EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION:

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION:

The understanding of the various barriers to communication helps us to find out ways and means of overcoming these barriers.
American Management Association has formulated the following commandments for effective communication:
i. Clarifying ideas before communication
ii. Know purpose of your communication
iii. Understand physical and human environments of communication
iv. Consult others in planning communication
v. Take care of contents and overtones of communication
vi. Convey value of communication to the receiver
vii. Do follow up action
viii. Understand the importance of communication
ix. Your actions should be congruent with communication
x. Practice good listening – Good Listening is the basic pre- requisite for effective
communication.
LISTENING:
A close synonym of listening is hearing; hearing is any sound that goes through the auditory nerves or sound waves as they enter the ears. But hearing with understanding is listening. We should listen to understand and respond. Listening is a trait of powerful personality because this trait requires many other traits to be part of your personality like patience,calmness and openness. Good listening is a sure short solution of barriers to communication.

COMMUNICATION – THE CONCEPT

COMMUNICATION – THE CONCEPT

The best way to understand any concept is to refer to dictionary for its meaning. The English word ‘communication’ is derived from the Latin noun ‘Communis’ and the Latin verb ‘Communicare’ that means ‘to make common, to transmit, or to impart’.
In simple words, communication is the activity in which we share any idea, feeling, opinion and information between two or more persons in a way that both parties have common ground of understanding. Thus in communication three aspects are of utmost importance – transmission of message, listening/receiving of message and common understanding of message among parties involved. The transmission can be done in many manners like by words -spoken or written, by body language or signs. And understanding means that both parties receive same meaning of the desired message in their mind and that can be confirmed with the help of feedback. When understanding is achieved only then communication is complete.
Communication has been defined by many theorists:
W.H.Newman defined, “Communication is an exchange of facts, ideas, opinions or emotions by two or more persons.”
Allen Louis defined "Communication is the sum of all the things one person does when he wants to create an understanding in the mind of another it involves a systematic and continuous process.”

COMMUNICATION SKILLS – A KEY TO SOFT SKILLS
Among all the soft skills the most important is Communication Skills as adequate communication skills are a prerequisite for a range of other soft skills. Communication is a basic activity of human beings which is undertaken by us every moment apart from the time when we are sleeping. Even now while reading these lines you are indulged in communication. It is so important that we can say that the foundation of our society, family, relationships and organisation is communication. Do you think we should study, learn and be trained in an activity which is so natural and obvious to us. The answer of this question is yes. In support of this answer let’s discuss the story of Robinson Crusoe – a traveller who got trapped in a lonely island for 30 years. There was not a single human being with whom he could talk and when he came back to his country he was not able to speak as he forgot how to speak.
Thus, in order to become masters in soft skills first we have to get expertise in communication skills. Especially in tourism and travel industry where you have to continuously communicate effectively with different type of people viz. tourist, airlines people, hotel staff, guide, visa officer, taxi drivers ,transporters etc.

SOFT SKILLS - Basic Concept

 SOFT SKILLS - Basic Concept

Soft skills are also called People Skills. These are desirable qualities for certain forms of
employment that do not depend on acquired knowledge, rather they include common
sense, the ability to deal with people, and a positive flexible attitude .
According to Wikipedia “Soft skills refer to the cluster of personality traits, social graces, and
facility with language, personal habits, friendliness, and optimism that mark people to varying degrees. Soft skills complement hard skills, which are the technical requirements of a job.”
Refer to the example discussed in the beginning what differentiates the two doctors is their competency in soft skills. The doctor who was positive, caring and friendly was remembered by you as compared to the other doctor.

Examples of soft skills
•Communication skills
•Problem solving skills
•Teamwork capability
•Negotiating skills
• Self-management
• Time management
•Conflict management
•Cultural awareness
•Responsibility
•Etiquette and good manners
•Courtesy
•Self-esteem
•Sociability
•Integrity / Honesty
•Empathy
•Work ethic

Soft skills differ from context to context and vary from individual to individual perception. Also the problem with soft skills is that there is a basic assumption that they are inborn skills. But a closer examination of these skills would suggest otherwise. While some individuals exhibit these skills naturally, some learn these skills on their own through experience but for a majority of individuals these can also be acquired and nurtured over time. That's why it's so important to focus as much on soft skills training and development as you do on traditional hard skills. Soft skills help you to gain an edge in your personal life, social life as well as in your job. Many researches have proved that individuals with good soft skills are preferred more for a job than the one who lacks in soft skills.

