Orissa Engineering College

English Communicative Skills Laboratory Notebook

1st Semester (Writings)

Suppose you have to introduce two new officials in your company, they will be introduced before an audience in your company. In your situation you have to pick one girl and one boy in your class, gather information about their name, branch, parents, nativity, education, likes and dislikes and introduce them before the audience. Good Morning everyone, Today I am here to introduce you all to two new employees of this company. Mr. Alok Mishra, here is going to take up the post of the Project Manager of our technical team. He is the son of Mr. Manoj Mishra who is presently working as an engineer in the Government sector and his wife Mrs. Natasha Mishra who is an employee at a nationalized bank. Mr. Alok is a resident of Odisha and has obtained a b.tech degree in computer science and engineering from Orissa Engineering College. He likes to play as well as listen to music, paint and read novels. He isnt very much into sports and adventurous activity. Our new Asst. Project Manager who will also be leading the technical team in its work along with Mr. Alok is Miss Pallavi Pekal, daughter of Mr. Raghunath Pekal, a civil engineer and Mrs. Reetika Pekal who is a house wife. Miss Pallavi is a resident of Odisha too. She has also obtained a b.tech degree from Orissa Engineering College in computer science and engineering. She is a wonderful dancer and has won many awards and prizes for her dancing skills. She is also interested in singing and at the same time is a fan of adventure sports. She like travelling and visiting new places and exploring them, she is very organized in her work.

Finally I would like to wish Mr. Alok and Miss. Pallavi a very happy service period. Thank you all and have a great day ahead.

Imagine a situation; you are travelling by bus to your home town during vacation. After some time when the conductor asked you for the ticket you notice that your purse has been pick-pocketed so you asked some money from a co-passenger to lend you some money. The fellow passenger asked you some questions to believe in you. Later he gave you some money for which you could tender the money for the ticket and travel to the destination. Following this situation write a conversation. Conductor: May I have your ticket please? Passenger: Yes, just a minute please. Conductor: Sure, sir. Passenger: I am sorry but I think my purse has been pickpocketed! Can you come back in some time? Conductor: Why not. Passenger (to co-passenger): Excuse me sir, Co-passenger: Yes Passenger: My purse has been pick-pocketed, could you lend me some money for the ticket and the travel please? Co-passenger: What is your name and where are you from? Passenger: My name is Ritesh Sharma, I am from Bhubaneswar and I am travelling to my home town Puri. Co-passenger: Can I see some ID please? Passenger: Sure sir, here see it. Co-passenger: Okay! Here is the money.

Passenger: Thank you very much Sir. Suppose you are on the road when a stranger came to you and asked you how to reach the Lingaraj Temple. Write a conversation within 70 words expressing how you helped him. Stranger: Excuse me Sir Person: Yes Stranger: I am new to this place and I want to go to the Lingaraj temple but Im unable to find the way. Could you please help me out? Person: Sure, why not. In order to reach the Lingaraj Temple you need to head straight after taking the first right in this direction. At the end of the road you will find the temple. Stranger: Thank you very much Sir. Person: Youre most welcome.

Communication through English has a tremendous global utility and is literally inescapable. Discuss some of the major fields of application and utility to justify English as a global language. The world isnt the big place it used to be anymore, it has turned into a very small place with the introduction of various transportation and communication technologies. With the growth in technology and globalization people of the different states and countries adopted English to communicate with each other without any difficulty. Because English is so widely spoken, it has

often been referred to as a world language, the lingua franca of the modern era, and while it is not an official language in most countries, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language. It is by international treaty, the official language to aeronautical and maritime communications. English is an official language of the United Nations and many other international organizations including the International Olympic Committee. English is the language most often studied as a foreign language in the European Union, by 89% of the school children, ahead of French at 32%, while the perception of the usefulness of foreign languages among Europeans is 68% in favour of English, ahead of 25% for French. Among some non-English speaking European Union countries, a large percentage of the adult population claims to be able to converse in English in particular 85% in Sweden, 83% in Denmark, 79% in the Netherlands, 66% in Luxemberg and over 50% in Finland, Slovenia, Austria, Belgium and Germany. Books, magazines and newspapers written in English are available in many countries around the around the world, and English is the most commonly used language in the sciences with science citation index reporting as early as 1997 that 95% of its articles were written in English even though only half of them came from authors in English speaking countries. The increasing use of the English language globally has led a large impact on many languages, leading to language shift and even language death, and to claims of linguistic language imperialism. English itself has become more open to language shift as multiple regional varieties feed back into the language as a

whole. So English has become an inevitable language in todays world.

