Class: XII
Topic: Unit-1: Communication Skills
Subject: WFMM (805)
Communication is a two-way process through which information or message is exchanged
between individuals using language, symbols, signs or behaviour. Speaking, listening, reading and
writing are the parts of communication, which help us to understand others.
Communication involves a sender, who encodes and sends a message through a channel, and a
receiver, who decodes the message and gives feedback.
Feedback is important in communication as it helps in knowing whether the receiver has
understood the message or not.
Active Listening:
Effective communication involves skills that can be utilised to send messages that are clear,
concise and accurate.
A clear statement is one which conveys the exact message that you are trying to convey to the
other person. Here, we have two sentences. Now, which one do you think is a clear statement?
(i) He went to his manager and said, “Please allow me to reach office at 11 AM on Tuesday,
13 April 2021, as I have an appointment with a dentist.”
(ii) He went to his manager and said, “Please allow me to reach late to the office on Tuesday,
13 April 2021, as I have an appointment with a dentist.”
A concise statement is appropriately brief or to the point.
(i) The manager replied, “Alright, you may come late.”
(ii) The manager replied, “Alright, you may come late. But it is a matter of great
concern that most employees come late and you are also developing the same habit.”
An accurate statement is one that is factual, i.e., its correctness can be verified.
(i) She informed the office that 50 per cent of the books given for binding have been completed.
(ii) She informed the office that most of the books given for binding have been completed.
Listening skill:
Every effective conversation starts with listening.
Listening skill is one of the most important skills in communication. It is important to learn to give
undivided attention to a person with whom a conversation is taking place.
Given below are some reasons why listening attentively is important.
•We listen to obtain information.
•We listen to understand.
Active listening
Active listening is an art, which comprises both a desire to comprehend, as well as, offer support
and empathy to the speaker. It can affect your job effectiveness, the quality of your relationship
with others, and hence, your overall well-being. Active listening allows you to understand the
problems and collaborate to develop solutions.
Eye contact: It is a form of body language. Maintaining an eye contact with the person you are
talking to sends a signal to the speaker that “Yes, I am talking to you or listening to you”. Avoiding
eye contact could mean that you do not want to listen to the person speaking to you.
Gestures: These indicate to the speaker if you are listening or not. Keep your hand and feet
still while talking to someone.
Avoiding distractions: You need to identify the things that distract you. You must physically
remove the distractions in order to listen attentively.
For example, reducing the ringtone of your mobile phone or switching it off while attending a
meeting or listening to someone will avoid distraction. Another example is that you should avoid
glancing at the wristwatch frequently.
Giving feedback: Feedback can be positive or negative. But in both the cases, one needs to be
polite so that the person to whom the feedback is
being given is not hurt or offended.
Stages of active listening:
The best kind of listening is ‘active listening’. It happens when you hear, understand, respond and
remember
what is being said. The five stages of active listening are as follows.
1. Receiving: It involves listening attentively.
2. Understanding: It is an informed agreement about something or someone.
3. Remembering: It refers to the retrieval or recall of some information from the past.
4. Evaluating: It is about judging the value, quantity, importance and amount of something or someone.
5. Responding: It is about saying or doing something as a response to something that has been said or
done.
How to ensure active listening?
You can remember the acronym ‘RESPECT’ to ensure active listening
R - Remove distractions that may hamper listening. For example, reducing the volume of
television, radio or mobile phone while talking to a person.
E - Eye contact refers to looking at the speaker while listening.
S - Show that you are listening attentively to the speaker through gestures.
P - Pay attention and focus on what the speaker is saying.
Empathise and feel the emotions of the speaker. Empathy is the ability to share someone’s
feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person’s situation.
C - Clarify doubts. Ask questions to clarify doubts.
T - Tune yourself to the timing of the speaker, i.e., wait for the speaker to finish, and then, respond.
Overcoming barriers to active listening:
How a factor can become a barrier? How to overcome the barrier?
Being pre-occupied When pre-occupied, you may not be listening to a person carefully. Do not let
emotions take over your mind. Keep away phones and digital devices.
