Verbal and Nonverbal Communication: A Comprehensive Guide, Schemes and Mind Maps of Professional Communication

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Verbal vs nonverbal

communication

Verbal communication

What is Verbal Communication?

• (^) Verbal communication is any communication that uses words to share information with others. These words may be both spoken and written.

• (^) It is important to remember that effective verbal communication cannot be fully isolated from non-verbal communication: your body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions…

• (^) Basic Verbal Communication Skills: Effective Speaking and Listening
• (^) Effective speaking involves three main areas: the words you choose, how you say them, and how you reinforce them with other non- verbal communication.
• (^) It is worth considering your choice of words carefully. You will probably need to use different words in different situations, even when discussing the same subject. For example, what you say to a close colleague will be very different from how you present a subject at a major conference.
• (^) How you speak includes your tone of voice and pace. Like non-verbal communication more generally, these send important messages to your audience, for example, about your level of interest and commitment, or whether you are nervous about their reaction.

• (^) Be prepared to listen. Concentrate on the speaker, and not on how you are going to reply.

• (^) Keep an open mind and avoid making judgments about the speaker.

• (^) Avoid distractions if at all possible. For example, if there is a lot of background noise, you might suggest that you go somewhere else to talk.

• (^) Be objective.

• (^) Do not stereotype the speaker. Try not to let prejudices associated with, for example, gender, ethnicity, accent, social class, appearance or dress interfere with what is being said

• (^) Improving Verbal Communication: More Advanced Techniques
• (^) There are a number of tools and techniques that you can use to improve the effectiveness of your verbal communication. These include reinforcement, reflection, clarification, and questioning.

• (^) Questioning
• (^) Questioning is broadly how we obtain information from others on specific topics.
• (^) Questioning is an essential way of clarifying areas that are unclear or test your understanding.
• (^) It can also enable you to explicitly seek support from others.
• (^) On a more social level, questioning is also a useful technique to start conversations
• (^) draw someone into a conversation, or simply show interest. Effective questioning is therefore an essential element of verbal communication.

We use two main types of question:

• (^) Closed Questions
• (^) Closed questions tend to seek only a one or two word answer (often simply ‘yes’ or ‘no’). They therefore limit the scope of the response. Two examples of closed questions are:
• (^) “Did you travel by car today?” and “Did you see the football game yesterday?”
• (^) This is often not the desired outcome when trying to encourage verbal communication however
• (^) It can be useful for focusing discussion and obtaining clear, concise answers when needed.

• (^) Reflecting and Clarifying
• (^) Reflecting is the process of feeding back to another person your understanding of what has been said.
• (^) Reflecting often involves paraphrasing the message communicated to you by the speaker in your own words.

• (^) It is a useful skill because:
• (^) You can check that you have understood the message clearly.
• (^) The speaker gets feedback about how the message has been received and can then clarify or expand if they wish.
• (^) It shows interest in, and respect for, what the other person has to say.
• (^) You are demonstrating that you are considering the other person’s viewpoint.