PARA LANGUAGE

PARA LANGUAGE

The literal meaning of „para-‟ is „like‟; the subject relates to a field that is „like language‟. It is not a language because it does not involve any words. However, no words can be spoken or sung without the sound that accompanies it. It is a non-verbal communication, known as „vocal communication‟. Without it, words do not convey the intended meaning. Thus the entire subject of communication has three distinct components:

 Verbal is what of the message i.e., words
 Vocal is how of the message i.e., voice of the speaker
 Visual is the supportive body movements without which a face-to-face message is incomplete.

VOICE

Human voice has been hailed as the „organ of the soul‟. Human beings are very fortunate to have been blessed with the ability to produce, modulate and throw the voice in the way they desire to influence the audience. With devotion and practice, they can reproduce the voices of different animals, birds etc. They are also able to replicate the sounds of different musical instruments.
Voice is an important part of ones‟ personality.  An erudite person wanted to become a trainer but because his voice crackled often, it failed to make the right impression on his wards. There are also instances when a hoarse or husky voice was thought to be very seductive and women with husky voice could easily command attention in party circuits.

LISTENING

LISTENING

Ability to listen effectively has emerged as the most strategic skill for managers and leaders. Most people are pleased when they are listened to rather than when they are talked to. Also the less a person talks, the more others like to listen to him.
Most of us are poor listeners as listening skills are not taught in high schools or even management institutes. Everyone should listen more, have better retention and memory. Hearing perceives only the sounds and not their meaning whereas listening leads to better understanding. The process of listening entails sensing, interpreting, evaluating, remembering and responding. Based on purpose, interaction and feedback, listening is classified in to content listening, critical listening and active / empathetic listening. Of these the most critical is active / empathetic listening as it requires greater self-control and discipline.
Barriers to good listening can originate from environmental, physiological, psychological, linguistic and socio-cultural factors. Nevertheless, listening skills can be improved by preparing for listening, following basic rules for good listening and practicing regularly.
Students should become familiar with the typical patterns of poor listeners so that they can make conscious efforts to assimilate leader-like traits. Taking down notes while listening and imbibing the commandment for good listening will guide the budding managers and leaders in becoming good listeners.

TEN COMMANDMENTS OF GOOD LISTENING

TEN COMMANDMENTS OF GOOD LISTENING

Someone has listed the following ten commandments of good listening:

1 Stop talking
2 Put the talker at ease
3 Show willingness to listen
4 Remove distractions
5 Empathize with speaker
6 Be patient
7 Hold own temper
8 Go easy on arguments and criticism
9 Ask questions
10 Stop talking, once again

Evaluating Remembering & Responding

Evaluating  Remembering & Responding

It is forming opinion about the message heard. If the subject matter is complex or it is a topic that has emotional overtones, effort is required to:
 Sort out the remarks made by the speaker
 Separate facts from opinions
 Evaluate quality of evidence
As a rule, listeners dismiss ideas from an unattractive and abrasive speaker. Also, they easily embrace ideas of „charismatic‟ speakers.

Remembering

It is storing message after receiving in the memory for future use. Good speakers facilitate storage by doing the followings:

 Comparing the message with the previous similar messages
 Highlighting the components of transition in the new message
 Summarizing and paraphrasing the message

 Responding

It is reacting to the content of the message in some fashion. When audience is large, it may take the form of:
 Silence
 Applause
 Laughter etc

INTERPRETING

INTERPRETING

It is decoding in our mind and absorbing the message being delivered. As people listen, they assign meanings to words through their own mental filters comprising of their:

 Beliefs
 Assumptions
 Values
 Ideas
 Expectations
 Roles
 Needs
 Personal history

Thus role of the persons listening to a speech is very vital. They should pay attention to non-verbal cues because body language of gestures, sounds, postures and expressions do not tell lies. If they have learnt the art and science of understanding speeches well, it increases accuracy of their listening.

LISTENING IS NOT TAUGHT

LISTENING IS NOT TAUGHT

As a part of growing and development through learning and education, children are taught reading, writing and even speaking. They are rarely taught how to listen, now considered to be the most essential skill for managers and leaders. It is ignored in high schools and even in business schools where full credit subject of business communication skills is taught.

Now many companies are training their managers and leaders in the art of listening to help them incorporate listening as an important skill in their personality – it is a lot of hard work. Speaking (and teaching) is not as difficult as listening (and learning).

Listening is much more – it is making conscious efforts to hear the speaker. It is matching of the mental faculties of the sender and the receiver. It is the understanding of the intent of total message as sent by the sender. When the speaker asks if the audience understood the message, listeners‟ nod is for the complete message including unspoken words, gestures and expressions of the speaker.

Listening is an accurate perception of all that is being presented. Listening is a vital part of the entire process of communication. The effectiveness of communication is, in fact, determined by the extent to which listening and understanding takes place after an interaction. It consists of two stages:

 Encoding and transmission of the message by the sender
 Decoding and providing the required feedback by the receiver

Listening is said to have taken place if there is satisfactory execution of both the stages. If the message has been understood in exactly the same way as was intended by the sender, it can be said that listening has taken place accurately. However, if there are discrepancies between the intent of message sent and the way it has been perceived, listening is deficient and the communication has not been effective.

PROCESS OF LISTENING

PROCESS OF LISTENING

It entails following five steps:
(1) Sensing
It is physical hearing and assimilating through all the five senses – hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching. It should also include taking down notes. However, reception of message can get blocked because of:
 Interfering noises and distractions
 Inattention by audience
 Impaired hearing etc
Listeners have to work hard to avoid distraction and focus on the message.

