QLK520 Communication Skills for Teachers

To cultivate a professional image as an educator, the importance of speaking and writing effectively cannot be underestimated. As an English teacher, this need is doubly vital for me—one must be a role model in demonstrating the ability to convey information clearly and compellingly. This does not mean having to assume a false accent, or to adopt any pretentious mode of speech, but about commanding attention by articulating one’s point of view convincingly. Personally, I aspire to demonstrate three qualities that characterize effective communication in both oral and written forms: accuracy, brevity, and clarity.

• Accuracy concerns the veracity of information relayed to students, colleagues, and other stakeholders. In other words, statements should correspond to the facts (or at least checked, to the best of one’s ability, that they are true and correct).

• Brevity involves succinctness, conveying no more information than is necessary to get the point across. In practice, this means cutting out verbose and extraneous material.

• Clarity demands that one says exactly what one means. The point is to speak and write as simply as possible without being simplistic. To this end, the use of technical jargon should be minimized when speaking to stakeholders like parents, taking into account the purpose, audience and context of the situation.

In terms of speaking, in particular, I aim to adopt a voice that is resonant, confident, expressive and pleasant. After all, speaking too softly or mumbling would render one’s speech inaudible and consequently, unintelligible. Using incorrect grammar (e.g. confusing ‘who’ and ‘whom’) is also to be avoided. Lately I have noticed that I often use certain verbal mannerisms like ‘well’ and ‘I suppose’—while this habit is not wrong in and of itself, it can sound mildly irksome if it is used excessively. Being mindful of one’s verbal idiosyncrasies would help to improve the quality of one’s communication skills. Likewise, similar principles apply to writing—it should be clear, concise, stylish and well organized. If one needs to pay attention to grammar when speaking, the need is even more evident in writing (e.g. not placing apostrophes in the wrong position). For handwritten texts (e.g. comments written on students’ scripts), one’s handwriting should also be neat and reasonably legible, while for typed texts (e.g. written communication to parents), fonts need to be mature and elegant. Such attention to detail contribute to one’s image as an effective and proficient communicator, capable of conveying meaning and sustaining the interest of one’s intended audience.

Prior to this course, I had the opportunity to develop my communicative skills (especially listening, understanding, interpreting, informing, explaining etc.) during work attachments and internships. For instance, I once served an internship in the department of corporate communications at the Singapore History Museum). Guiding visitors and guests around museum exhibits meant that I had to apply techniques of both verbal and non-verbal communication (e.g. responding to questions, using gestures for emphasis) in practical real-life situations. During meetings, it was also essential to strike a balance between ensuring that the discussion progressed briskly (by adhering to the agenda) and allowing time for all members to contribute their ideas.

During my teaching attachment, I had the ideal platform to further my skills not just in writing (e.g. compiling reports and writing proposals) but also orally in the classroom. One realization was that the use of visual aids (e.g. through ICT tools) proved to be a boon in conveying points quickly and engagingly to students, most of whom were visual learners. I learnt that different skills are demanded by different kinds of oral communication. Speaking one-on-one to a person particularly requires skills of empathetic listening, whereas reaching out to a large audience during a school assembly often entails that the speaker needs to scan the crowd and encourage participation by asking questions or employing humour to invite responses.

Much of communicating, then, is about selling, and as teachers, we are selling not products but ideas—a love of learning, a fascination with language. A key takeaway from my experience is that teaching is largely a performative activity—not that it is artificial or contrived, but that it foregrounds the transmission of meaning within the classroom as an act of representation. It does not matter whether the teacher is suffering from a bad hair day or even reeling from the loss of a loved one: as in theatre, the show must go on, and the teacher must continue to communicate effectively, to project self-confidence, to engage in an unfaltering process of meaning-making.

Link to Artifact - Sample Speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQpQJ8BkvRU