Better Communication Skills: An Extensive Guide For All Ages

Being able to communicate effectively and confidently with anyone is an essential life skill. It not only aids in creating long-lasting relationships but also helps in achieving better performance in academics, profession, and overall maintaining a healthy personality. You could be a child, a teen, or an adult who wants to answer the question of how to improve communication skills. With this comprehensive guide, you will learn about proven strategies, tips, and other relevant information that can help you. You will also understand how PlanetSpark can help you improve your confidence and be clear in your communication.

Reasons why Communication Skills are Important

Good communication skills are important for a multitude of reasons. Some of the most important ones have been mentioned below:

1. Being heard and understood adds to your self-confidence and makes you feel ready to talk to people.
2. With communication skills, you can ask questions, share thoughts, and discuss ideas to improve your general knowledge and comprehension of the world. 
3. Good communication skills are also helpful in deepening and strengthening personal relationships and lowering the chances of miscommunications. 
4. Excellent communication skills can aid in a better scope of social and career improvement.

You can work and improve your communication skills with PlanetSpark after a free trial class to analyse your skill levels.

How to Improve Communication Skills

Here are some of the best ways to improve your communication skills irrespective of your age and personal background:

1. Speak Clearly and Coherently

The best way to improve pronunciation and intonation is with the following methods:

• Reading any readable material every day
• Tongue twisters help in clarity when speaking
• Record and compare your speech to native speakers

The above steps can help in improving your communication skills and enhancing fluency. Additionally, pitch variation practice combined with a pause before speaking can further help your speech become more fluent, coherent, and confident.

2. Improve Listening Skills

Active listening helps you not only focus on the speaker but also be able to create a response while the speaker is finishing their sentence. With positive gestures like nodding and words of encouragement, you can show that you are following the speaker's train of thought. Finally, using clarification-based phrases can further show that you are interested in their topic of discussion. 

3. Vocabulary Expansion and Grammar Improvement

Expanding your vocabulary is possible through the selection of three to five new words and trying to use them in everyday conversation. Reading as a habit is extremely beneficial when it comes to being exposed to usage in a real context, which increases your word usage and expression situations. Grammar practice exercises can help you understand the exact usage of tenses, prepositions, and sentence structures for better conversations with people around you.

4. Understanding Non-Verbal Communication 

Positive body language, like good posture, appropriate eye contact, and natural gestures, supports your words.  When it comes to facial expressions and tones, they should match the message you are relaying. For example, friendly messages or tones should be spoken in a gentle tone or accompanied with a smile, and serious expressions with a normal voice or tone in case of a professional setting. In any social situation personal space of any individual is highly valuable. Therefore, according to context, you can increase or decrease personal space. 

5. Working on Conversational Skills

Asking open-ended questions helps in increasing the chances of a longer conversation with much more depth. Building a rapport with the people around you is possible when you mirror their tone, expression, and gestures. One-minute or two-minute monologues on any topic can aid in better flow and confidence development.

6. Communication Strategies According to Age

Children within the age range of 5 to 12 years can learn proper communication through practice games, story sessions, and puppet conversations. Teenagers in the age range of 13 to 19 years can improve their existing communication skills through school-based debates, summarising and reviewing podcasts, or delivering theme-based short speeches with feedback from classmates. Adults can work on their communication skills through concepts like real-life role-play scenarios, practice presentation speeches, and reduce their accent on commonly mispronounced words. 

Seven Routines to Improve Communication

The following seven points can help in understanding the best ways of improving your communication skills:

1. Speak about plans for the day
2. Use a new word you learnt in a sentence today
3. Practice speaking in front of a mirror and observing personal body language
4. Review and self-evaluation of video clips
5. Relate the best and worst parts of the day with someone in English

When you want to improve your communication skills and are looking for a guided way to improve, PlanetSpark is here to help. Register now for a free class and understand what makes us different.

Overcoming the 8 Main Issues

 The following are some of the best ways to overcome some of the most common challenges faced while improving your communication skills:

1. Positive visualization, regular practice, and starting with short speeches are a great help in reducing stage fright
2. Being a part of a speaking group or practicing with a friend may help increase your motivation.
3. In case of grammar anxiety, you can start speaking fluently and then work on better construction.
4. Gameified learning, habit-forming routines, rewards, and routines can lower inconsistent productions. 

In case you are looking to work on gaining better communication skills, PlanetSpark can help in your endeavour. Simply register for a free trial class to understand your existing capabilities.

Role of Feedback in Communication Improvement Skills

There are three different forms of feedback when it comes to improvement in communication skills, which have been explained below:

1. Self feedback:

Where you can watch and evaluate your old recordings to understand your skills, improvement, and areas that can be improved.

2. Mentor assessment 

Mentor assessments help you as a learner in getting feedback regarding the areas that need improvement. 

3. Peer feedback

Through buddy sessions or previously completed group classes, one can easily understand their communication levels.

The best way to understand the areas of improvement is by getting proper feedback, which sheds light on your strengths and weaknesses. 

With PlanetSpark, you can register for a free trial class to get a report on your communication skills.

PlanetSpark Empowers for Better Communication   

PlanetSpark has created personalised learning programs across all age groups for one-on-one or group classes. Each class is headed by expert trainers who provide a guided learning path which backed by research. Their holistic approach to each aspect of English communication, with real-time tracking and an interactive interface, helps make learning fresh and new. Additionally, flexible scheduling is a great way to ensure that learners can study at any time, including weekends. 

To Sum Up

Once you can improve your communication skills, it becomes much easier for anyone to become successful in academic, personal, and professional life. Paying attention to the speaker with stages like clarity, vocabulary, non-verbal presence, and listening makes it an essential part of communication skill improvement. As PlanetSpark provides a structured and guided lesson plan for improved communication skills, it ensures that the learner, irrespective of age, can now have better communication skills in English.

FAQs

Q1. What are the initial signs of improved communication skills?

The initial signs of improved communication skills can be observed when the speaker can speak clearly and confidently during conversations. They also have better listening and comprehension skills, along with better sentence structure.

Q2. Is learning about communication only related to speaking fluency?

No. Learning about communication is learning about body language, right tone usage, and speech adaptation based on audience and context.

Q3. What is the difference between communication training for kids and adults at PlanetSpark?

There is a stark difference in the communication training provided to kids and adults. Kids learn through games, storytelling, and visual activities, while adults get personalized coaching, business communication lessons, and real-life simulated conversations.

Q4. Can shy and introverted people become good communicators?

Consistent practice and proper guidance with activities like roleplaying, safe speaking spaces which are provided with PlanetSpark can aid introverts in communicating better.

Q5. Can PlanetSpark help in reducing stage fright and public speaking?

PlanetSpark has a structured and guided learning module that includes topics like stage fright, speech organisation, and storytelling. All of these help in increasing confidence, which in turn lowers stage fright.