Teacher voice: Communication Applications is an entry level communications class. Communication with ourselves and others is the basis of building relationships and obtaining what we want in life. We learn how communication occurs and what the numerous obstacles that get in the way of successful communication. We as humans assume that if we speak others will understand us. That is a false premise. We study good listening habits and incorporate them into our daily lives, and we learn about body language or non-verbal messages. Our bodies send signals to others about how we really feel and whether we are engaged or unavailable and most of the time people are unaware they are sending these signals. We also learn how to tell if someone is lying to us by the signals, they are sending to us. We learn how to give oral presentations and we learn to overcome the fear of public speaking. In the second quarter of this class, we study job skills and create a resume, understand, and complete a job application, learn the interview process and expectations, learn interview questions and how to respond to them, we also learn to be aware of our body language and demonstrate confidence through our preparation for the interview, eye contact, and firm handshake. Students will interview each other as well as being interviewed. In completion of the interview process we will learn how to write a thank you letter to the interviewer. All of the skills, we learn are “real life” skills that you will use forever. This class is a must for the real world!

Student voice:” I never expected this class to cover so many things. Learning about body language was very helpful and it tells you tons of information about someone.” Christian.

“I overcame my fear of speaking and by the end of the semester, and I found my comfort zone.” Kindall.

“I never understood that communication takes so much effort. Once I learned the process, I began to see improvement in my relationships”. Anna

“We learned how to create great power point presentations to keep our audience engaged. This class is fun and you learn real world information and how to interact in conversations and presentations. I just wish we had this class for a full year.” Emily

I got a job! I did everything Ms. Donohue taught us and I was hired!” Jesus.

50% of this class students will be preparing and presenting oral presentations. Through the process of giving presentations, we overcome our fear of speaking. The remaining 50% is taking notes and open note tests, the study of job skills and how to become successful in the job interview and after, how to evaluate our listening ability, and studying non-verbal messages and what people are really telling us, not just what they say. The students in this class learn to be supportive of one another because each of these students is overcoming the number one fear in the world. So, we are all in this together! The end result, is a student transforms themselves into a confident presenter, knowledgeable communicator, and an effective member of society.