Communication skills and styles

Let us watch a episode "Math Class" with sound off.

 



           First, I watch the show with the sound turned off. I see two main characters in the episode. I see a man is standing in front of a blackboard. I guess he is a teacher. Later, I see a man who is sitting closer to the teacher with black shirt. I guess he is a student.

The teacher is teaching a math class. On the board, there is a name Mr. John. I guess the teacher's name is John. First, he was saying something while was looking at a paper then he handed out the paper to a student. I guess the paper is the homework of the student. The teacher returns the homework to student. Second, the teacher started reading something from a piece of paper, there is an obstacle flying over in front of the teacher. He looked up, frowned at someone, then continued to say something. While the teacher said, "five" from the shape of his mouth, a student interrupted him. He stopped speaking and we see a student counting with his figure. The teacher and the student begin one-one-one communication after the teacher moved to closer to the student, which seemed the teacher was teaching, and the student was learning to count the number that are less than 10.

When turned the sound on, I watch again and find that the characters I plotted are correct. the environment set looks like a classroom. That is a teacher would be the one standing in front of a blackboard. Students would sit in the classroom. The communication was not correct. I can not sight that the teacher said "take away". So message regard the subtraction was not received.

It is hard to assumption more correct on what teacher is teaching without verbal language. It might be more correct if I understand the sign language and the teacher also use official sign language. However, this is not case in this episode.

Communication refers to "the process by which we use symbols, signs, and behaviors to exchange information."(O'Hair, 2012). Communication is symbolic that requires a shared code, links to culture, and is transactional through various channels. Communication skills are appropriate behaviors refer to verbal skills, nonverbal skills, and listen skills. In this episode, nonverbal communication such as gestures, body movement, facial expressions, and eye behavior, voice, space and environment do transfer most information regard the characters and where and what the character are doing. However, "nonverbal communication can be interpreted in many different ways. Nonverbal is not a true language." (O'Hair, 2012). For this episode, we need to hear the verbal language so that we could understand what the true message is being communicating: teacher and the student are communicating on the subtraction. 

Reference:

O’Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication: An introduction (2nd Ed.). New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press.