Structure
1 Introduction
2 Objectives
3 Communication: The Concept
3.1 Elements of Communication
3.2 Process of Communication
3.3 Functions of Communication
3.4 Barriers to Communication
4 Types of Communication
5 Educational Communication
5.1 Characteristics of Effective Teaching Strategy
5.2 Communication for Enhancing Children’s Competencies
5.3 Teacher-Pupils’ Communication
INTRODUCTION
Communication verbal as well as non-verbal plays a vital role in the life of a human
being. This has even greater significance for a teacher who has to interact everyday with
the students in the classroom and out side it. The success of any instructional activity
depends upon the quality of communication between the teacher and the students. It is
therefore important for a teacher to know and understand the process of communication.
In this unit an attempt has been made to define communication as a concept, discuss its
process and elements. The types of communication which help a teacher to interact with
students individually and in group and address large gatherings effectively have been
discussed in this unit. The barriers to communication have also been highlighted. The
information provided in this unit will help teachers to overcome these barriers and transmit
knowledge effectively.
2 OBJECTIVES
The study of this unit will enable you to:
l define the concept of communication;
l describe the elements, process, functions and barriers in communication;
l explain the different types of communication; and
l discuss the importance and implications of communication for primary education.
3 COMMUNICATION: THE CONCEPT
The word ‘communication’ is derived from Latin word ,’communis’ meaning commonness
of experiences. However, communication cannot be defined through a single definition.
Different people perceive it in different ways in different contexts. Communication has
heen described as “the transfer of conveying of meaning” (Oxford Dictionary), transmission of stimuli (Colin Cherry),’ ‘one mind affecting another’ (Claude Shanon); ‘the mechanism
through which human relations exist and develop, or sharing of experience on the basis of
commonness (without Schramm).
Communication involves interchange of meaning among individuals. This occurs mainly
through verbal and non-verbal symbols, such as language, gestures – a shrug of the
shoulders, a nod, facial expressions and actions. Same cultural context makes
communication easier because words essentially represent what members of a society
decide it would stand for. The knowledge of these symbols, signs and meanings is essential
for effective communication. For example, let us take a simple word like ‘chair’. To some,
it may be a thing to sit on, however, in certain other contexts, it can denote a desired
position. Thus we realize that pattern system of communication are influenced by socio-cultural-political and economic contexts. Depending on the environment or surroundings
in which communication takes place, it can be defined as a process of sharing or exchange
of ideas, information, knowledge attitudes or feeling among two or more persons to elicit
the desired/intended response.
3.1 Elements of Communication
Communication is a dynamic process involving active interaction between sender and
receiver and variety of inputs. Effective use of communication in a classroom situation
between teacher-pupil or pupil-pupil can accelerate the pace of actions. Following are the
elements of communication:
– Source
– Message
– Channel
– Receiver
– Feedback.
The Source: Source is the communicator. S/he encodes the purpose in the form of a
message, to pass it on to receiver and also decides the medium-channel to use for
communication.
The Message: Message may be an idea, information or attitude. It can be purposive or
non-purposive. Messages drafted for achieving the specific behavioural objective are
purposive. Messages with no intention to influence the behaviour are formed as
non-purposive. For effective communication, the messages should be short, precise and in
simple language. Clarity of message and style of presentation can enhance the effect of
communication.
The Channel: The channel for communication is a medium, a carrier of information from
the source to receiver and vice-versa. This may be verbal, non-verbal, written, printed,
visual etc. TV, Radio, newspaper, etc. are used as means for mass communication.
The Receiver: The receiver is recipient of the message. In the case of mass media, the
readers, viewers and listeners are the receivers. In a classroom situation, the teacher is the
source, the message is the instruction/lesson and pupils are the receivers.
The Feedback: Receiver’s response to communicator’s message and vice-versa is termed
as the Feedback. Feedback is quick in face-to-face communication. This may be verbal or
non-verbal. Receiver’s feedback to the communicator becomes a stimulus for him/her.
This provides an opportunity to gauge the effectiveness of communication and helps in
improving the quality of further communication when needed.
3.2 Process of Communication
Communication is a necessary condition for growth and transmission of cultures, the
continuity of societies and the effective functioning and control of social groups.
The process of communication involves interaction between the communicating individuals.
