There are four macro communication skills within any language, not just the English language. Effective communication requires a combination of any or all of the four skills.
Listening
Definition - to give attention with the ear. Listening to what someone has to say enables us to understand, interpret and evaluate what we hear. The ability to effectively listen enables us to communicate with another person to a higher degree and can improve relationships by reducing conflict and encouraging co-operation. There are three elements that comprise listening:
Comprehension - describes a shared meaning between parties in a communication or, more simply, that you understand words expressed during an exchange
Retention - memory is an essential part of listening and is how we define a meaning of a word. Everyone has different memories and as a result, may attach different meanings to the same statement. Retention is lessened when we engage in mindless listening and are not actively paying attention to the speaker.
Response - listening is an active interaction between speaker and listener and response (verbal or non-verbal) is used to determine whether someone is listening to what is being said.
Speaking
Definition: To utter words or articulate sounds. Speech is the vocalised form of human communication and is drawn from vocabularies of words and is created out of the phonetic combination of vowel and consonant sounds. The purpose of speech is to communicate thoughts or information from one person to another. There has to be at least two people in any communication; one person outputs something and another inputs what has been output.
Writing
Is the representation of language through a set of symbols known as text, which form words. Writing most likely began as a consequence of political expansion in ancient cultures and, with trade increasing, writing became a more reliable method of recording and documenting transactions accurately and permanently. An alphabet is a set of symbols that represent a phoneme (or sound) of a language and the English language is made up of 26 letters.
Reading
Reading is the process of decoding written symbols with the intention of deriving understanding. It is a means of communication to share information and is shaped by the existing knowledge, experiences and understanding of a language by a reader.
To summarise communications:
I speak [to you] (I output: Thoughts from my head)
You listen [to me] (You input: My thoughts go into your head)
You write [to me] (You output: Your thoughts go out of your head)
I read [your words] (I input: Your thoughts go into my head)
Listening
Definition - to give attention with the ear. Listening to what someone has to say enables us to understand, interpret and evaluate what we hear. The ability to effectively listen enables us to communicate with another person to a higher degree and can improve relationships by reducing conflict and encouraging co-operation. There are three elements that comprise listening:
Comprehension - describes a shared meaning between parties in a communication or, more simply, that you understand words expressed during an exchange
Retention - memory is an essential part of listening and is how we define a meaning of a word. Everyone has different memories and as a result, may attach different meanings to the same statement. Retention is lessened when we engage in mindless listening and are not actively paying attention to the speaker.
Response - listening is an active interaction between speaker and listener and response (verbal or non-verbal) is used to determine whether someone is listening to what is being said.
Speaking
Definition: To utter words or articulate sounds. Speech is the vocalised form of human communication and is drawn from vocabularies of words and is created out of the phonetic combination of vowel and consonant sounds. The purpose of speech is to communicate thoughts or information from one person to another. There has to be at least two people in any communication; one person outputs something and another inputs what has been output.
Writing
Is the representation of language through a set of symbols known as text, which form words. Writing most likely began as a consequence of political expansion in ancient cultures and, with trade increasing, writing became a more reliable method of recording and documenting transactions accurately and permanently. An alphabet is a set of symbols that represent a phoneme (or sound) of a language and the English language is made up of 26 letters.
Reading
Reading is the process of decoding written symbols with the intention of deriving understanding. It is a means of communication to share information and is shaped by the existing knowledge, experiences and understanding of a language by a reader.
To summarise communications:
I speak [to you] (I output: Thoughts from my head)
You listen [to me] (You input: My thoughts go into your head)
You write [to me] (You output: Your thoughts go out of your head)
I read [your words] (I input: Your thoughts go into my head)