Essential Communication Skills Explained
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ScribdTranslationsEssential Communication Skills Explained
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ScribdTranslationsCOMMUNICATION SKILLS
Communicative Skills or Competences are understood as a set of linguistic processes.
that develop during life, in order to participate efficiently and skillfully, in all the
spheres of communication and human society. Speaking, listening, reading, and writing are the skills
of language. From them, we navigate through culture and society, and through their
development, we become communicatively competent.
Verbal and non-verbal language (film, music, painting, etc.), linguistic diversity, gesturality,
emotionality, the understanding of differences, the similarities between speech and writing, and the role
reading mediators lay the foundation for our ability to understand, interpret, and produce content
communicative, for the interpretation of the world, the expression of subjectivity and the exercise of
our citizenship.
There are different classifications of communicative skills. Here we present some notions.
basics.
RECEPTIVE VERBAL SKILLS
Listen
It is the ability to feel, to sensorially perceive what another person conveys, to understand the
mensaje; este aspecto permite al oyente, evaluar la importancia de lo escuchado para responder
accurately to the interlocutor; it also requires being aware of the possibilities of distortion of
the messages.
Read
Reading is fundamental in the development of communication skills and competencies of the individual.
human. As intellectual achievement, it is an essential collective good in any context
economic and social. As a cognitive function, it allows access to technological and scientific advances,
of the information. It provides the possibility to recreate and better understand reality. Reading is being able to
critically engage with the text, take a stance towards it, and assess it by integrating it into the world
own mental.
VERBAL EMISSION SKILLS
To speak
Speaking is referred to as the ability of human beings to communicate through sounds.
articulated. These sounds are produced by the vocal apparatus, which includes the tongue, soft palate,
vocal cords, teeth, etc. This property is distinctive in humans, as it is present
In different species of the animal kingdom, it is in human nature that it reaches its highest.
manifestation, to the extent that it displays a very high degree of complexity and abstraction in what
regarding the content.
Write
Written expression represents the highest level of linguistic learning, as it involves
they integrate experiences and learnings related to all language skills (listening,
speak and read) and all the dimensions of the linguistic system are put into operation (phonological,
morpho-syntactic, lexical-semantic and pragmatic.
Writing is a complex skill that requires the writer to have knowledge and skills.
verbal par excellence because it is not the word, but the nuance of the word, it is the body language of the
word. The ability to understand, re-signify, and use non-verbal communication or language
corporal, it is a powerful tool to connect with others and with the surrounding reality.
Our Kaleidoscope section is a space where we will periodically publish new tips,
notes and articles related to communication skills in their different aspects.
7 FUNDAMENTAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS
7 fundamental communication skills. Beyond each person's personality, there are many
other elements that can determine if conversations and social interactions take place
no problems or not. A good part of this has to do with communication skills, a set
skills that need to be put into practice when interacting with others so that dialogues flow
in the proper way, without giving rise to misunderstandings or creating unnecessary resistance.
The fact that developing communication skills can have an impact on many areas of life,
And that's why in this article we are going to look at which are the most important and how they affect us.
even without us realizing it.
Communication skills to enhance
These are the main communication skills that need to be focused on to
enrich personal relationships.
1. Assertiveness: Assertiveness is the core of communication skills, and it consists of the ability
to find a balance between what one wants to say and the consideration of interests and possible
vulnerabilities of the interlocutor. That is, someone who has a good level of assertiveness is able to
finding respectful ways to say something that is relevant to communicate despite it may not be
pleasant for the interlocutor, and to do so in the least painful way possible.
2. Contacto visual: El contacto visual es básico, y es el primer paso a la hora de establecer una
a face-to-face conversation that flows smoothly. Not looking each other in the eyes despite being able to
doing it (because there is visual access to the other person's face) does not only mean messing up the
opportunity to connect with someone; furthermore, it will probably create a strained atmosphere, in the
there is distrust and insecurities emerge, because it is noticeable that at least one person
consider that it is an awkward moment.
3. Adopting the perspective of the other: This communicative skill has to do with what
It is known as theory of mind, which is the ability to know at all times what others know.
subjects that are not oneself. It is an ability that appears around the age of 4,
although in some people it never fully develops, as is typically the case with
who present Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Sin embargo, más allá del hecho de saber el conocimiento del que disponen los demás en cada
moment (that is, without confusing this with what one knows oneself), it is very important to be able to
to keep in mind the motivations and interests of others during a conversation. A clear example
we find this in what the commercials do: they do not simply throw out the advantages of
what they sell, but rather they adapt their discourse to the priorities and needs that they have detected in the
they can appear, for example, if we experience a lot of nerves, so in these cases it is
It is important to train anxiety management.
5. Negotiation capacity: Putting negotiation capacity into practice does not mean getting involved in a
formal negotiation, but it occurs every time we engage in a dialogue where there is a
less than two people with partially opposing interests. It involves rejecting hostile forms of
communicate this clash of interests, and bet on keeping the focus at all times on what
both parties have in common, to reach agreements by making everyone lose something and gain something.
the time.
6. Active listening: Active listening is something relatively simple: to tend, spontaneously, to give
shows that we are listening to what the other person is saying. It involves nodding.
Every now and then, showing reactions to what the other person says, making small comments that
express interest but do not interrupt the course of the dialogue, etc.
7. Empathy: Empathy is more about what is shown and done than about what is
It consists of the ability to make the other person see that what they communicate is understood.
for us on an emotional level. For example, a person who masters this aspect of the
communication will show support to another if she says she has failed an important exam, even if
For the first one, the exams don't matter too much.