ORAL COMMUNICATION

“The house is on fire!”

(Run for your lives, call 911!)
“The house is on fire.”
(I am so happy; my insurance fraud
scheme is going better than I planned.)
“The house is on fire…again. Yeah I know. But
please don’t bother me with such problems. It’s 2
AM and tomorrow’s a workday!”
(My neighbor is such a bother. I wish he would
stop his chemistry experiments.)
• Man is a social animal.
• One of the essential activities of
the human race, communication
is the transmission of thoughts
from one mind to others. It is a
process in which people share
thoughts, ideas and feelings with
each other.
• Communication as an essential
function of civilization basically
consists of writing, reading,
speaking and listening.
• The act of transmitting messages
between a speaker and a listener
in order to be understood may be
illustrated in several stages:
1. The process starts with a
stimulus in the form of an
occurrence such as an idea, a
startling news, a disagreeable
remark or a positive comment
that activates the sensory
processes of a person who is
known as the sender.
2. The stimulus is transmitted by the
nerve fibers to the brain which in
turn recognizes the event. Its
perception is affected by the
sender’s experience, environment,
or culture. The sender’s brain
identifies the event and evaluates it
on the merit of the stimulus.
3. His thoughts are being encoded
into language symbols or words
which must be in the same
language that the listener knows
and understands.
4. This the stage where the sender is
ready to “externalize” his thoughts
into the environment by means of
using an available channel to
transmit the message.
5. Speech sounds are uttered in
proper sequences to transmit the
message.
6. The sounds containing the
message are heard and the
gestures that accompany them are
seen by the receiver.
7. The receiver now decodes from
sound to language and encodes
from thought to words.
8. The response is now carried by
the wavelengths to the first
speaker, the original source of the
message.
9. The sounds and subsequently the
language and message are heard.
The listener now evaluates them
and reacts using the same
channel in the same manner of
exchange.
THE LISTENING PROCESS
• Listening is the cognitive process
whereby we attach meanings to
aural signals.
• It is a very important area of
communication because we
spend most of our time in work
and play listening.
• Oftentimes however, we do not
listen effectively.
• Our inability to listen well leads to
misunderstanding and
miscommunication at all.
• Good listening begins with a
willingness to participate completely in
a communicative situation. It does the
following: it stimulates better
communication; it contributes to and
promotes better responses among the
members of the group; it helps you
enjoy what you hear, it assists you in
understanding what is being said, and
it enables you to react to what is said.
• There are three kinds of listening:
1. In emphatic listening, we listen
to understand the feelings and
emotions of others.
2. On the other hand, we evaluate
and form opinions about what
we heard in critical listening.
3. If we, as listeners, are required
to take part in the interaction,
then the kind of listening
involved is reciprocal.
• There are some barriers that make
us incapable of listening effectively
such as:
1. Prejudging, that is when we jump
to the conclusion that we
understand the speaker’s
meaning before it is fully
expressed.
2. Criticizing delivery and physical
appearance, when we focus on
the external aspect of the speaker
3. Listening too hard, when we
concentrate on the details we
miss the speaker’s point.
4. Intrusion of the past, which color
the way we understand a person
at the present time of
communication.
5. Drifting thoughts, when we take
too much time to fill our minds
with other thoughts while we try
to listen.