Assimilation

Assimilation

If speech is thought of as a string of sounds linked together, assimilation is what happens to a sound when it is influenced by one of its neighbours. For example, the word ‘this’ has the sound s at the end if it is pronounced on its own, but when followed by ʃ in a word such as ‘shop’ it often changes in rapid speech (through assimilation) to ʃ, giving the pronunciation ðiʃʃɒp. Assimilation is said to be progressive when a sound influences a following sound, or regressive when a sound influences one which precedes it; the most familiar case of regressive assimilation in English is that of alveolar consonants, such as t, d, s, z, n, which are followed by non-alveolar consonants: assimilation results in a change of place of articulation from alveolar to a different place. The example of ‘this shop’ is of this type; others are ‘football’ (where ‘foot’ fυt and ‘ball’ bɔ l combine to produce fυpbɔ l) and ‘fruit-cake’(fru t + keik → frυ kkeik). Progressive assimilation is exemplified by the behaviour of the ‘s’ plural ending in English, which is pronounced with a voiced z after a voiced consonant (e.g. ‘dogs’ dɒ z) but with a voiceless s after a voiceless consonant (e.g. ‘cats’ k ts).

The notion of assimilation is full of problems: it is often unhelpful to think of it in terms of one sound being the cause of the assimilation and the other the victim of it, when in many cases sounds appear to influence each other mutually; it is often not clear whether the result of assimilation is supposed to be a different allophone or a different phoneme; and we find many cases where instances of assimilation seem to spread over many sounds instead of being restricted to two adjacent sounds as the conventional examples suggest. Research on such phenomena in experimental phonetics does not usually use the notion of assimilation, preferring the more neutral concept of coarticulation.

Approximants

Approximants

Approximants are sounds made by narrowing the oral cavity but not enough
to cause turbulence in the airstream; the airstream is said to be smooth. The
beginning sounds of lye and rye are approximants. The narrowest point in
the airstream is wider in approximants than in fricatives, but is not as wide
as it is in vowels. Approximants are more sonorant (resonant, i.e., naturally
loud) than consonants, but less so than vowels. They are like consonants in
that they typically occur before or after the vowels of syllables (see below).
English has three kinds of approximants.

Lateral 

approximants are made by touching the tongue to the alveolar

ridge while allowing the air to pass along one or both sides, as in [l]—inlack, call, and callow.

Central

 approximants are made by raising the sides of the tongue so that
the air flows along the center of the tongue, as in [r]—in rock, roll, and Rory.
[r] is regarded as an alveolar sound.

Glides (semivowels)

come in two kinds: palatal and labio-velar. Palatal glides are made by raising the tongue toward the hard palate, close to where the vowel in eat is made. The first sound of yet, yolk, and y’all is a palatal glide, represented phonetically as [j]. Labio-velar glides are made by rounding the lips and simultaneously raising the back of the tongue toward the velum,

close to where the vowel sound of ooze is made. Labio-velar glides thus have

two places of articulation—they are both labial and velar. The first sound of
wet, wall, and wink is a labio-velar glide, represented phonetically as [w].

kinaesthetic/esia

kinaesthetic/esia

(Sometimes spelt kinaesthetic.) When the brain instructs the body to produce some action or movement, it usually checks to see that the movement is carried out correctly. It is able to do this through receiving feedback through the nervous system. One form of feedback is auditory: we listen to the sounds we make, and if we are prevented from doing this (for example as a result of loud noise going on near us), our speech will not sound normal. But we also receive feedback about the movements themselves, from the muscles and the joints that are moved. This is kinaesthetic feedback, and normally we are not aware of it. However, a phonetics specialist must become conscious of kinaesthetic information: if you are learning to produce the sounds of an unfamiliar language, you must be aware of what you are doing with your articulators, and practical phonetic training aims to raise the learner’s sensitivity to this feedback.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE

Understanding a culture is like peeling an onion. It has several layers that can be peeled off to develop a keen insight of the culture. Broadly, we think in terms of following three layers:
(i) Outer layer
It is what other people associate with that culture, its visual realities:
1. Behaviour
2. Dress
3. Food
4. Language
5. Habitats
It is also referred to as the „Explicit Culture‟.
(ii) Middle Layer
It refers to the values and norms the community holds – these may be right or wrong, good or bad.
(iii) Inner Layer
It is the deepest level and understanding - it leads to the core of it. It is the key to working successfully with other cultures. The core consists of:
1. Basic assumptions
2. Rules
3. Methods of solving or coping with problems
These rules and methods become so embedded in the members who take to it much like breathing, without even stopping to think about them. It is very difficult for outsiders to recognize these. It is also known as the „Implicit Culture‟.

