and as many as 20 people. If made up of 2 or more than 12, 15, or 20 then it is not a group. There are different definitions as to how many make up a small group. Types of group The types of small group communication depend on the purpose of the group. Task oriented groups are created for business, clubs, teams, organizations, union, charity, and religious groups. Task oriented groups have a purpose of generating ideas, solving problems or promoting a cause. The most common group is social. It consists of friends who get together and enjoy each others company. The communication needs are different from the needs of other groups. Seminar groups are usually for education. Therapy groups are organized to help with the management of mental health issues and challenges. The interaction, positive peer pressure, support and communication make it easier to cope with day to day mental or emotional provocations. Blocks to Effective Small Group Communication: The obvious block is a failure to communicate. Because small group communication is focused on a job to be done, any failure to be focused on that purpose will block effective communication. These blocks to effective small group communication often result from putting individual needs, desires or wants over the importance of the job to be done by the small group. Personality patterns that cause the failure are often typical.

Aggressors These will often put their needs and wants over the goal of the small group.

Defeatists Defeatists do not have faith in the ability of the group to succeed. They will paint themselves as realists. They are often pessimists and unable to think outside the frame of defeat.
7

Class Clown The clown types have a need to entertain. They may want to entertain them selves or others. Either way, their need to clown around is more important than the job to be done.

Storytellers Storytellers have their own agenda of sharing. In nursing school, the story tellers had relatives who had virtually every disease we discussed in class. It was amazing how many relatives they had and that the student was even alive to share the story. As to the job to be done, they rarely can tell why the story has any relevance to the purpose of the group.

Controller Those controllers who are not assigned as the leaders will want to dominate and run the show more than they want to fulfill the job to be done.

Public communication Also known as Public Speaking is the process of speaking to a group of people in a structured, deliberate manner intended to inform, influence, or entertain the listeners. It is closely allied to "presenting", although the latter has more of a commercial connotation. In public speaking, as in any form of communication, there are five basic elements, often expressed as "who is saying what to whom using what medium with what effects?" The purpose of public speaking can range from simply transmitting information, to motivating people to act, to simply telling a story. Good orators should be able to change the emotions of their listeners, not just inform them. Public speaking can also be considered a discourse community. Interpersonal communication and public speaking have several components that embrace such things as motivational speaking, leadership/personal development, business, customer service, large group communication, and mass communication. Public speaking can be a powerful tool to use for purposes such as motivation, influence, persuasion, informing, translation, or simply entertaining. A confident speaker is more likely to use this as excitement and create effective speech thus increasing their overall ethos.

The objectives of a public speaker's presentation can range from simply transmitting information, to motivating people to act, to simply telling a story. Professional public speakers often engage in ongoing training and education to refine their craft. This may include seeking guidance to improve their speaking skills such as learning better storytelling techniques, for example, or learning how to effectively use humor as a communication toolas well as continuous research in their topic area of focus. People who speak publicly in a professional capacity are paid a speaking fee. Professional public speakers may include ex-politicians, sports stars and other public figures. In the case of high profile personalities, the sum can be extraordinary. Public speaking and oration are sometimes considered some of the most importantly valued skills that an individual can possess. This skill can be used for almost anything. Most great speakers have a natural ability to display the skills and effectiveness that can help to engage and move an audience for whatever purpose. Language and rhetoric use are among two of the most important aspects of public speaking and interpersonal communication. Having knowledge and understanding of the use and purpose of communication can help to make a more effective speaker communicate their message in an effectual way. Effective Public speaking Effective public communication can manifest itself in different ways. Public speaking in any form is considered public communication. This can be a school assembly, a business meeting or a presidential speech. Mass media, the use of TV, radio, newspaper or any other mass-produced medium, is another type of effective public communication. The purpose of effective public communication differs based on the intention of the message. For example, a public relations representative might use mass media to repair a companys public image after an alleged scandal breaks out. In this situation, effective public communication is intended to inform the public. On the other hand, a billboard's intention is to entice an audience to buy a product or service. Effective public communication is used to inform, educate, persuade and inspire the audience. Effective public communication must refrain from biased words, philosophies and ideologies. For example, when the prime minister is making a speech, his words and thoughts need to be portrayed in a universal way so that one group does not feel isolated or left out. Effective public communication keeps statements generic and neutral to gender, race and religious beliefs.

Conclusion Communication is the process of sharing information, thoughts and feelings between people through speaking, writing or body language. Effective communication extends the concept to require that transmitted content is received and understood by someone in the way it was intended. The goals of effective communication include creating a common perception, changing behaviors and acquiring information. The context of communication improves its effectiveness. Context takes into consideration the age, region, sex and intellectual abilities of the recipient. It is also useful to assess receptivity and the emotional state of the sender and receiver at the time of communication. For teacher, communication is very essential. For everyone, or student focusing on what is important and paying no attention to things that would distract, that will make the communication all the more effective. In any field better communication helps to sort out things, solve problems, dispels misunderstandings. If we can improve our standard of life by improving communication skills, it would be better for us to strive to develop it. About communicating in English language effectively, we are in world now where English is the most spoken language not only in the country but all over the world. In order to communicate one need to learn English otherwise it can become really hard for a person especially if he or she is travelling. Communication in any field, whether it be professional or personal life, is very important. The mode of communicating should be similar other wise things can get difficult. Since English is an international language, it is easier for a person to learn it and understand it for proper communication. Students all over the world try to take English as one of their main subjects because now trends have changed and people have realized how important it is for us to learn English in order to communicate properly.

10

References: Byrne, D. (1986). Teaching Oral English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Canale, M. (1983). From Communicative Competence to Communicative Language Pedagogy. In Richards, J. Schmidt, R. (eds). Language and Communication. London: Longman. Clyne, M. (1991). Immersion Principles in Second Language Programmes - Research and Policy in Multicultural Australia. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Vol. 12: 1 and 2, 55-65. Crystal, D. (1977). Advanced Conversational English. London: Longman. Wood,J.T (2009 ). Communication in our lives ( 4th ed ).Belmont,CA; Thomson-Wadworths

11