In education communication the response (feedback) evoked in the receiver (learner)
becomes a stimulus for the communicator (teacher) to which s/he responds. Thus, in faceto-face communication, the source (teacher) and receiver (teacher-student) are at once
both response and stimuli. This process continues between the players (source and receiver)
in conversation game in which a number of intervening variables such as individual
differences, levels of perception, motivation level etc. are involved.
Source Receiver
Another important feature of communication is that the recipient (teacher) infers from the
behaviour of communicator (pupils), what idea or feeling the other person is trying to
convey. S/he then reacts not to the behaviour but to the inferred idea or feeling. The other
person then reacts to his/her response in terms of his/her inference of the idea/feeling and
the meaning behind it.
Communication accomplishes its purpose accurately if the message is interpreted in the
same way by the communicator and by the recipient of the communication.
Communication depends on the comprehension and communication skills of the individuals.
Interpretation of meanings: Meanings exist in the minds of people. Interpretation of
meaning depends upon the past experience, present circumstances and psychological state
of an individual. Meanings depend upon present context both (i) verbal and (ii) non-verbal and also on syntactical arrangement of words.
For example: Child’s first book
First child’s book.
You would have noticed that the meaning is changed when the same set of words are
arranged in a different manner. Thus, every word occurs in the context of other words and
the meaning of a word depends upon the pattern of these words. When these are not
supplied, the individual will provide his/her own internal verbal context, (it can represent
- person and objects) the inference and meaning of responses would differ accordingly.
Therefore, in a classroom situation, it is important to simplify and clarify the concepts so
that students derive the same meaning as put forth by the teacher.
10.3.3 Functions of Communication
Communication is at the root of all social actions and interactions. Thereby it functions as
a tool that creates understanding and facilitates collective living. Some of the functions of
communication in a social system are given below:
i) Information: Information serves as a resource for socio-cultural and economic
development . Communication provides information (both past and present) about
environment for wider utilisation by people. Access to information enables people to participate in and make decisions on social issues as well as issues safeguarding their own interest. - ii) Instruction: Communication acts as a tool to instruct, educate and socialize the members of society at all the stages in life. Communication provides people an enormous amount of knowledge, expertise and skills to become useful members of a society. Besides creating awareness, it guides people and provides opportunities for participating in public life effectively.
- iii) Entertainment: Entertainment plays an important role in human lives by revitalizing them. Communication in the form of pictures, films, music dramas, dance, literature, sports, games teaches a great deal about life to human beings even while entertaining them.
- iv) Persuasion: Persuasion helps in reaching decisions on social, economic issues/policies to make the process of governing or control easier. The art of persuasion can save many lives when used constructively. Advertising, selling, negotiating in mass media, peace talks at international level are the examples of persuasive aspect of communication.
- v) Debate and discussion: These provide different viewpoints on issues of public interest and help in arriving at a general agreement on related matters. In a healthy discussion, each participant has the right to express his/her point of view and no one is under pressure to toe a certain line.
- vi) Cultural Promotion: Communication is used to transmit the culture to successive generations for preservation and promotion. This can be done through traditional means of communications as well as through mass media.
- vii) Integration: By providing knowledge/information about individuals, groups or cultures to one another, communication helps them to understand and appreciate each other’s ways of life. This develops tolerance towards each other. However, if used negatively, communication can also be a great disintegrating tool. For example, misinformation about a certain class, caste or religion can lead to friction and mistrust in a society.
- 3.4 Barriers to Communication
- You have read in sub-section 10.3.1 that there are many elements of communication and
- a message has to pass through various stages from the source to the receiver(s) and vice
- versa. These may cause a number of interruptions and distortions in the way of effective
- communication. Sillars (1988) discussed two types of barriers that usually distort the
- flow of communication, and these are discussed below:
- l Barriers due to the senders and receivers
- l Barriers due to the external factors.
- a) Barriers due to the senders and receivers: The act of communication between senders and the receivers may break because of lack of understanding between each other, poorly defined objectives, failure to comprehend the language used, or both the sender and the receiver may not be clear about what to communicate and so on. The receiver (pupil) may not understand the message as intended by the source (teacher or communicator). Similarly, defensive or rigid attitude, situational misunderstanding, unfounded certainty, etc. are some other factors which can affect communication among the participants. The personality characteristic’s such as – aptitude, attitude, interest, motivation, and experience of an individual also influence the effectiveness of communication. Similarly, the hidden distractors, such as tension, frustration, anxiety, etc., among students can also decrease the impact of educational communication. You, as a teacher (source), cannot force a pupil (receiver), to learn unless he or she is mentally ready to receive educational message or has the necessary pre-requisites and study skills to grasp it. Another barrier of effective communication can be receiver’s indifferent behaviour and lack of sufficient motivation. The participants may not be ready to receive information and willing to actively participate in its transaction. This can be because of various intervening variables.