SOME IMPORTANT NAMES IN PHONETICS

SOME IMPORTANT NAMES IN PHONETICS

AFFRICATIVE: sound produced with full stoppage of the airstream followed immediately
by constriction.
ALLOPHONE: non-distinctive phonetic variant of a phoneme.
ALVEO-PALATAL: sound produced at the hard palate just behind the alveolar
ridge.
ALVEOLAR: sound produced at the alveolar ridge, the bony ridge behind the
teeth.
APPROXIMENTS: sounds produced when the articulators approach each other
but not so closely as to cause turbulence in the airstream; they include laterals
(the tongue touches the top of the mouth but the air is allowed to pass
along one or both sides, as in [l]); central (the sides of the tongue are raised
so that air flows along the center of the mouth, as in [r]); as well as the labiovelar
[w] and palatal [j].
ASPIRATED: consonant sound released with a puff of air.
assimilation rule: phonological rule that makes a sound similar to a nearby
sound. e.g., palatalization.
BACK VOWEL: vowel produced with the back of the tongue raised toward the
soft palate.
BILABIAL: sound produced with constriction or closure of the lips.
broad transcription: the attempt to record pronunciation without regard
to non-contrastive details. See narrow transcription.
CENTRAL VOWEL; e.g., [@]—produced with the tongue raised at the center
of the mouth rather than at the front or back.
CODA: last part of a syllable; follows the nucleus.
complementary distribution: when the allophones of a phoneme occupy
different positions in words.
CONSONANT: sound produced with complete or partial obstruction of the air
flow through the mouth. .
contrastive (also distinctive): sounds used in a language to signal differences
of meaning.
DIACRITIC: phonetic symbols used to represent fine differences in pronunciation,
e.g., the [h] that indicates aspiration.
DIPTHONG: vowel unit that begins with one oral configuration and ends
with another. 
DISTRIBUTION: specific circumstances (environments) in which a sound ocDelahunty
and Garvey
Feature changing rule: rule that changes the value of a component feature
of a sound, e.g., from stop to fricative, from non-nasal to nasal, or from lax
to tense.
Foot: a rhythmic unit consisting of at least one stressed syllable and 1-2
other syllables, typically unstressed.
Fricative: sound produced with constriction of the airstream, producing
friction.
Front vowel: vowel produced with the front of the tongue raised toward
the hard palate.
Glides: sounds, e.g., [j] and [w], that are intermediate in openness and sonority
between consonants and vowels. Also called semivowels.
Glottal: sound produced by constricting or stopping the airstream at the
vocal folds.
High vowel: vowel pronounced with the mouth in the least degree of openness.

Interdental: sound produced with the tongue protruding between the
teeth.
Labiodental: sound produced with constriction between the bottom lip
and top teeth.
Labiovelar: sound produced by raising the back of the tongue to or toward
the velum and rounding the lips, e.g., [w].
Lateral: sound produced with the tongue touching the top of the mouth
with air allowed to pass along one or both sides, as in [l].
Lax: sound produced with musculature of the mouth relatively relaxed. See
tense.
Low vowel: vowel pronounced with the mouth in the greatest degree of
openness. See high vowel and mid vowel.
manner of articulation: the kind of closure or constriction used in making
a consonant sound.
Metathesis rule: phonological rule that reverses the order of segments in
words.
Mid vowel: vowel pronounced with the mouth in an intermediate degree of
openness. See high vowel and low vowel.
Minimal pair: two words of different meaning that are phonetically the same
except for one sound, e.g., pit and bit (used to demonstrate that [p] and [b]
contrast with each other).
Monophthong: vowel unit consisting of a single segment held constant
during its pronunciation. 