Noise and visual Distractions: You may not be able to hear the other person clearly in a noisy
environment. Create a conducive environment to avoid misinterpretations and distractions.
Past experiences or mindset: You may have developed biases or prejudices based on past experiences
and interactions.
Avoid developing biases and be objective in your approach when interacting with others.
Personal factors: Your personal feelings may affect your listening, for example, your
preconceptions about the other person. Allow the other person to finish speaking, and then,
respond.
Parts of Speech:
Parts of speech are the categories of words based on their function within a sentence. These are
the ‘building blocks’ of a language. When we speak or write, we use sentences to express
ourselves. Therefore, sentences are important.
A ‘sentence’ is a group of words that communicates a complete meaning, thought or action.
For example, Raju goes to school.
A group of words, which does not make complete sense, is known as a ‘phrase’,
for example, Raju goes.
A sentence always begins with a capital letter, and ends with a full stop, question mark or exclamation
mark.
•Did you work on your project?
•I completed it yesterday.
•That is good!
Using capitals
We know that all sentences begin with a capital letter. It is easy to know what to capitalise if you
remember the acronym ‘MINTS’. MINTS is a set of simple rules that help you to capitalise words
correctly. Each letter in the word MINTS refers to one capitalisation rule
Punctuation
There are 15 basic punctuation marks or signs used in English. These include full stop or period,
comma, Question mark, exclamation mark, apostrophe, colon, semi-colon, dash, hyphen,
parenthesis, quotation mark, bracket, brace, ellipsis and bullet point.
Basic parts of speech
The different types of words we use in sentences are called parts of speech. The basic parts of
speech are nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs.
Supporting parts of speech
Along with the main ‘Parts of Speech’, there are some more words we need for connecting words,
phrases,
clauses or sentences.
Such words are called ‘supporting parts of speech’.
A sentence is a group of words, which together expresses a complete idea that has meaning. A
sentence is formed by putting together a group of words in sequence.
Simple sentence
A simple sentence is one that has only one subject and one predicate or has only one finite verb.
Complex sentence
A complex sentence is one, which consists of two or more coordinate clauses, joined by a
coordinating conjunction.
As you have studied in English classes, almost all sentences have a subject and a verb. Some
also have an object.
•A subject is a person or thing that does an action.
•Verb describes the action.
•Object is the person or thing that receives the action.
For example, “Nisha sells a laptop”. Let us see the different parts of the sentence.
Types of object:
The object in a sentence can be either direct or indirect.
Direct objects are the ones directly ‘acted on’ by the action word (verb).
If we ask — “What does Nisha sell?”,
the answer is ‘laptop’, which is direct object. A direct object answers the question ‘what?’.
An indirect object answers the questions, such as “to whom” and “for whom”.
Types of sentences — Category I:
Active and passive sentences
What is the difference between the following two sentences?
1. Sanjay broke the glass.
2. The glass was broken by Sanjay.
The action (verb) in both the sentences is breaking of the glass. But the ‘subject’ in both the
sentences is different. In the first sentence, the subject (Sanjay) does the action. In the second
sentence, the subject (the glass) receives the action.
Types of sentences — Category II
There are mainly four types of sentences, i.e., declarative, interrogative, exclamatory
and imperative. Each of these have been described
Paragraph
A group of sentences forms a paragraph. While writing a paragraph, make sure the sentences have
a common idea. When you want to write about a different idea, make a new paragraph. For
example, if you are writing about your school, the first paragraph can be of sentences about the
name, location, size and other such details. In the next paragraph, you can use sentences to
describe what you like about your school.
Sample Paper
The complete subject consists of simple subject and its_______________ .
Answer – modifiers
Mr. Mahesh is telling a story to all his students. He made it an interesting activity by involving all the students.
Identify the skill being developed by the teacher in students:
1. Problem solving b) Active listening c) Trust building d)Writing Skills
Ans : b) Active listening
Name the term used for the process of creating a non-fiction text about
current or recent news, items of general interest or specific topic.