- b) Barriers due to the external factors: Certain external factors such as, various type of noises caused by plying of vehicles, sound of type-writer, conflicting messages, poor printing impressions, poor reception of the audio-video programmes, etc., may distort communication between the sender and the receiver. Technical interruptions too can create a lot of distortion in the communication process. Poor maintenance of equipment, substandard tools, defective receiving sets, weak transmission waves, etc., inhibit effective communication. At times, it is difficult to avoid barriers between the source and the receiver. However, these can be minimized by taking special care at the stage of planning and developing the instructional materials. Strategies to minimize barriers: The following steps can be used to overcome some of
- the barriers in communication:
- l use of different teaching arrangements;
- l use of easily comprehensible language;
- l selection of appropriate medium; and
- l appropriate timings for communication.
- The interference of some of the barriers can be reduced to a large extent if the sender/ source understands the process of communication. Communication can be effective when:
- i) both the parties (teacher-pupil) involved know that communication need to be attended to. Both should take initiative in sharing information.
- ii) both the parties recognize each other’s communication signals, i.e., they should understand each other’s language.
- iii) both the parties should engage jointly in a purposeful communication act.
- iv) Communication is for an outcome – the participants should display the communication specific intended behaviour. Information must be successfully shared so that a tangible outcome can be displayed.
4 TYPES OF COMMUNICATION
Communication is mainly of four types, namely:
a) Intrapersonal Communication;
b) Interpersonal Communication;
c) Group Communication; and
d) Mass Communication.
Each type has its distinctive features. Yet they are all much alike in the sense that in all
these, a person enters into a meaningful relationship with oneself or others.
a) Intrapersonal Communication
It refers to communication that takes place within a person. It is like talking to oneself,
listening to oneself and relating with oneself. Intrapersonal communication is important in
contemplating, conceptualizing and formulating our thoughts or ideas before we actually
arrive at a decision or initiate communication with others. The teacher can take advantage
of this skill to organize himself/herself.
b) Interpersonal Communication
This form of communication takes place between two individuals. It may be formal or
informal and can take place anywhere by means of words, sounds, facial expressions,
gestures and postures. In interpersonal communication, the face-to-face interaction between
two person involves both sending and receiving messages. This is considered as ideal and
effective communication situation because one can get immediate feedback and many
points can be clarified and emphasized through expressions, gestures and voice. It is
easier to influence the other person and persuade him or her to accept one’s point of view.
The proximity between the sender and receiver in interpersonal communication has
emotional appeal too; it can motivate, encourage, and coordinate work more effectively
than any other form of communication.
c) Group Communication
Group communication is an extension of interpersonal communication where more
than two individuals are involved in exchange of ideas, skills and interests. Groups provide
an opportunity for people to come together to discuss and exchange views of common
interest.
Communication in a group, small or big, serves many goals including collective decisionmaking, self-expression, increasing one’s effect, elevating one’s status. and relaxation.
Group communication is considered effective as it provides an opportunity for direct
interaction among the members of the group, it helps in bringing about changes in attitudes
and beliefs. Group communication has limitation too, as group interaction is time consuming
and less effective, especially in an emergency. Besides, imbalances in status, skills and
goals, may distort the process and the outcome of communication sharply.
You would read in detail about communicating with students in a group (classroom) in
sub-section 5.3.
d) Mass Communication
Communication with large number of audiences is termed as mass communication. In
mass communication, mechanical devices are used to multiply messages and taken to a
large number of people simultaneously. The channels through which this kind of
communication takes place are referred to as mass media. The media through which
messages are transmitted include radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, films, tape recorders,
video cassette recorders, etc. These generally operate in the form of large organizations
and networks to collect, process and disseminate information
Audience: The recipient of mass media content constitutes its audience. These may be in
is individuals reading newspapers, watching a film in a cinema hall, listening to radio or
watching television. The mass media audience is large, heterogeneous, scattered, anonymous
in character and physically separated from the communicator in terms of space and time.
Their size varies depending upon the type of media, for example, there could be millions
of viewers for TV programmes but only a few thousand readers for a book or a journal.