Phonetics and Phonolog y

Narrow transcription: attempt to record non-contrastive details of pronunciation.
Nasal, Nasalized: sounds articulated with air flowing through the nasal cavity.
Non-Contrastive (also non-distinctive): sounds not used in a language to
signal different meanings.
Nucleus: central part of a syllable, i.e., the segment with the highest sonority.
Onset: initial part of a syllable; precedes the nucleus.
Phoneme: contrastive or distinctive sound category; distinguishes words
from each other.
Phonetics (articulatory): the study of how speech sounds are produced.
Phonological rule: a general statement about the distribution of a phoneme’s
allophones and about other phonological processes.
Phonology: the study of the ways in which a given language shapes sounds
into distinctive categories of perception and of its rules of pronunciation.
Place of articulation: the area in the mouth at which the consonantal
closure or constriction occurs.
Rhyme: the nucleus and coda of a syllable.
Rounded: vowel sound produced with the lips pursed. See unrounded.
Schwa: a mid central unrounded vowel, represented as [@].
Segment deletion rule: phonological rule that eliminates a sound from
pronunciation in a word or phrase.
Sonorant: sounds produced with a smooth airflow, allowing for a high degree
of resonance.
Stop: sound produced with full stoppage of the airstream anywhere in the
oral cavity from the vocal folds to the lips.
Tense: sound produced with musculature of the mouth relatively tight. See
lax.
Unrounded: vowel produced without lip rounding. See rounded.
Velar: sound produced with constriction at the soft palate.
Voiced: sound produced with the vocal folds vibrating.
Voiceless: sound produced with the vocal folds not vibrating.
Vowel: sound produced with smooth, unobstruction air stream through the
mouth. 

ACCENTUAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH

ACCENTUAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH

While pronouncing words, we can distinguish syllables which are articulated
with different degrees of prominence. Syllables given a special degree of
prominence may occur at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of words. A
greater degree of prominence given to one or more syllables in a word which
singles it out through changes in the pitch and intensity of the voice and
results in qualitative and quantitative modifications of sounds in the accented
syllable is known as word accent.

Languages differ from each other in the principal means by which the
special prominence of speech sounds is achieved and word accent thus effected.
One of such means is the pronunciation of a syllable in a word with greater force
of utterance as compared with that of the other syllables of the same word. Word
accent effected by these means is called dynamic or force stress. 

A syllable can be made especially prominent by uttering each on a different pitch level than the
other syllable or syllables of the same word. Word accent effected by these means
is called musical or tonic accent. A syllable becomes more prominent when its
vowel is pronounced longer than another vowel or other vowels of the same
timbre. Word accent effected by these means is called quantitative accent. In
most languages stressed syllables are made prominent by the combination of
several all the above mentioned means. Scandinavian languages make use of both
dynamic stress and tonic accent in a more or less equal degree. 
Word accent in English, German, French, Russian, and Ukrainian is traditionally considered to be
predominantly dynamic. Some oriental languages such as Japanese, Chinese,
Vietnamese as well as some African languages are regarded as having exclusively
or predominantly tonic word accent. In Japanese the sound sequence [hana] when
said with even tone, means “nose”, when higher tone on the first syllable –
“beginning”, when higher tone on the last syllable – “flower”.

Recent investigations of the acoustic nature of word accent in English and
Russian have shown that word stress in these languages is effected rather by
creating a definite pattern of relationships among all the syllables of every
disyllabic or polysyllabic word. From a purely phonetic point of view a
polysyllabic word has as many degrees of stress as there are syllables in it. 
The majority of British phoneticians distinguish three degrees of stress in English.
They call the strongest stress primary, the second strongest stress – secondary,
while all the other degrees of stress are called weak. 
The distinction between secondary and tertiary stresses is very subtle. The result is that the discrimination of these two degrees of stress syllables in particular words is a subjective matter and even phonetically trained linguists sometimes differ from each other in this respect.

Different types of word accent are distinguished according to its position.
From this point of view we can speak about fixed (ліс – лісу) and free (рука –
руку) word accent. Fixed word accent is characterized by the fixed position of
stress (French, Italian, Polish, Latin). Free word accent is characterized by the fact
that in different words of the language different syllables are stressed. Free word
accent has two sub-types: constant which always remains on the same
morpheme in different grammar forms of a word or in different derivatives from
the same root (wonder, wonderful, wonderfully); shifting accent is one which falls
on different morphemes in different grammatical forms of a word or in derivatives
from one and the same root (history – historical; active – activity; вовк – вовки).
Accent performs three basic functions:
1) constitutive, because it organizes a word as a complicated sound unit;
2) recognitive, as it helps to recognize words;
3) distinctive for it helps to distinguish words and their grammar forms
(import – import; produce – produce; perfect – perfect). It also helps to
distinguish compound words from word-combinations. 

