Communication Is a Key to Success for Students

Strong verbal communication skills help students at school in everything from getting better grades in class presentations to making a positive impression with teachers. These same skills also help students with their relationships in and out of school. At the learning and life skills summer camp, SuperCamp, students learn how important effective communication is in life and are given advice on how to improve their communication skills. Here are some of the tips they learn.

Don't Be a Communication Killer

Don’t be a communication killer-be an active listener

Here are the three don'ts: don't deny, don't resolve, and don't me-too.

•  Don't deny: "You don't need to lose weight, you look fine."
  When a friend shares an experience, a fear, or a feeling ("I'm so fat ...") and you respond with reassurance, you may mean to comfort her, but what you’re really doing is cutting off her sharing with the statement that she shouldn’t feel that way. You're denying her feelings. 

•  Don't resolve: "If I were you ..."
  When someone tells you about a problem they’ve having, and you quickly hand them a solution, you shut them right down. Think about it. If you wanted to chat with a friend about a problem and maybe share some ideas and they quickly throw a solution at you, it wouldn't feel very good. Their two-minute solution to a problem you've been struggling with for weeks would probably (a) be unlikely to work, (b) be something you already though of, and (c) be very likely to end the conversation.

•  Don't me-too: "I know exactly what you mean; the same thing happened to me ..."
  When a friend begins to share something they're going through and you cut them off with a "Me, too" and go into your "story", you’ve killed the conversation. Your friend may never get to finish telling you about his experience, but he'll know all about what happened to you.

Don’t kill a conversation with reassurance, advice, or identification. Your goal is not to diagnose, pacify, or fix. Let your goal be to listen, and to let the speaker know he’s been heard.