Since receivers of the messages tend to be unknown to one another and to the source of
those messages hence they are termed as anonymous. The audience tends to be
heterogeneous in nature as messages are sent to people in all walks of life, each person
with unique characteristics.
Feedback: Feedback in mass media is generally delayed. It is rather a cumulative response
which the source gets after a considerable gap of time. It is often expressed in quantitative
terms like: circulation figures of newspapers and magazines, the popularity of a movie at
box office, success of a book on the basis of its sales. Letters from the audience and their
participation in interactive programmes also provides feedback to media organisations. In
all such cases, considerable time and money are required to process the feedback received
from the audience. Therefore, delayed and expensive feedback is a limitation of mass
media.
5 EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATION
Education is the process of imparting/acquiring knowledge through instruction, study and
participation. Education would result in improvement/addition in knowledge, skills and
understanding. The emphasis of education is on holistic development which is positive in
nature and observable in daily life.
Teaching is an educational communication. Knowledge, skills, standards and values of
societies are imparted through subject matter. The teacher makes these desired inputs
through i) lecturing, ii) discussing, iii) questioning, iv) explaining, v) dramatising, vi)
using audio-visual aids, vii) reading, viii) demonstrating and so on.
Educational communication is purposive in nature. In a classroom situation, communication
between teacher and children is for an all round development of our future generation. In
this setting, communication for teachers is both an art and a science. An art because they
have to plan a strategy as per the needs of target groups. To communicate the desired
concepts s/he may use various techniques (drama, story telling, discussion, and so on).
It is a science because it follows a systematic process – planning, implementation continuous
and final evaluation to assess the impact for desired output i.e. holistic development of
children .The key to self-improvement is self-monitoring and correction.
5.1 Characteristics of Effective Teaching Strategy
For educational communication to be effective, a proper teaching strategy needs to be
adopted. The selection of suitable teaching strategy depends upon the task, context and
the teacher’s discretion. On the less, a good strategy: .
l captures and maintain interests;
l interprets the concepts clearly;
l encourages critical thinking;
l applies the learning in problem-solving; and
l stimulates self-learning.
For this, it is important to select and organise the material taking into consideration learners’
abilities, interests and psychological factors into mind. The sequencing of information,
i.e. moving from familiar to unfamiliar, simple to complex, general to specific and concerte
to abstract needs to be done. Utilisation of illustrations, audio-visual aids, humour, questions
use of exercises and assignments for continuous assessment increases the level of interest
of students. Short, active responses during the course of the listening facilitate a greater
degree of attentiveness and active participation by children.
5.2 Communication for Enhancing Children’s Competencies
Communication enables development of listening and speaking skills for acquiring new
concepts. While planning suitable tasks we need to bear in mind the age level and the
interests of the children. The same activity can be varied for different age groups. While
planning suitable listening speaking and comprehension activities for learners, the following
questions need to be raised:
– What type of listening activities actually go on in real life?
l What are the particular difficulties likely to be encountered by learners when coping
with them?
We would like our children to go through activities which equip them to deal with real life
situations effectively. In order to do this we have to create situations in the classroom
which are as close to real life as possible. To do this, we might need to look at:
a) Environment Clues
b) Communication in real life
c) Formal/Informal Communication.
a) Environment clues
These include the facial expressions, posture, eye-direction, proximity, gesture and tone
of voice of the speaker. In addition, related noises, visual materials such as illustrations,
diagrams or maps may be deliberately introduced to make the listening experience as
close to real life as possible.
b) Communication in real life
Communication is interrupted by various stimulus such as person, action, visuals,
happenings, etc. in the environment. In real life, stretches of heard speech are broken up
by being spoken by different people from different directions. Even when there are longperiods of seemingly uninterrupted discourse-talks, instructions, anecdotes etc., these are
often broken down into smaller units by the physical movement of the speaker – pauses,
audience reaction, changing environmental clues. More formal stretches of speech – lectures,
broadcasts, reports are usually less interrupted.
c) Formal/Informal communication
It is necessary to draw a distinction between formal and informal communication used in
most spontaneous conversations. You would have noticed a range of formality, stretching
from the extremely formal (speeches, lectures), to the fairly formal (news reading), to the
fairly informal (television interviews), to the very informal (gossip, conversations, phone
chats). As teachers, you need to be aware of these aspects to identify the special
characteristics of speech that go with the degree of formality for effective communication.