In spite of the fact that word accent in English is free, the freedom of its
incidence is restricted by certain factors that determine the place and different
degrees of word accent. 
1) recessive tendency (tending to move away) – results in placing the
word accent on the initial syllable under the influence of the
Germanic tendency to stress the first syllable. Many English words
are of the Germanic origin (Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian). E.g.
father, mother, brother. Under the influence of this tendency words
of the Romanic origin (French) illustrate this tendency as well;
2) rhythmical tendency has caused the appearance in borrowed words
of many syllables of a secondary stress separated from the word
final principal stress by one unstressed syllable. E.g. the word
“radical” was borrowed from French. Later the word received the
recessive stress. Gradually the stress on the last syllable began to
weaken because it was contrary to the strong English tendency to
place the word accent on the fist syllable. This is an example of a
historical or diachronical rhythmical tendency. Nowadays there is a
genuine rhythmical stress in word of four or more syllables (e.g. in
the word “celebration”);
3) retentive tendency consists in the retention of the primary accent in
word derivations. E.g. norm – normal; person – personal;
4) the semantic factor plays an important role in the accentuation of
certain categories of words. For example in prefixed words in which
the prefix lost its meaning (become, before, behind, forever) the
stress falls on the root of the word, but there are words with prefixes
which have their own meaning. In such words the semantic factor
cancels the rhythmical tendency. The same is true with compound
words in which both elements are considered to be of equal
semantic importance. 

What we know about motivational teaching & Inspiring teaching

What we know about motivational teaching &  Inspiring teaching

Many of us can remember a teacher at school who inspired us to learn, who changed our relationship to a subject, and who persuaded us to invest effort in learning it, inside and outside school. In the era of communicative language teaching, there is plenty of published advice for practitioners on how to
make classes stimulating, and there is also an emerging line of research that examines the motivational strategies that teachers use in class. But genuine competence in a foreign language only develops through sustained effort over many years, and we need to know what kind of teaching can inspire such a lasting commitment.  I will then consider what value the results may have for Indian teacher educators, in particular by considering whether there are generalisable and transferable teacher qualities that underlie inspiring teaching, and if so, how trainers can help teachers become inspiring.

Given the huge amount of research that has been conducted on second language (L2) motivation in
the last 50 years, it is,‘hard to believe that until the mid-1990s there had been no serious attempts in the L2 literature to design motivational strategies for classroom application’ (p. 105). Researchers’ attention in the past tended to focus on the level and type of motivation that the learners brought to class – for example, whether their motivation was mainly intrinsic or extrinsic, or whether they had positive attitudes to the people and culture whose language they were learning. This emphasis is all the more surprising considering that a common complaint of teachers the world over is that their pupils lack motivation to learn an L2 in school.

While the interest in learner motivation continues, there is now a new research initiative underway that examines how learners’ motivation may change, and in particular how teachers can promote it. In his pioneering book Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom,  The methods that teachers can use to motivate learners:
1. creating the basic motivational conditions, e.g. through building a pleasant classroom
atmosphere
2. generating initial motivation, e.g. through ensuring the learners all have their own goals for
learning the L2
3. maintaining and protecting motivation, e.g. through giving enjoyable tasks in class
4. encouraging positive retrospective self-evaluation, e.g. through giving timely and constructive
feedback.

Valuable as this research is, an important element is missing. that ‘there is a critical difference between “motivating” students and “developing their motivation”’
A teacher might successfully get learners to do what (s)he wants them to do in class, by carrot or stick, i.e. by providing pleasurable experiences, or by threatening dire consequences if they do not obey. But unless the learner internalizes this motivation, it is unlikely that they will continue to put effort into learning English after the course. Learning a language is a long-term endeavour, and for most young people it requires a great commitment of time and overcoming many obstacles – especially, perhaps, in the state-school systems of developing countries, where official provision of English is limited in resources and time. Thus, one might argue that a truly motivating teacher is one who anticipates this future, and inspires their pupils to learn when they are no longer there.