Communication requires that the communicating parties share an area of communicative commonality. What are those? Discuss with reference to the components of communication process. Communication requires a sender, a message, a channel or medium and a recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the senders intent to communicate at the time of communication, thus communication can occur across vast distances in time and space. Communication requires that the communicating parties share an area of communicative commonalities. The communication process is complete once the receiver has understood the message of the sender. Communication is the flow or exchange of information within people or a group of people. A variety of verbal and nonverbal communication describes the process of conveying meaning in the form of non-word messages. Research shows that majority of communication is non-verbal. All communications, intentional or unintentional have some effect. This effect may not be always in communicators favour or as desired by him or her. Communication that produces the desired effect or result is effective communication. It results in what the communicator wants. Effective communication generates the desired effect, maintains the effect and increases it.

It serves the purpose for which it was planned or designed. Possible purposes might be to generate action, inform, create understanding or communicate a certain idea etc. Effective communication also ensures that the message is not distorted during the communication process. Communication is the key factor in the success of any organization. There are certain barriers to it. People often feel that communication is as easy and simple as it sounds. While it is true on one level, what makes it complex, difficult and frustrating are the barriers that come in its way. Barriers to successful include message overload and message complexity. Physical barriers are often due to the nature of the environment. System design faults refer to problems with the structures or systems placed in an organization. All these factors affect effective communication adversely and hence there is a necessity for communicative commonality. Effective communication is a continuous cyclic process. Justify your answer with the factors influence and examples within 250 words. All of us communicate with a purpose. It may be to inform, share an idea, persuade or entertain. Whatever may be the purpose, the components involved in the communication process remain the same. And as long as there is coordination and interdependence among the components of communication there is every possibility that our communication will turn out to be effective. The process of communication starts with the sender

encoding the idea and sending it to the receiver via a medium or a channel. The receivers job is to decode the encoded message and extract information from it and also understand the message. After understanding it the receiver needs to provide a feedback to the sender indicating that he/she has understood the message. Consider the communication process as shown below:

The diagram above conveys to us that the effective communication is a cyclic and continuous process. Communication can be considered to be effective when the receiver understands the message sent by the sender and gives a feedback to the sender. Effective communication also ensures that the message sent by the sender is not distorted in any manner while it is transmitted. Effective communication as shown

in the figure above conveys us that, it is initiated from the sender and ends at the sender too indicating that effective communication is a cyclic and continuous process. What is information gap principle? Give examples to show how it can be used to create greater rapport between a speaker and a listener. An information gap is a situation in which there is a communication between two or more people and where information is known to only some of the people present. Early adopters of technology in the field of education used to phrase information gap to describe families who could afford a computer at home in contrast to those who could not. The information gap principle is a method of communication development in a laboratory class by the teacher not predominantly communicating with any student directly. Information gap principle is a variation of a surprised activity called as information gap. Language students should be involved in as many situations as possible where one of them has some information and the other doesnt have. But one has to get it from the other who does have it to breach the information gap between the participating students in the activity based classrooms. Again by the information gap, the person who exchanges something that the other doesnt know like the teacher to student question what is the colour of your dress?, usually this question doesnt involve any information gap as the teacher and the

student know the same information while the friend to friend question where are you going for lunch? does involve an information gap because the asking person presumably does not know the answer. This presence and absence of information is called as information gap principle. Therefore to deal with the principle in practice there is necessity of pair practice on variety of different language skill drills. To make the students practice the information gap principle, to encourage them to find whatever information that they do not have or possess with them they should interact between each other to improve their communication skills in the language. Explain with examples how new information can cause an information overload. How can one create a balanced communication using both given and new information? In the present day, information is available very abundantly. As a result of which today information overload is an increasing problem both in the workplace and the personal life in general. We must learn the process and procedure to deal with this problem effectively. Information overload means, the availability of huge amounts of information which is fed to the receiver as a result of which the person is unable to handle it effectively. It also describes a situation where one is so preoccupied that he/she is unable to cope up with the new or latest information available to him/her. The phenomenon of information overload isnt desirable. The usual results of information overload are fatigue,