Ans - Article writing
___ means communication without words.
a. Object communication b. Written communication c. Oral communication
d. Non-verbal communication
Answer: (D) . Non-verbal communication
The person who transmits the message is called ___.
a. channel b. sender c. receiver d. response
Answer (B) sender
___ aims at making people work together for the common good of the organization.
a. communication b. conversation c. combination d. connection
Answer (A) . communication
At each stage in the process of communication, there is a possibility of interference which may hinder the process.
Such interference is known as ___.
a. sender b. receiver c. barrier d. none of them
Answer (C) barrier
___ describes all forms of human communication that are not verbal.
a. prosody b.vocalics c.haptics d.para language
Answer (D) para language
Normally communication is ___, wherein the information or message is transferred from one person to another.
a. impersonal b. interpersonal c. personal d. important
Answer (B) interpersonal
A ___ connects the sender to the receiver.
a. Channel b. Noise c. Communication d. feedback
Answer (A) Channel
The ___ in the usage of words may be a serious barrier to effective communication.
a. disturbance b. discrimination c. disorder d. distortion
Answer (D) distortion
Most of us use ___ and ___ in addition to words when we speak.
a. words and gestures b. gestures and body language
c. body language and posture d. posture and eye gazing
Answer (B) gestures and body language
___ refers to pitch, loudness, duration, intonation and, tempo.
a. touches b. prosody c. gestures d. haptics
Answer (B) prosody
In ___ main intention is to seek certain information which will be appreciated.
a. empathetic b. comprehension c. appreciative d. therapeutic
Answer (D) therapeutic
Dialogic listening is also known as ___.
a. therapeutic b. appreciative c. relational d. evaluative
Answer (B) appreciative
___ means looking quickly over a textbook to get a general superficial idea of the content.
a. scanning b. extensive reading c. skimming d. intensive
Answer (B) extensive reading
___ reading is ideal and helps comprehension
a. extensive b. loud c. intensive d. silent
Answer (D) silent
The second step in the SQ3R of reading is ___.
a. survey b. question c. read d. review
Answer (C) read
While making a slide the number of words should be limited to a maximum of ___ per slide.
a. seven b. nine c. eight d. ten
Answer (D)ten
A business proposal from a branch manager of a company to the managing director of the company is an example
of horizontal communication. ((True / False).
Answer (FALSE)
___ is the full form of the abbreviation TQM.
a. team quality management b. total quality management
c. total quality manager d. total quality management
Answer (D) total quality management
Communication that takes place between the members of an organization within itself is ___.
a. external b. formal c. informal d. internal
Answer (D) internal
20. Informal meetings mark the ___ of the problem.
a. immediately b. immediacy c. importance d. improvement
Answer c. importance
21. ___ is sent to a specific group of people whereas ___ may be meant for the general public.
a. notice, memo b. memo, circular c. notice, circular d. circular, notice
Answer (D) d. circular, notice
22. The problem with proofreading is that you will have to be good at ___ and ___.
a. spelling, punctuation b. pronunciation, spelling
c. punctuation, pronunciation d. paraphrasing, spelling
Answer (A) spelling, punctuation
Every sentence has two essential parts a ___ and a ___.
a. clause, predicate b. subject, phrase c. predicate, subject d. subject, clause
Answer (C) predicate, subject
Oral communication ensures___ and ___.
a. fluency; speed b. adequate attention; immediate response
c. speedy interaction; immediate response d. speed; attention
Answer (B) adequate attention; immediate response
Find out errors:
Either the manager or their subordinates failed in his duty.
a. either- neither, or- nor b. their- his, his- their
c. failed- fails, subordinates- subordinate e. the- a in- for
Answer (B) their- his, his- their
As a means of communication, e-mails have features of the immediacy of both ___ and ___.
a. reading, receiving b. writing, sending c. calling, receiving d. receiving, sending
Answer (D) receiving, sending
Unclarified assumptions in communication can lead to ___ and ___.
a. premature evaluation, poor listening
b. lack of planning, physical barriers
c. information overload, selective perception
d. confusion, misunderstanding
Ans: D confusion, misunderstanding
A resume needs conceptualization of your ___ and___ all into one document.
