Rules for effective communication

Have you been wondering how to put together an impressively-phrased PowerPoint presentation?

Have you been wondering how to compose an e-mail that captures your strategies and goals effectively?

It is time to do something about it.

As a young professional in today's global business world, it is imperative that you are competent in both oral as well as written communication.

Important forms of oral communication at the workplace include:

• Building interpersonal relationships.
• Giving presentations and debating viewpoints effectively.

You need to master oral skills for both in-person and over-the-phone interactions.

Similarly, important written communication includes:

• Writing professional e-mails (sans SMS slang).
• Putting together concise reports.
• Creating visually powerful Powerpoint presentations.

And the key to acing oral and written communication is to spruce up your communication skills. And it is a lot easier than you think.

Here are some easy tips to do it on your own:

1. Improve pronunciation and diction

There are a few tricks to making a vernacular accent more globally understandable.

~ Try making sure that 'air' comes out of your mouth when saying the letters, 'T, P, K' and the sound 'Ch'.

~ Focus on elongating your vowel sounds. This will also automatically slow down your rate of speech.

~ Sing English songs out loud!

~ Watch news shows on channels like CNN and BBC.

~ The web site www.m-w.com is great for pronunciation help.

~ I would also suggest buying books on pronunciation and language that come with audio cassettes.

A good book that I found really useful was Better English Pronunciation by J D O'Connor. It is part of the Cambridge series, and some of those books come with cassettes.

2. Spruce up your writing skills

~ Believe it or not, you have to Read More!

~ Well-written magazines, like The Economist and India Today, are great to read not only to improve language skills but also to learn more about the world.

~ In terms of books, read what interests you. The basic goal is to read as much as you can.

There are a plethora of good authors who are popular today. Some good writers whose language is easy to follow include Vikram Seth, Jhumpa Lahiri, Paulo Coelho, J D Salinger, Albert Camus and Roald Dahl.

~ People tend to forget basic grammar when writing e-mails. An e-mail is nothing more than a letter which is sent electronically.

Make sure salutations and content are professional. Use special phrases when attaching documents. For example, "Please find attached with this e-mail a report on..." This helps you sound professional.

3. Five exercises to practise every day!

i. Pretend you are a newscaster and read out the newspaper to your mirror.

ii. Do not read local newspapers. Focus on national newspapers.

iii. While reading a book, underline all the words you do not know. Look them up in the dictionary.

iv. Make a list of these words, and make sure you use at least five of them in a conversation during the day.

v. Most important, make an effort to speak in English to your friends and family.

 Keep posting comments/Suggestions...

HAPPY LEARNING!! 

7 Tips for learning an English Word a day

1. Use the new word in a sentence

After you have read the word and understood its meaning, use that new word in your own sentence. It is best to try and create a sentence that has some type of relationship or connection with your life.

2. Look for grammatical variations of the word

Look for the different ways (grammatical forms) the word can appear. For example if the word to suspect (a verb) is given to you, you can look for its noun form (suspicion), its adjective form (suspicious) etc. Suspect can also be a noun (a suspect). Remember that not all words have all grammatical forms. It pays to have a good English dictionary to help you with this.

Once you have the different forms of the new word, you can then try and make a sentence with each one.

3. Do Word Associations

Try and associate the word with other things (like a mind map). Not only will it help you remember the new word but it will also increase your knowledge (vocabulary) of other things associated with the word.

For example if you have the new word CAR (a noun),

Think of nouns associated with the word (parts of a car: windscreen, steering wheel…)

Think of verbs associated with the word (to Brake, to accelerate, to crash…)

Think of adjectives to describe it (Fast, rusty… )

Think of examples of the word (Limousine, Jeep…)

If the word is an adjective for example BIG

Think of synonyms or words with a similar meaning (large, enormous, huge…)

Think of antonyms or opposites (small, tiny…)

Think of examples of the adjective (Big: Elephant, a continent, Jupiter…)

4. Carry a list or a notepad with you

Write the new word and its meaning (and maybe an example too) in a small notepad that you can carry with you and read whenever you have a spare moment (or some people keep them in their smartphone). This can be read while you are sitting on a bus, on the underground/subway, or while you are in a waiting room. This will help you see the words more than once and will help them stick in your mind.

5. Make flash cards

Make little cards with each new word on one side and the meaning of that word on the other side. Put them on the ground and if the meaning is face up, then try and think of the word. If the word appears face up, then think of its meaning. When you start to have a lot of cards you can shuffle them and randomly pick out 10 or so every day.

6. Look for examples on the internet

Type the word in a search engine (such as Google) and write down 7 different sentences that contain an example of that word. This way you will see the word in context and maybe other vocabulary associated with it. For better results, look for one sentence every day over 7 different days.

7. Learn the word again on other days

Don’t just learn or practice a word one day and then forget about it. You may think you have learned the word (since you have just been using it) but if you try to remember/use the new word a couple of weeks later, you may find it difficult. To really remember a word you need to reuse that word over and over before it sticks in your long-term memory.

There is a saying in English “Use it or lose it.” Basically this means if you don’t use (or practice) something you have learned, you will eventually forget how to use it properly.

Reference:Woodward English

Homonyms - words

The words below are homonyms - words which look the same but may have different meanings and pronunciations. 

Most of the sentences feature the homonym both as a noun and as a verb. 
Which sentences do not?

1. The bandage was wound around the wound. 
2. The farm was used to produce produce. 
3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse. 
4. We must polish the Polish furniture. 
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out. 
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert. 
7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present. 
8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum. 
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes. 
10. I did not object to the object. 
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid. 
12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row. 
13. They were too close to the door to close it. 
14. The buck does funny things when the does are present. 
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line. 
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow. 
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail. 
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number. 
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear. 
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

Can you find a rule governing their pronunciation and where to place the stress?