Communication via technology

Communication via technology

Netiquette issues

Netiquette is a form of on-line etiquette that users of on-line
computer communication are expected to conduct themselves. For
positive communication environment to occur, it is essential that
people maintain awareness on how they are communicating online.
This means paying more attention to the way things are said,
especially when feedback is being given.
·  One breach of netiquette occurs when people begin arguing,
accusing, and insulting each other on-line. Referred to as
flaming some situations can unfortunately get quite nasty.
Flaming can often start with a simple misunderstanding in
communication that gets blown out of proportion or when an
individual deliberately insights a problem that results in conflict.
·  Another netiquette issue that is important to be aware of is the
use of upper and lower case text. Generally upper case text is
viewed as shouting as if someone is angry or annoyed.

Communication issues on-line

It is essential for individuals to always be aware that they are
communicating with people not computers. Communicating
through technology is more complex than face-to-face situations
requiring more attention to social interactions. Social problems
often occur because many people when using electronic
communications will expect it to be the same as if they were
communicating face to face.
·  One problem found with text-based computer-mediated
communication is that participants seemed less aware of how
their interactions can affect others on-line. This is described as a
‘decreased awareness of audience’. This makes it important for
individuals to always be aware of how they are communicating
and interacting with others on-line.
·  In other situations learners (users) will believe that the message
they sent is perfectly clear and it will result in an expected
response. However, difficulties arise when users of electronic
communication make incorrect assumptions about what they
believe is being said. This can occur irregardless if the user is
experienced or inexperienced with e-mail or other forms of
computer-medicated-communication.

Studying and learning foreign languages

Studying and learning foreign languages

There has been in the teaching and learning of ‘modern’ foreign languages a tension
between learning/acquisition for communication purposes and the study of languages. this
applies to language itself, and as such is well known, but it also applies to the learning and
study of cultures. the tension is felt above all in the classroom of institutions offering general
education, and can be seen as part of the bigger question of the relationship of ‘education’ with
‘the real world’. on the one hand, there is a demand that education should ‘prepare for the
real world’; in language and culture education this means the world of communication with
people of other languages and cultures. on the other hand, there is a belief that education
is a world in itself, that it has its own demands and purposes which are equally important; in
language and culture education this means the study of language and languages as a human
phenomenon – and similarly of culture and cultures. the study of language and languages
has a stronger pedigree than the study of culture and cultures because linguistics as a
discipline and the study of grammar in particular has a long history, whereas anthropology as
a discipline and the study of the ‘grammar’ of everyday living is much more recent and has not
been part of the training of language specialists. the pendulum swings back and forth between
‘study’ and ‘learning/acquisition’ and the latter has become dominant not least because of
the evident opportunities for communication in ‘the real world’ arising from mass mobility of
different kinds, ranging from tourism to economic migration – both of managerial elites in the world
of commerce and of workers and an underclass in industries and services. every policy statement
about language education, whether international or in national curricula, or even
 in the explanations schools and universities give to students and their parents, now refers
to the importance of ‘communication’ and ‘communicative competence’. this has been
the case since the 1970s when the notion of communicative competence was taken over from
the analysis of first languages and first language acquisition by those teaching second or foreign
languages. It was assumed that to be proficient in communication it was not only necessary
to have grammatical competence but other competences too and that the ideal was for the learners to strive after the competences which linguistics and sociolinguistics were discovering (idealised) native speakers have. the fact that linguistics and sociolinguistics tended to assume that people speak one language, thus ignoring the majority in the world who speak two or more, was a strange oversight among those interested in teaching languages since they might have been expected to notice that multilingualism is far more common than monolingualism. the list of skills and knowledge underpinning the competence of the native speaker included ‘socio-cultural competence’ 
i.e. the knowledge of a way of life in a society which individuals speaking the language of
that society draw upon in interacting with other members of the society – their knowledge of
the ‘culture’ of that society, its shared values, beliefs and behaviours. and again there was an
often unspoken assumption that learners should try to acquire the same competence as native
speakers. thus socio-cultural competence was added to the concept of communication and
communicative competence even though there was less understanding of how it should be
taught and learnt.

Teaching Pronunciation-1

Teaching Pronunciation-1

􀂙 Pronunciation teaching works better if the focus is on larger chunks
of speech, such as words, phrases and sentences, than if the focus
is on individual sounds and syllables. This does not mean that
individual sounds and syllables should never be referred to; it simply
means that the general focus should be on the larger units.

