Oral, Non-Verbal and Visual Communication

Lecture 7: Oral, Non-Verbal and Visual Communication.
1. The Advantages of Oral Communication
2. The Disadvantages of Oral Communication
3. Skills in Oral Communication
4. Effective Speaking: The Short Presentation
5. Effective Speaking: The Long Presentation
6. Listening
7. Using Visual Aids to Communicate
1. The Advantages of Oral Communication:
o Swift and direct feedback
o Interactive nature of medium
o Great flexibility in the range of available persuasive/motivating
tactics.
2. The Disadvantages of Oral Communication:
o Potential interference („technical noise‟)
o Memory is unreliable, and perceptions differ. In the absence of written records,
oral communication may lead to misunderstanding
o Less time is available for planning, hence increased possibility of making wrong
decisions
o Clash of personalities may form a barrier to effective communication
o The greater the number of people involved in the communication process, the
more the potential magnification of these disadvantages.
3. Skills in Oral Communication:
o Speaking:
 Articulation
 Structuring the message
 Style and Tone
 Delivery
 Tact [sensitivity to recipient(s)]
o Listening:
 Concentration
 Interpretation of metacommunication and paralanguage
 Offering feedback
* Metacommunication (meta = beyond) is a form of „supercommunication,‟ a sum total of
all signals communicated (verbal and non-verbal)
** Paralanguage (para = beside, beyond) is spoken language used to convey a meaning
greater or other than its surface meaning.