The document outlines the significance of communication skills, particularly focusing on oral communication, its advantages, and disadvantages. It highlights the communication process, which includes context, sender, message, medium, recipient, and feedback, emphasizing the role of each component. Ultimately, it underscores how effective communication fosters understanding and collaboration while also noting potential pitfalls such as misunderstandings and the informal nature of oral exchanges.

1. The Importance of
Communication Skills
Unit 1
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2. Communication?
• The activity of conveying information through
the exchange of
Thoughts
Messages
Information
Speech,
Visuals, signals, writing, or behavior.
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3. Oral Communication?
• Communication through mouth.
• Includes individuals:
Conversing with each other
Telephonic conversation.
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4. Forms of Oral Communication
• Speeches
• Presentations
• Discussions
• Gossip
• Public Speaking
• Debates 4

5. Advantages of Oral Communication
• High level of understanding and
transparency as it is interpersonal
• No element of rigidity in oral
communication. There is flexibility for
allowing changes in the decisions
previously taken.
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6. Advantages of Oral Communication
• The feedback is spontaneous.
• Thus, decisions can be made quickly
without any delay.
• Not only time saving, but it also saves
upon money and efforts.
• Best in case of problem resolution. The
conflicts, disputes and many
issues/differences can be put to an end by
talking them over.
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7. Advantages of Oral Communication
• Essential for teamwork and group energy.
• Promotes a receptive and encouraging
morale among organizational employees.
• Oral Communication can be best used to
transfer private and confidential
information/matter.
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8. Disadvantages of Oral Communication
• Relying only on oral communication may
not be sufficient as business
communication is formal and very
organized.
• Less authentic than written
communication as they are informal and
not as organized as written
communication.
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9. Disadvantages of Oral Communication
• Oral communication is time-saving as far
as daily interactions are concerned, but in
case of meetings, long speeches
consume lot of time and are unproductive
at times.
• Oral communications are not easy to
maintain and thus they are unsteady.
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10. Disadvantages of Oral Communication
• There may be misunderstandings as the
information is not complete and may lack
essentials.
• Requires attentiveness and great
receptivity on part of the
receivers/audience.
• Oral communication (such as speeches) is
not frequently used as legal records
except in investigation work.
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11. Communication Process
• A process of exchanging verbal and non
verbal messages.
• It is a continuous process.
• Pre-requisite of communication is a
message.
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12. Components of Communication
Process
• Context
• Sender / Encoder
• Message
• Medium
• Recipient / Decoder
• Feedback
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13. Context
• The context may be physical, social,
chronological (in order) or cultural.
• Every communication proceeds with
context.
• The sender chooses the message to
communicate within a context.
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14. Sender / Encoder
• A person who sends the message.
• May use symbols, words or graphic or
visual aids to convey the message and
produce the required response.
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15. Message
• Key idea that the sender wants to
communicate.
• It is a sign that elicits the response of
recipient.
• Communication process begins with
deciding about the message to be
conveyed.
• It must be ensured that the main objective
of the message is clear.
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16. Medium
• Used to exchange / transmit the message.
• The sender must choose an appropriate
medium for transmitting the message else
the message might not be conveyed to the
desired recipients.
• Written, Spoken, etc
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17. Recipient / Decoder
• A person for whom the message is
intended / aimed / targeted.
• The degree to which the decoder
understands the message is dependent
upon various factors such as knowledge of
recipient, their responsiveness to the
message, and the reliance of encoder on
decoder.
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18. Feedback
• The main component of communication
process as it permits the sender to
analyze the efficacy of the message.
• It helps the sender in confirming the
correct interpretation of message by the
decoder.
• Feedback may be verbal (through words)
or non-verbal (in form of smiles, sighs,
etc.). It may take written form also in form
of memos, reports, etc. 18