Guided Learning: Communication

Content & How to use

To get an impression of your communication skills, this guide starts with a short questionnaire about the different aspects of communication. The second website provides a complete overview of how you can actually improve your communication skills in four different steps. Finally, a hand-out is provided that explains what communication is and what types of communication there are. These three documents will help you improve your communication and teamwork skills.

1. How good are your communication skills?

After you have taken this test, you will have an indication of how well you actually communicate. This page is not only useful for the test provided, it also explains the different aspects of communication that are included in the test. This makes it easy for you to see what aspects you need to focus on to improve your communication skill. Take the test!

2. Effective communication

We say one thing, the other person hears something else, and misunderstandings, frustration and conlficts ensue. This can be due to the process as described in the figure. The other person might encode decode your message differently. There are several barriers to effective communication.

Effective communication is more than just exchanging information: it requires active participation in a conversation. To learn how to communicate in both an active and effective manner, you can go through the four steps provided in this article: Read the article.  If you want to improve your skills even further, check out the related articles at the bottom of the website. 

3. Hand-out on interview techniques

This hand-out not only provides an explanation of how communication works, but also gives information on how to make conversation. In a few simple steps this document teaches you how to steer a conversation to allow it to be effective for all the people involved. Towards the end of the document interview techniques are dicussed. Go to the hand-out.

A useful tip is the LSD rule, which is an abbreviation for Listening, Summarizing, Discussing. Listening is very important during an interview. Sometimes people tend to think about the following question and do not pay attention to what the person is actually saying. By summarizing what the person have said, you can ensure that you understood it right, this person gets the feeling of being listened to and it gives you some time to come up with a new question. This is where you can start discussing. Your question could be related to something the person just have said.

 

The handout shows much more tips and explains, for example, different types of questions you could ask (such as open-ended, follow-up) and in which situations these are appropriate.