59. Helping Students Improve Communication Skills

Brittany 0:00

Communication. What does that mean? There are so many ways to communicate - with words, facial expressions, body language, and some ways are more powerful than others. Helping students improve their communication skills is essential for not just their academic success, but also for their personal development. Welcome to the Teaching Toolbox Podcast. I'm Brittany and I am here with Ellie.

Ellie 0:35

Hello,

Brittany 0:36

And today we're going to dive into ways to help students with their communication skills.

Ellie 0:42

Let's take a few minutes to think about different types of communication. We have, verbal communication. Verbal communication is using the spoken word and can occur in person, over the phone, or on the computer, or through some texting apps that allow for recorded text. This is probably the most common form of communication, but with all the other ways to communicate, like text messaging, messaging on social media platforms and such is verbal communication occurring with less frequency these days? Back in the day, if you wanted to communicate with a friend, you called them on the phone and spoke with them, or you saw them in person. These days, you could go for days, weeks, months, even years, communicating with someone without it being verbal communication. Effective verbal communication requires clarity, active listening, and the ability to articulate thoughts and emotions accurately.

Brittany 1:43

To talk to your friend, you used to have to call and be like, hello, Mr. Johnson. Can I talk to Becky, right?

Ellie 1:51

And to answer the phone, you had to be like, hello. This is the blah residence.

Brittany 1:55

Yeah, yeah. So next up, we've got non verbal communication, this includes body language, facial expressions, gestures, posture and even eye contact. Nonverbal communication can often express more than just the words can adding depth to the spoken message or even contradicting it. For example, maintaining eye contact, can show that you're attentive and interested in what someone is saying to you, but if your arms are crossed, it might suggest that you're feeling defensive. Being able to tune into and understand nonverbal signals can be crucial for interpreting the full context of interactions.

Ellie 2:39

There is also visual communication. This form of communication involves the use of visual aids to share information. This could include graphs or charts or images or videos, things like that. Visual communication is particularly effective when you're presenting complex information, and visual communication is widely used in our classrooms, as well as in marketing and media, in order to enhance understanding and retention.

Brittany 3:07

And then, fourthly, we have written communication. This includes any message that is transmitted through written words. This can be formal letters, reports, memos, as well as informal notes, social media, posts, text messages. Written communication does allow you more time to create a message or form a response to someone else's message, and it provides a record to refer to later. With written communication, since there's no nonverbal communication to support it it's essential to learn to be clear and precise as possible, especially in professional and academic contexts.

Ellie 3:50

Yeah ,I don't know about you, but I feel like I almost always want to hear a tone of voice when I'm reading certain text messages, like if someone says, that's fine, is it that's fine, or is it that's fine? You just can't tell

Brittany 4:05

Yeah, my two kids say, all my messages, text messages, come across angry, and I'm like, I'm not angry.

Ellie 4:13

Right? Like, I feel the need to put an exclamation point or a smiley face or something like that, to try to add some type of tone. Yeah.

Brittany 4:21

So in which of those four categories would we put American Sign Language, or any kind of sign language? Since there's different sign languages around the world. My daughter is an avid signer. She's getting her interpreter's certificate and has taken sign language for three years now. So I'm kind of curious where sign language would go.

Ellie 4:42

That's a great question. I wonder what she would say,

Brittany 4:45

Yeah, I think she might actually consider it spoken word, even though it's not spoken because to a deaf person, it is. It's their spoken word, right?

Ellie 4:59

Right.

Brittany 5:00

Yeah, but I think we would probably put it as non verbal and also visual.

Ellie 5:06

That seems to make sense. You should check with her and see.

Brittany 5:09

I'll have to ask her.

Ellie 5:10

Interesting. Thanks for bringing that up. So these days, it seems as if students and maybe adults might rely more on written communication than verbal communication when interacting with friends and family. As we mentioned, you used to have to call someone to talk to them, even to set up plans to get together, you had to verbally call them right or see them in person. But these days, we can talk using air quotes, talk all day without speaking, and we can set up gatherings through text or email, so we don't have to use that verbal communication quite as frequently.

Brittany 5:47

And often you hear people say things like they actually called me. Who does that anymore, right? Or I don't want to answer the phone.

Ellie 5:56

Right? Yeah, that's true.

Brittany 5:59

So if students are using verbal communication less frequently than in the past. How can we help them to practice effective verbal communication and help them improve their nonverbal, written and visual communication while they're in the classroom, and hopefully set them up for future communication success in school and in personal life?

