The English Teacher » communication

SAY WHAT YOU MEAN & MEAN WHAT YOU SAY!

theenglishteacher — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 12:25:07 +0000

I really like this phrase, and once you have mastered English conversation well you can delve into the art of it. But how do you say what you mean, and mean what you say?

Say what you mean: Sounds easy, huh? Saying what you mean is more than choosing your words and stating them. Words, after all, have at least three meanings: what you mean, what the listener thinks you mean, and the dictionary definition(s). Getting those first two meanings into alignment is the ultimate success of every speaker. One way to be clearer about saying what you mean is to think about your message from your listener’s perspective. Is the message crafted using words appropriate to the listener? You’d use different terms and jargon with someone skilled and experienced with a topic than with someone new to the information. It is up to the speaker to choose language that conveys the message and the meaning, rather than using language that makes the listener work to understand what’s being said.
Mean what you say. In order to mean what you say, you have to be very firm and certain about what message you are trying to communicate. If your message sounds like your waffling about on a topic, and you’re not, you are unfairly misleading your listener. This is no time for passive aggressive communication, hinting about hoping someone will “get” what you really mean, or outright disingenuous messages (frequently referred to as “lies”). If you don’t mean it, best keep silent.
Illustrate or demonstrate your message. Once you have said what you meant, and meant what you said, you can take one further step to enhance the understanding of your message. The simplest way to do this is with descriptive word and examples that clarify the message. Descriptive words are not necessarily big words, and they should be used to more succinctly craft your message, rather than used to show off your vocabulary. Think of the differences in a message using these terms: a drink, a cold drink, and an ice cold drink. See how the subtleties of the messages are made clearer by your choice of words. Using an example or illustration further clarifies your message, again preventing confusion and misunderstanding. Using the example from the last paragraph I could say: “I’d like something to drink, some cold water, in a large glass filled to the top with ice.”

While these three steps may seem awkward and difficult now, when you start working the concepts into every day communication, you’ll soon see how quickly your communications skills improve.

That’s right, communication is a skill, which means with practice comes improvement

Source www.leadershipturn.com

PYRAMID OF SKILLS

theenglishteacher — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:02:30 +0000

Online teaching skills

Online teachers need different skills than those normally employed by tutors trained to teach languages in a face-to-face classroom and they also require different skills compared to online teachers of other subjects. Research shows that the medium influences the form of communication and interaction. The asynchronicity of communication in written conferencing and the lack of non-verbal clues in audio-conferencing are examples of new challenges for online language tutors.

From the most basic to the most advanced, the skills that online language tutors require can be presented in a “pyramid of skills”

Read the full article www.llas.ac.uk

5 QUESTIONS ABOUT LIVE ONLINE LEARNING

theenglishteacher — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:14:49 +0000

I found this interesting article on the Myngle blog

In all press coverage Myngle got so far, all journalists wanted to know from us if language learning can be done in an effective way if your teacher is not present in the same room. Can you learn a language through live online language instruction while your teacher is on the other side of the world?

Languages have been taught in the same way for ages and ages. You go to a school or a teacher comes to your home to sit with you, always in the same room. Later on cassettes were introduced, which enabled us to listen to lessons from home or in your car. Problem here is that no teacher is involved.

Technology now allows you to learn any language from home, with live classes and real teachers. Why drive to a grey school somewhere to sit in a classroom with other students who have got all kind of different levels, while you can get private lessons from your own couch? My statement: Live online language instruction is at least as effective as ‘ordinary’ language learning or even better.

Let us take a closer look at this subject with the questions we got from journalists about live online language instruction.

1) What are the advantages of live online language instruction?

The biggest advantages are that you can do it from your own home and that you determine when you will take the lessons. No school schedules which may not match your agenda. You determine how many lessons you will take and when you will take them. If you want, you can have much more lessons per week than in ordinary courses, but you can also take your time and do it slower. Also, your teacher can tailor his or her lesson material for you to match your needs. No standard school material for all, you special demands can be met in your own lesson material.

On Myngle students have a wide choice of native teachers and even though it might seem impersonal to get private lessons from a teacher on the other side of the world, a special bond is created very soon between teacher and student. Teachers can increase their reach enormously by making use of the internet and even get the entrepreneurial feeling by completely being in charge them.

2) For which people is live online language instruction most suitable?

On Myngle we learned that anybody can find what he wants on our marketplace. People who go on holidays are taking some lessons to learn the basics, but also professional teachers find students or businesspeople in need of high quality language learning. Even language schools can fill their seasonality dips by using the internet out of season, or offer refreshment courses to past students via the platform.

On the demand side, in random order, 4 distinct sub segments with different needs benefit from live online language instruction.

Young professionals who mostly are in time constraint and want quick results find this flexible way of learning very effective.

Language passionates will be able to find people for conversational practice and benefit of the fun and social aspect.

School students can learn quickly in a cost effective way or even earn money by teaching.

Cross-culturals can keep up with their roots and their own language through conversation.

3) How long does a language lesson take and how many lessons are needed for learning a language?

One course consists of multiple lessons, and each lesson lasts 60 minutes. Myngle research shows that it is best to take two lessons a weeks. In general, people need about 30 to 40 hours to learn the basics of a language, so in 16 weeks one should be able to get the real results.

4) How do teacher and student communicate?

Myngle offers a toolkit for synchronous learning, which consists of VoIP (Skype) + own integrated whiteboard, payment systems (PayPal), feedback and a community environment.

Myngle’s feedback system is made up of comments and ratings left by students who were taught by the relevant teacher. These comments and rating are available in the public Feedback Profile of each member. Extra features will be gradually added to enrich the learning experience, such as podcasts, homework, 3D virtual reality classroom / role plays etc.

5) Why is live online language learning becoming so popular now?

The time is ripe for the expansion of the language teaching market from offline to online for a number of different reasons: free of charge high quality VoIP (Skype), high international broadband penetration and whiteboard technology are now available at mass prices. Also, the increasing success of community websites like Facebook and MySpace (or Hyves in the Netherlands) has expanded communication and social interaction beyond the restricted circle of geographical reach. Last, but most important, the internet generation is reaching now spending power and interest in language learning.

Article from the blog at Myngle, courtesy of the staff at Myngle