􀂙 Pronunciation lessons work best if they involve the students in
actually speaking, rather than in just learning facts or rules of
pronunciation. Many students of course feel more comfortable
learning the rules of the language, because it is less threatening than
actually speaking. However, the transfer of explicit knowledge of
rules into pronunciation practice is very limited. Teachers need to devise activities which require learners to actually speak in their pronunciation classes.

􀂙 Learning pronunciation requires an enormous amount of practice,
especially at early stages. It is not unreasonable for learners to
repeat a particular phrase or sentence twenty or fifty times before
being really comfortable with it. Unfortunately, ‘drilling’ has been out
of favor in language classes for some time, due to association with
several bad aspects of the behaviorist method of teaching. Indeed
some forms of drilling are at best a waste of time, and can even be a
hindrance to learning. However, drilling of real, useful phrases which
can actually be used outside the classroom is highly advantageous
to learners.
􀂙 Pronunciation teaching requires thorough preparation through work
on the perception of English sounds and contrasts, and the formation
of concepts of English phonology.

ELISION

ELISION 

Some of the sounds that are heard if words are pronounced slowly and clearly appear not to be pronounced when the same words are produced in a rapid, colloquial style, or when the words occur in a different context; these “missing sounds” are said to have been elided. It is easy to find examples of elision, but very difficult to state rules that govern which sounds may be elided and which may not. Elision of vowels in English usually happens when a short, unstressed vowel occurs between voiceless consonants, e.g. in the first syllable of ‘perhaps’, ‘potato’, the second syllable of ‘bicycle’, or the third syllable of ‘philosophy’. In some cases we find a weak voiceless sound in place of the normally voiced vowel that would have been expected. Elision also occurs when a vowel occurs between an obstruent consonant and a sonorant consonant such as a nasal or a lateral: this process leads to syllabic consonants, as in ‘sudden’ s dn! , ‘awful’ ɔ fl! (where a vowel is only heard in the second syllable in slow, careful speech).
Elision of consonants in English happens most commonly when a speaker “simplifies” a complex consonant cluster: ‘acts’ becomes ks rather than kts, ‘twelfth night’ becomes twelθnait or twelfnait rather than twelfθnait. It seems much less likely that any of the other consonants could be left out: the l and the n seem to be unelidable.
It is very important to note that sounds do not simply “disappear” like a light being switched off. A transcription such as ks for ‘acts’ implies that the t phoneme has dropped out altogether, but detailed examination of speech shows that such effects are more gradual: in slow speech the t may be fully pronounced, with an audible transition from the preceding k and to the following s, while in a more rapid style it may be articulated but not given any audible realisation, and in very rapid speech it may be observable, if at all, only as a rather early movement of the tongue blade towards the s position. Much more research in this area is needed (not only on English) for us to understand what processes are involved when speech is “reduced” in rapid articulation.

Defining Priorities

Defining Priorities

Prioritizing means “taking conscious control of one’s choices and deciding to spend more
time on the activities and tasks that are important and valuable, and less time on the ones
that are not....” The importance of prioritizing tasks or activities is best driven home by the
popular ‘pebbles and jar’ parable.
One day, an expert in time management was speaking to a group of managers. As he
stood in front of the group of high-powered over-achievers he said, “Okay, time for a quiz”
and he pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouth mason jar and set it on the table in front of him.
He also produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time,
into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked,
“Is this jar full?” Everyone yelled, “Yes.”
The time management expert replied, “Really?” He reached under the table and pulled out
a bucket of gravel. He dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel
to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks. He then asked the group
once more, “Is the jar full?”
“Probably not,” one of them answered.
“Good!” he replied. He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He
started dumping the sand in the jar and it went into all of the spaces left between the rocks
and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, “Is this jar full?”
“No!” the audience shouted.
Once again he said, “Good.” Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in
until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked at the spectators and asked, “What is the
point of this illustration?”
One eager beaver raised his hand and said, “The point is, no matter how full your schedule
is, if you try really hard you can always fit some more things in it!”
“No,” the speaker replied, “that’s not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is, “If
you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.
What are the ‘big rocks’ in your life, time with loved ones, your faith, your education, your
dreams, a worthy cause, teaching or mentoring others?
Remember to put these BIG ROCKS in first or you’ll never get them in at all. So, tonight, or
in the morning, when you are reflecting on this short story, ask yourself this question, “What
are the ‘big rocks’ in my life?” Then, put those in your jar first.