(2) Interpreting
It is decoding in our mind and absorbing the message being delivered. As people listen, they assign meanings to words through their own mental filters comprising of their:
 Beliefs
 Assumptions
 Values
 Ideas
 Expectations
 Roles
 Needs
 Personal history
Thus role of the persons listening to a speech is very vital. They should pay attention to non-verbal cues because body language of gestures, sounds, postures and expressions do not tell lies. If they have learnt the art and science of understanding speeches well, it increases accuracy of their listening.

(3) Evaluating
It is forming opinion about the message heard. If the subject matter is complex or it is a topic that has emotional overtones, effort is required to:
 Sort out the remarks made by the speaker
 Separate facts from opinions
 Evaluate quality of evidence
As a rule, listeners dismiss ideas from an unattractive and abrasive speaker. Also, they easily embrace ideas of „charismatic‟ speakers.

(4) Remembering
It is storing message after receiving in the memory for future use. Good speakers facilitate storage by doing the followings:
Comparing the message with the previous similar messages
 Highlighting the components of transition in the new message
 Summarizing and paraphrasing the message

(5) Responding
It is reacting to the content of the message in some fashion. When audience is large, it may take the form of:
 Silence
 Applause
 Laughter etc

LISTENING

LISTENING

Ability to listen is the most critical skill required for an individual. It provides them with all the information they need. Art of listening is the leaders‟ cutting edge. If individuals establish reputation among subordinates and peers that they are good listeners and they welcome comments and suggestions, much useful information will gravitate towards you.

It is said that, „If you listen to people well, they will tell you things that you have not ever thought of yourself!‟

More people are pleased when they are listened to rather than being talked to. Although both talking and listening form the grist of the oral communication, one cannot listen if he is talking and if he is not listening, he is not learning either.

Smart people speak from experience; smarter people, from experience, do not speak. One cannot be listening with his mouth open. And the less people talk, the more others like to listen to them.

Persuasive speech

Persuasive speech

Speeches not only facilitate the flow of information but also persuade audience and veer them around to common purposes. To become effective, persuasive speaker, attention must be paid to learn how to make physical presentation, how to say things and what to say.

Since students are communicating, negotiating and marketing all the time, they must acquire the traits of articulation, pronunciation, use of the right tone, pitch and speed of delivery. They should be able to make good use of pauses, volume, quality of voice, variety in speech and make effective use of signs, signals, gestures, expressions and sounds of the body language.

Persuasive speeches require speakers‟ personal involvement and they should embody the change they want to see in others, must exercise a lot of self-control and should ensure good response and reaction from the audience for their delivery and sincerity.

Microsoft‟s Power-point software is an extremely useful tool that supports presentation by overhead projectors, liquid crystal displays and multimedia. With the use of Power-point software, speakers can become more effective and persuasive if they know their subject, have good perception of their audience, understand time constraints involved in presentation, keep them simple and supplement them with „speaker notes‟.

INTERACTING WITH AUDIENCE

INTERACTING WITH AUDIENCE

Speakers should not only use slides prudently by pointing out the salient aspects of topic under discussion but also interact with the audience and maintain a reasonable eye contact with the listeners. It ensures that audience interest is kept at a higher level.

To enhance the effectiveness of the Power-point presentation, speakers must:

 Get comfortable with the subject
 Run through the slides at a reasonable pace
 Read „speaker notes‟ while rehearsing
 Learn to „time‟ the presentation especially the impact points.

If the above guidelines are followed, there is no doubt that, with practice, speakers gain confidence, poise and power. Acquiring the skills to influence others to work to own point of view or to achieve the common goals of the team, department or the firm, can be very fascinating and satisfying.
Thus, Power-point software is a powerful tool in the hands of modern, global students.

SKILLS FOR CREATING THE POWER-POINT PRESENTATION

SKILLS FOR CREATING THE POWER-POINT PRESENTATION

The objective of creating power-point presentation is to ensure and achieve a uniform standard of presentation. The look of the slides should also be consistent and of uniform standard. It involves the followings:

(1) Using slide master
The users should be familiar with the facility of „Slide Master‟ in the Power-point software. It is much like the sliding scales used on a drawing board as it helps to get X-coordinates and Y-coordinates correctly. Besides, it can draw many types and sizes of boxes for writing in properly aligned and sized matter.

(2) Editing master title and style
Before preparing slides, they must choose the title and the text styles. These can be defined for various levels as a number of levels, as below, are available:

First level BIG
Second level NOT SO BIG
Third Level SMALL
Fourth level SMALLER
Fifth level SMALLEST

Usually three or four levels are adequate for a speaker.
Once the size and style of „font‟ is chosen, speakers should stick to it for all the slides on a subject matter.
Font size and style are very important for preparing good slides in this software.

(3) Using graphics, tables and charts
Graphics, table and charts are relatively new facilities but are being used increasingly in power-point presentation. These can enhance the quality of presentation if following „Dos‟ and „Don‟ts‟ are observed:

(i) Do‟s
 Ensure that graphics etc relate to the topic
 Make graphics etc secondary to the material
 Place graphics etc properly in the text

(ii) Don‟ts
 Don‟t use animations
 No background „colours‟ or „fills‟ should be used
 Don‟t let graphics etc overwhelm the presentation

(4) Watching grammar and punctuations

The software has many features that help to achieve good quality slides:
 Use online dictionary
 Use software for „spell check‟ with some reservations as most software check for American spellings whereas we, in India, follow British spellings.
 Use writing style guide or sentence construction software – it is a good help.
 Use thesaurus for selecting the correct synonyms
 Use the power of punctuations to embellish your language

(5) Using guides and rulers
These two facilities in Power-point software need to be learnt and used properly.

(i) Guides
 Setting up guides is easy – they help in aligning text and graphics
 Guides make presentation seamless

(ii) Rulers
Rulers allow accurate measurement of spaces, boxes etc