a. objectives, experiences
b. projects, skills
c. accomplishments, experiences
d. skills, aims
Answer (C) accomplishments, experiences
The semantic markers used to express time relationship are:
a. next, after b. after, consequently c. hence, to summarize d. while, because
Answer (A) next, after
___ and ___ are acted as barriers to communication.
a. semantic distortions, lack of planning b. sender, receiver
c. channel, message d. feedback, the sender
Answer (A) semantic distortions, lack of planning
When a word that has a silent “e” at the end combines with an ending that starts a vowel, the final “e” is ___, for
example, the surprise gives you ___.
a. unchanged, surprising b. dropped, surprising
c. deleted, surprising d. changed, surprising
Answer (B) dropped, surprising
The primary goal of communication is to ___.
a. to create barriers b. to create noises c. to effect a change d. none of these
Answer (C) to effect a change
Communication through ___ and ___ is called verbal communication
a. written material and gestures b. gestures and spoken words
c. spoken words and written material d. body language and gestures
Answer (C) spoken words and written material
___ is an exchange of facts, ideas, opinions, or emotions by two or more persons.
a. communication b. combination c. conversation d. connection
Answer (A) communication
The ___ of the correct channel depends on the situation under which the communication takes place.
a. chance b. choice c. change d. channel
Answer (B) choice
___ is the study of touches as non-verbal communication.
a. haptics b. body language c. gestures d. prosody
Answer (A) haptics
37. The fourth step in the SQ3R technique of reading is ___.
a. recall b. review c. survey d. reading
Answer (A) recall
38. ___ is an announcement sheet that is sent to a specific group of people.
a. notice b. memo c. circular d. letter
Answer (C) circular
39. ___ is essentially a statement of facts of a situation, project process, or test and it should be supported by.
a. notice, proof b. technical report, evidence
c. memo, information d. letter, documentors
Answer (B) technical report, evidence
40. ___ is done when you need to continue learning and studying that you develop your own thinking and skills.
a. professional reading b. action c. extensive d. intensive
Answer (A) professional reading
41. ___ and ___ as visual aids should contain the minimum information necessary.
a. flip charts slide b. PowerPoint, overhead projects
c. video, film d. overhead projects, slides
Answer (D) overhead projects, slides
42. Too much of ___ communication in the workspace may also prove ___. It may lead to negligence of work.
a. formal, positive b. informal, negative
c. verbal, positive d. non-verbal, negative
Show Answer
43. Communication helps managers utilize ___ and ___ in the most effective and efficient manner.
a. employees, organization b. control, evaluation of performance
c. plans, goals d. manpower, resources
44. The most crucial part of the ___ process is thinking of converting to ___ what one hears.
a. reading, understanding b. speaking, meaning
c. hearing, interpreting d. listening, meaning
45. Language of a memo should be ___ and ___ to understand.
a. indirect, personal b. direct, concise
c. lucid, easy d. concise, difficult
46. What is the full form of R&D:
a. resources and development
b. recharge and discard
c. research and demand
d. research and development
Show Answer
47. Find out the errors:
Besides being good at tennis, he is also an excellent player of golf.
a. good- better, being- been b. beside- besides, in- at
c. excellent- intelligent, besides – besides d. in- at, being- been
48. In letter writing, ___ indicates to the reader of the letter what the ___ is about.
a. salutation, letter b. subject, notice c. body, memo d. subject, letter
49. While using overhead projectors, you can reveal the information line by using an ___ sheet to over the ___.
a. opaque, flip chart b. translucent, transparency
c. transparent, slide d. opaque, transparency
50. A press release is a ___ news ___ story, written in ___ person that seeks to demonstrate to an editor or reporter
the newsworthiness of a particular person, event, service, or product.
a. false, first b. pseudo, third c. real, second d. original, third
51. Complete the following statements with appropriate conjunctions:
1. ___ he worked hard, he failed.
2. I cannot lift the box ___ it is very heavy.
3. The current status report has been attaché, ___ I have highlighted the important figures.
4. ___ we have no money, we cannot buy it.
a. althoug
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