Hard skills vs soft skills.

Hard skills vs soft skills.

In the world of work, “hard skills” are technical or administrative
procedures related to an organization’s
core business. Examples include machine operation,
computer protocols, safety standards, financial
procedures and sales administration. These skills
are typically easy to observe, quantify and measure.
They’re also easy to train, because most of the time
the skill sets are brand new to the learner and no
unlearning is involved.
By contrast, “soft skills” (also called “people skills”)
are typically hard to observe, quantify and measure.
People skills are needed for everyday life as much as
they’re needed for work. They have to do with how
people relate to each other: communicating, listening,
engaging in dialogue, giving feedback, cooperating
as a team member, solving problems, contributing in
meetings and resolving conflict. Leaders at all levels
rely heavily on people skills, too: setting an example,
teambuilding, facilitating meetings, encouraging innovation,
solving problems, making decisions, planning,
delegating, observing, instructing, coaching, encouraging
and motivating.
Obviously, people come to organizations with interpersonal
behavior patterns already thoroughly ingrained,
and they weren’t learned in a classroom. Instead, individuals
learn how to deal with relationships and other
life challenges “on the street” at a very early age. They
observe how the people around them do things, they
experiment, and they stick with what works for them.
So everyone ends up with a unique portfolio of people
skills; some behaviors may be effective, but others
cause problems. By the time employees get to a training
room, they’ve already worked hard for decades to
reinforce the way they deal with peopleLike all behavior patterns, interpersonal skills are
“hard-wired” in the neuronal pathways of the cerebral
cortex. This means that at some point a behavior
was repeated often enough that neurons grew
dendrites that reached out to other neurons to make
the connections needed to make behavior pattern
automatic. A myelin sheath coated the cells like electric
wire insulation, making the connection extremely
efficient. The end result: these ways of behaving now
feel natural, easy and comfortable.

Understanding Stress

Understanding Stress

“It’s not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.”
- Hans Selye
Time Magazine (June, 1983) called stress “The Epidemic of the Eighties,” and regarded
it as the leading health problem. There can be little doubt that the situation has
progressively worsened since then. Contemporary stress tends to be even more
pervasive, persistent and insidious. Recent statistics reveal that:
• Stress is now the number one reason behind sickness from work.” (Gee
Publishing Survey)
• “More than two-thirds of people are suffering from work related stress.” (ICM
Research)
• “Stress in the workplace is undermining performance and productivity in 9 out
of 10 organizations.”

Stress is defined as the emotional and physical strain caused by a person’s response
to pressure from the outside world. It occurs when there is a mismatch between what
the people aspire to do what they are capable of doing. In other words, stress results
when the pressure to perform a certain task is greater than the resources available to
perform it.
S = P > R
[S - Stress; P-Pressure; R- Resource]

Stress is not altogether a modern phenomenon. Stress has been of concern in the
medical profession since the days of Hippocrates. Walter Cannon, a physiologist at
Harvard, however, formalized the modern notion of stress, at the beginning of the
twentieth century. Cannon described the “flight or fight response”, a heightened arousal
state that prepares an organism to deal with threats. When under threat, one’s body
releases a rush of adrenaline in order to allow a ‘fight or flight’ response

Medical research suggests that some thirty hormones are released as part of the
body’s automatic and innate “fight or flight” stress response. These hormones provide
quick energy to cope with emergencies and exigencies. Stress hormones often build
and, without release, contribute to wear and tear. Excessive stress can inhibit the body’s
immune system functioning and directly impair the functioning of key body systems.
This is the reason why stress can increase one’s susceptibility to illness, exacerbate
an illness, or protract recovery from an illness.
Unrelieved stress, over time, can take the form of:
• Tense muscles that lead to headache, neck-ache, jaw-ache, back-ache
• Stomach pain, indigestion, bowel upset, ulcers
• Feelings of anxiety, nervousness, tension, helplessness
• Increasing anger or irritability, chest pain
• Depression, exhaustion, lack of concentration, insomnia
• Restlessness, boredom, confusion, the impulse to run and hide
Persons who are stressed may “take out” their frustration on those around them. Others
may keep their feelings to themselves and experience a sullen gloomy feeling or a
sense of isolation.