6 Simple Tips to Improve Communication Skills

What is the foremost quality that is needed everywhere in a corporate world? What is the foremost requirement for cracking an interview? Whether we talk about group discussion or HR-rounds, what is that one thing which helps you in getting through these? The answer is ONE; it is “Effective Communication Skills”.

It is the most necessary or we can say indispensable requirement of a corporate world. If you want to get into a corporate world , you need it; if you want to sustain in a corporate world, you need it; if you want to leave a mark of yours in corporate world, you need it. So, at last, you can`t escape from it.

As it has been proven that one cannot escape from it. So, lets make it our strength rather than weakness. Here are some tips which might be helpful to improve your communication skill as per corporate need.

1. Universally accepted keywords:

Either you are in a BPO or call centre or any other job, you may need to communicate with your on-shore clients often; In that case, you must be using the universally accepted keywords, i.e., A- alpha, B- Bravo, C- Charlie and D- delta and so on; these are also known as phonetic alphabets. It will help you to spell your name as well. Instead of saying A- apple and B – ball, you must use these universally accepted keywords so that you sound more professional and the person at the other end could understand you better. A communication is always incomplete unless it gets interpreted correctly by the receiver.

2. Mis-spelt words:

There are words which are often mis-spelt, you must make a list of those words so that you may work on it and next time when you use those words , make sure your pronunciation is correct. It must be you who is correcting other’s pronunciation not the others correcting yours. Some words like these are towel, restaurant, envelope etc. The right pronunciation for the above given words sound similar to Tawel, restrau, onvelop respectively. You can also take the help from the pronunciation dictionary. Nowadays, help is available online too, so you can actually hear how you should be pronouncing.

3. Mother Tongue Influence/Regional Ascent

This is one of the most prominent errors often seen in our communication. There are more chances of MTI i.e., mother tongue influence if you are belong to a non-English speaking region. India has a highly diverse population and it’s common for regional accent to creep in the general verbal communication. So, even though if they learnt English, they will incorporate their local mother tongue influence to it somehow which they might not notice themselves but person on the other side can notice it well. So, with the help of your friends as listener, you can carefully take care of this. In a corporate world, no matter from where are you belonging, you must not deliver the local flavor in your speech This problem is seen with people hailing from North as well as South India:

• People from Delhi may pronounce pen as “Pan”. They stress on the letter “R” when they speak the word Park
• Someone from Bihar, may have a hint of Maithili, Bhojpuri etc. Some of them might pronounce school as “Eeschool”, smile as “Eesmile”
• Some folks from Kerela may pronounce “Simple” as “Symble”, with the tongue rolled upward
• Problem can be seen in written English too. For example, if your mother tongue is Telugu, you might form the sentence as ” I can’t be able to…” instead of saying “I won’t be able to…” We normally tend to translate what we speak in our native language

Well, there is nothing wrong in having a regional accent and one should not feel ashamed about it. However, it is important to learn “Neutral British Accent”, so that you can communicate effectively.

4. Jaw – loosening exercises

You must perform jaw loosening exercises by spelling similar sounding words or sentences again and again which are known as homonyms like adverse/averse; affect/effect; bare/bear; formerly/formally; farther/further; emigrate/immigrate; intense/intent, etc. You can find many words like this from your surroundings or with the help of Google of course. It will make you sound clearer and the person listening to you must not put effort in understanding you. Ensure that you use the correct form in written as well as verbal communication.

5. Tongue-Twisters:

As a kid, you would have definitely played the tongue-twister game. Now, try these tongue twisters to talk fluently:

• She sells sea shell on the sea shore (Work on the sound of “s” and “sh”)
• Peter Potter bought some butter but the butter was so bitter, so he added more butter to make the butter better.
• The pronunciation of pronunciation is pronunciation

6. Vocabulary:

Vocabulary is yet another one of the most important aspect that cannot be overlooked when it comes to spoken English. How will you be able to express yourself without having enough words? You must increase your vocabulary as much as you can. Try learning at least five words each day and later use them in pragmatic situations so that you may not forget the new words added in your list. Read newspaper, novels and watch good quality English movies and watch English news channels like BBC (for British English) and CNN (for American English).Having a strong word bank definitely makes a good impression. It often happens that somebody says some words and we are not aware of it, we later peep in to the dictionary at home. So, do it earlier rather than doing it later and let others peep in to dictionary for the words spoken by you.

It is rightly said that Well Begun is half done. If you improve your Communication skill, the complex journey to the corporate world becomes easier.