Ellie 6:21

We have got eight suggestions for ways to help students improve their communication skills. First on the list is group projects and collaborative work. This not only fosters teamwork, but also necessitates clear and effective communication. Students will need to share ideas, delegate tasks and provide feedback to one another, which helps in honing their verbal and interpersonal communication skills. And depending on the group project, it might actually be helping with their visual communication as well, if they're creating something to present visually. I used to do collaborative problem solving quite often in math class, where students had to solve word problems on their own and then discuss their answers with group members, explain how they got their answers and why they thought their answer was correct. And then if different students had different answers, they had to work together, compare their work and figure out who was correct. This all really helps students learn to verbally communicate about math more effectively, and it helped their math written communication, because they were writing out responses and they were showing their work. So combination of communication types there. We also used to do novel study groups in language arts, and students had very specific roles which rotated and required some type of verbal communication and written communication.

Brittany 7:44

I think it helps to give them roles within the group, so that you have that guided participation. Maybe a timekeeper, a leader, a recorder, a materials person and so on. Have a role that has someone take accountability for making sure everyone talks, or that X amount of subject words are used in the discussion.

Brittany 8:06

A second idea is to provide public speaking opportunities. Provide regular opportunities for students to practice public speaking. This could be through presentations, debates or even storytelling sessions. Public speaking helps students organize their thoughts, articulate ideas clearly, and build confidence in addressing an audience. You might not have time for everyone to read their essay each and every time you write one, but every time you can have three to five people read. Start by picking names out of a jar, and then keep track and go from there, semi randomly pick names until everyone is gone and then repeat.

Ellie 8:51

I remember in seventh grade English, our teacher used to like pick your name out of a whatever. I don't remember if you gave a specific topic or not, but it was like, okay, picked your name, get you come up here and now you talk for a minute or two, whatever, about this topic or about anything. But oh my gosh, that was so nerve wracking. But at the same time, you know, it does make you really think and gives you good practice.

Brittany 9:20

Yeah, you can include role playing activities.

Ellie 9:24

Okay, I don't want to interrupt again, but I have to say that I always hated role playing activities. But that does not mean that they aren't helpful.

Brittany 9:32

We can use role playing activity exercises to simulate real life scenarios where students need to communicate effectively. I used role playing a lot with my back to school plans every year so that we could play out various scenarios kids would be faced with that year, like being asked to cheat, maybe being asked to use drugs, bullying scenarios. The kids usually really get into the role playing. They kind of go over the top with it. Another example is that students could role play as customer service representatives or participate in mock interviews. This helps them practice empathy, listening skills and appropriate responses in various situations.

So thinking about written communication to help students perfect their written communication, you can incorporate various writing exercises, depending on your subject area. You can assign creative writing tasks, journaling, or letter writing activities. Writing helps students again, organize their thoughts, choose their words carefully and express themselves more clearly. It also provides a foundation for improving written communication, which is equally important. In math, as I mentioned, I had students write explanations for how they solve certain problems. They had to assume that the reader did not understand the concept, and they had to break it down in writing so someone could follow their instructions to solve the problem. This also helped them use their math vocabulary more often.

I kind of did the same thing, but I did it in ELA, and I had the kids have to explain how you make toast, and I'd say, like, I'm a Martian, how do I make toast? And then I brought in my toaster and a bag of bread,

Okay.

And I would do their instructions, and they would see, like, what steps they missed,

Right! I mean, that really helps them as even as far as assigning, like it and they and that, like, take it and do this with it, like, what does it mean? Yeah, you know, if you're, are we talking about the bread or the toaster? So they have to learn that specificity and what they're referring to in order to be more clear.

Yeah, exactly. You can also teach students how to properly write an email and a text. I just saw a reel with a fed up teacher because of the emails he was receiving from his students. I'm laughing because I'm just replaying it in my head. He explained again, it was obviously that he was doing this again

okay

to them, that they had to have a subject line and opening a body and a closing, and that he wasn't a bro or a bruh, and that they they had to explain themselves. He could not understand their cryptic ideas and requests like, Move my seat. Johnny keeps licking me. It was quite hilarious.

Oh my gosh, wow. Did you write letters when you were young, like when you were growing up? Did you write physical letters to people?

Yes, yeah, and we had pen pals in second grade.

Yeah, my first couple years of teaching, we had pen pals in Bangladesh. Actually, one of the parents had set that up, so the students were writing letters and and so there was an excellent way for them to practice physically writing, writing things down, writing information, sharing information.

So to help students be good communicators you can also incorporate active listening exercises that require students to listen carefully and respond thoughtfully. For example, you could have them listen to a story and then summarize it, or engage in partner activities where they must listen and react to their partner's statements.

