Reflections: Communication Skills for Teachers

Having had almost 15 years of working experience, this course reinforced what I know about the importance of good communication skills.  The fact that the course has both online and face-to-face elements gives it a nice balance, and enabled me to learn more in my own time.

Particularly, I find the Voice Production and Vocal Health online module extremely insightful as a beginning teacher. Before becoming a teacher, I was aware of the importance of voice to a teacher. This knowledge was made more apparent when I was contract teaching for about four months, with the need to speak in front of a class of thirty eight students. I had to ensure that everyone could hear me, and this was not easy. This module provided valuable tips on how to increase one’s voice volume, without having to strain the vocal cords. The tips on breathing, posture and vocal support, as well as the various voice warm-up exercises will be very useful in my future teaching career.

I found several videos in the Oral Communication module extremely useful, such as the Andrew Bryant’s video lesson on Intentionality. He shared that it is extremely important to make one’s intention clear even before making a presentation, and this is not just through verbal communication. Non-verbal communication such as how one stands and speaks also affects how our audience perceives our intention. Using these tips during my teaching will enable me to present what I want students to learn more effectively.

The videos showing real-life parent-teacher meetings are very practical and useful too. It gives me an idea of the possible types of parents I may meet during my future teaching career, and also the possible tips that I can use in future.

During the Classroom Communication module, I learnt about the different types of questioning techniques and student-teacher interactions. It made me realise that there are different ways of posing questions to students, and that it is important to ask questions ranging from the basic to higher level ones. This kind of scaffolding will help in the students’ learning, while the various types of interactions demonstrate strategies that can be adopted to encourage or praise the students.

In the Written Communication module, I found the section ‘Providing Effective Student Feedback’ most insightful. The tips on ‘important considerations in giving feedback to students’ will definitely come in handy during my teaching, as would the reading on ‘Giving Feedback’. I also find the video on ‘Reporting to Parents’ extremely helpful too.