disinterestness, boredom, etc. Under these circumstances further communication is not possible. Very often vital information gets mixed up with too many irrelevant activities and therefore goes ignored by the person or the receiver. The term information overload was first used by a futurologist called Alvin Toffler (1970) who predicted that rapid increase in the amount of information produced will eventually cause problems for the people and lead them towards confusion. The main factors responsible for information overload are widespread access, the internet or the world wide web and canty sending of mails to large number of people, available channels of incoming information and contradictions and inaccuracies in the available information and also the lack of knowledge for comprising and processing different kinds of information. One who is able to deal with the above factors is easily capable of tackling problems caused due to information overload efficiently. Apart from using words, why do people make gestures and facial expressions? From research it has been established that most of the communication i.e. at least 70% is done in non-verbal ways like gestures, postures, facial expressions, body language, etc. Using gestures, postures, body language is an automatic habit of human beings to make more meaningful emphasization and to gain support and strength within himself or herself. Nonverbal features of communications are used to modify the verbal communication. That is exactly why we add non-verbal

communication to our words knowingly or unknowingly when we interact using word with other individuals or people. When communication takes place without words and language it is considered as non-verbal communication. This form of communication includes the internal stimuli of human beings. Other than spoken language using words, communication in writing, gestures, body language comprise the non-verbal category of communication. Although verbal and non-verbal communication are interrelated and inter-dependent. There are 6 ways in which verbal and non-verbal features of communication overlap. They are mentioned below. - repeating - contradicting - substituting - complimenting - accenting - regulating Repeating is when non-verbal behavior are sometimes repeated after what has been said. For example, asking a person to get out and then pointing the finger at the door. Contradicting occurs when sometimes non-verbal features contradict what has been said. Substituting is when non-verbal can be used in place of verbal communication. For example, just a stare into your lovers eyes can substitute for the words I love you. Complimenting is when non-verbal features of

communication can elaborate or modify verbal behavior. For example, a student may show nervousness or tension before taking a test or appearing an exam but relaxes as he/she gets the question paper in hand. Accenting is when non-verbal accents verbal behavior. It is when for example the hand and the head emphasize what is being said in words. Regulating is when non-verbal behavior regulates the flow of verbal conversation. For example, eye contact and head nods may signal who is or not paying attention. Hence it is seen that people mostly use non-verbal forms of communication in order to express better and emphasize what they are saying in words. How does spoken communication differ from written communication? Give reasons to your answer along with suitable examples. In our daily life we use both verbal and non-verbal features of communication. We use spoken and written forms of communications. There are many differences in between these two forms, they are as follows:

SPOKEN Spoken language is the principal objective or the principal form of communication

WRITTEN Written form of communication is the graphical representation of spoken language

Spoken form is more comprehensible To establish the fact that anyone singing a song and we listening to it helps us memorize it easily Speech is automatic habit in every state of human language learning Spoken form is broken language as it never follows the rules of grammar Spoken language can be used colloquially

Written form is less comprehensible Writing cannot be reproduced in natural speech or a spontaneous speech easily Writing follows the spoken language or speech Written form is a ruled governed system and is rigid about the grammatical rules Writing cannot be used colloquially

List a few features which are absent in spoken communication. Communication, often people consider it to be as easy and simple as it seems, while this is true up to one level but beyond that level communication turns out to be really complex dividing itself into many forms like verbal, non-verbal, etc. Language activity is generally divided into two parts. Actually it is divided into two pairs of opposition called speech and writing. Spoken language is considered to be the principal form of communication and hence it is quoted speech is mightier than the pen and pen is mightier than the sword. What we can speak cannot be easily reproduced in natural speech. Spoken language is more comprehensible whereas written language is only the graphical representation of what

we speak and is comparatively less comprehensible. Spoken language need not follow the rules of grammar whereas written language is bound by the rules of grammar. Spoken language is easier to remember. For example, if we listen to a song we can memorize it more easily as compared to reading the same lines from a book. How will you better describe communication with communications? Communication is the exchange of information among individuals. It is the process whereby information is enclosed in a package and is channeled and imparted by a sender to a receiver via some medium. Communications is the system used for sending and receiving messages. Communications also include marketing, advertising and broadcasting.

Differentiate between general and business communication. GENERAL It contains a general message It is mostly informal in style or approach It does not follow a set pattern of communication It is mostly oral It does not involve use of any BUSINESS It contains a technical message It is mostly formal It follows a set pattern of communication It is both oral and written It involves use of technical

vocabulary or graphics part Expression is based on general communication It is applicable type It talks about the process It is not used always for specific audiences

vocabulary, graphics and some more Experience is based on business communication It is solution type It talks about the products It is used always for specific audiences