I'm going to interrupt you now, and I often read those worst case scenario books to my kids, and they absolutely love them, and there's a whole bunch of them, but I would read the general just the bright yellow book to them, and it had like, what would you do if you fell in quicksand, or what would you do if you met an alligator. And I would read the story to them twice the instructions and stuff to them twice, once at normal speed, and then once slightly slower. And then I would give them a one page like questionnaire about what I read. And some had like Dok one questions and others were Dok two or threes, and that really helped my kids work on their listening skills, and then, in relation their communication skills.

That sounds like fun. All right, idea number six is to incorporate classroom discussions and Socratic seminars. You can facilitate structured classroom discussions and Socratic seminars where students are encouraged to ask questions, express their opinions, and engage in respectful discussions. This helps them learn how to articulate their thoughts, listen to others, and build on different viewpoints.

I worked at a school where Socratic seminars were required from as young an age as possible. We were required to question kids and have them lead the discussions as much as possible with questions like, Why do you think it works this way? Who could affect this discovery? What would have made this better and things like that. In a true Socratic seminar, you would want the kids in a circle so everyone can make eye contact with everyone else. In the classroom a U shape is good for this. In addition to being in a circle, the teacher does not utter a word, except to tell them the topic that they're going to discuss. Instead, the students would think then about the topic reflectively for a few minutes, determine some questions they may have, and then the students then discuss and question, discuss and question, discuss and question, until they came up with a resolution or felt like the discussion had run its course. I think the younger the age of the kids, the more guidance and questioning needs to be done with them by the teacher to help them, kind of instruct on the process and how it works, so that they learn how the Socratic method works. But students are taught through this process that active listening is important, that they need to learn how to build on thoughts of others. So they need to be able to take things in, interpret them, and then grow from that. That's an important skill. And then they also learn through this that students who repeat things or give goofy responses or nonsensical responses, soon get left out of the conversation. The other kids just don't put up with it for very long. The first couple discussions, they may laugh and think it's funny or whatever, but after maybe three or four Socratic discussions. They just don't, they don't call on that kid anymore, and so that kid soon realizes he needs to kind of mature and grow up, which can be a tough realization for them, but it does help them just start the maturing process.

Yeah, that does sound tough, but it's important to realize how different responses are valued.

Yeah.

Another easy idea to help students improve communication skills is to incorporate peer feedback. You can provide opportunities for students to give and receive feedback from their peers. This could be through peer review of assignments or constructive critique sessions, learning to give and accept feedback helps students improve their communication skills and develop a growth mindset.

Would that be oral or written communication?

I think it could be either.

I agree. I think I think both works. Think it depends maybe on the situation.

I had an exercise that I really loved when I taught language arts, which was called read around groups that I learned about in this book, teaching adolescent writers by Kelly Gallagher. This exercise was a way of providing peer feedback. And in this case, students had written a piece for me, I don't remember the topic, and I collected all their papers with no names on them, so it was fairly anonymous. Then we counted off to form groups. Four to five students were in each group, and then each group got four to five of the papers. And they were given directions to label each paper with a letter and a number like 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 1B, 2B, 3B, 4B, and so on. And then each student took one of the papers and read that paper for one minute, and they got as far as they could, because some of the papers might have been two or three pages long. Other ones might have been half a page, whatever. They just read for a minute. And they got as far as they could. Then after a minute, they passed the papers within their group, and read the next one for a minute. And that continued until within their group, they had read all of the papers in that group. And then they took time to discuss the papers they had read and decide which of the papers in that group were the best, which one was the best. And then they wrote that papers letter or number on a recording sheet, and then they wrote their feedback justification for choosing it. So while they weren't necessarily giving feedback directly to one person, each student was hearing feedback about all of these papers, and theirs was obviously in there somewhere. So they were getting the feedback in there somewhere. And then the papers all got gathered and passed to the next group. And then then the process all happened again. And then after, I think it took us a couple class periods to get through all of that, when we did that, but then we would share as an entire group which ones were the best, and share the feedback and have a discussion about that. So in this case, they shared the verbal feedback with each other, and then they consolidated it into some written feedback.

That's so valuable, such a valuable use of class time. Sometimes we would read papers, and I'd have the kids read them orally in front of the class, and then I would just ask, does anybody have feedback for them? And then I would call on like three to five people to give them some oral feedback.

Yeah.

Our final idea is technology integration - using communication tools like blogs or discussion forums or video conferencing platforms in the classroom. These tools can help students practice digital communication, which is increasingly important in today's world. Encourage them to participate in online discussions or create a multimedia presentation to share with their peers.

All right, that wraps it up for today. Hopefully we effectively communicated some ways to help students that you can add to your teaching toolbox.

Please head to Apple podcast and leave us a rating or a review so other teachers like you can find us. Have a great day!

Bye.