There is a distinct difference between the auditory effect of a piece of spoken prose and
that of informal conversation. The former is characterized by a fairly even pace, volume
and pitch. Spontaneous conversation, on the other hand, is jerky, has frequent pauses and
overlaps, goes intermittently faster and slower, louder and softer, higher and lower.
Hesitations, exclamations, emotional reactions of surprise, irritation or amusement are
bound to cause uneven and constantly changing rhythm of speech. Informal speech also
contains a lot of colloquial terms, which are often spontaneous.
The listener needs to develop some skills to identify the characteristics of this kind of
speech. The message of a piece of spontaneous talk is delivered much more slowly, with a
lot of repetition and irrelevant talk, than that of a rehearsed or planned speech.
In addition to preparing the activities mentioned above keeping real life aspects in view,
you can use variety of occasions in classroom to impart the skills of listening for i) main
ideas, ii) important details, iii) sequence of events.
In this context, let us discuss two types of problems that have been identified to be most
resistant for instructions:
Lack of comprehension monitoring: Many pupils tend to understand narratives,
descriptions and explanations one fact at a time, without being able to evaluate the
facts or see inconsistencies in the facts. They need to be given several such tasks,
initially as reading tasks, where their eyes can move back and forth to detect
inconsistencies. Later similar tasks can be given as listening task. The stories they
have heard, the places they have visited, the home environment, the programmes
they have been listening to on television all provide the backdrop against which they
able them to view and give meaning to the various sounds. You can specifically
develop tasks which will help children to improve some particular aspects of their
listening. Efficient, active attentive listening needs to be taught at all grade levels.
5.3 Teacher-Pupils’ Communication
Different types of communication serve different purposes. We can utilize these effectively
to facilitate teacher-pupils’ communication. Some of them are discussed in the following
lines.
i) Interpersonal Communication
You have read in sub-sections 10.4 about interpersonal communication that this is an one
to one situation. The teacher who values good rapport with children takes time to listen to
children. This is where the student and the teacher have a real opportunity to grow and to
change together. Generally, teachers say eighty percent of the words in classroom. S/he
may try to maximize informal interactions this would increase interaction amongst students
Overuse of preferred information: Many pupils tend to ignore important information
and rely excessively on the facts that appeal to them. Their attention has to be
consciously drawn to other relevant facts. Endless repetition can be avoided by challenging children to listen carefully. If additional clarification is required, the children should be encouraged to help each other. New topics, instructions and activities need to be planned carefully to correlate with the child’s attention span. Variety adds interest, renewed enthusiams and better listening opportunities in the
classroom. They should not become tedious, boring or overwhelming.
You also need to reward and commend good behaviour. Sincere statements to the class at
appropriate times might include:
l I appreciate your attention to what was taught.
l I can tell by your answers that you’re listening carefully for main ideas.
l I see that you stopped what you were doing to be ready for these directions.
Individual statement of appreciation and observation are always prized by children. Honest,
non-judgemental, positive feedback is a reward highly valued by students. These type
of comments as quite different from empty praise. It specifically tells students what the
teacher values in their task or behaviour. Children will often follow the teacher’s example
by commenting on good listening by their peers.
ii) Group Communication
Teacher-pupils communication and peer-group interaction falls under group
communication. Teachers’ skill in organization and conduction of interaction leads to
various outcomes such as sharing of ideas, opinions, information, settlement of differences,
problem-solving and so on.
Children talk and listen better in informal settings rather than in formal, impersonal settings
such settings need to be created. The length of time for which children can attend to any
communication depends in part upon the interest span and amount of time children of a
given age can remain physically inactive. The duration of group activities needs to be
carefully planned. To stimulate attentive listening, children need to be motivated.
Teacher can use the skill of stimulus variation during communication, such as change in
speech pattern (change in tone, volume or speed) of communication can make
communication more effective and useful.
Interest can be created through a range of post-listening activities which allow children to
give personal expression to what they hear – through asking questions, dramatizations, or
expressing their ideas with paper, paint and clay.
Before beginning a story, the teacher might say, “when I finish the story, let’s see if you
know what happend to the Rabbit?” Or she may stop occasionally to ask questions that
test attentiveness, as “why did the mangoes fall off the tree?” Opportunities to talk over
what they listened to or to repeat important points increase the retention of material and
give purpose to listening .