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Communicative approach helps
Photo: K.R. Deepak
Racy lifestyle Strong communication skills are vital
You are attending an interview. As your name is called out, you almost jump from your seat and walk briskly towards the hall. Your nerves jangle, your muscles twitch and your mouth dries. Your lips whisper a silent prayer as you prod yourself: “
;C’mon… be a sport…speak in English and answer with confidence; seize the opportunity to make an impression… land the job and be a man (or a woman). The interviewers have no two opinions about a candidate being as good as his communication skills.
For a racy career
For skilled tech-oriented jobs in software and biotech, it’s not only the technical skills but also communication skills that determine the prospects of a candidate.
G. Narayana, an Oracle software developer observes: “My project manager insists that I should communicate better if I do not want to lose clients.” Though technically competent, Narayana feels that communication in English is his Achilles heel. “I am able to pick up latest changes in technology but I am losing out heavily for want of communication skills,” he laments.
To meet the ‘shortage’ of workforce, software companies do absorb candidates who are only technically competent but those who are equipped with good communication skills bag the plum posts.
The range of problems for those lagging behind vary: Guys who study in vernacular languages face loss of confidence even before anything happens and those who do manage to land good jobs based on their technical skills, remain in doldrums for they are unable to cope with the workplace jargon.
Part of life
Sastry P.S, a lecturer in English and a resource person for English Language Fellow (ELF) program, collaboration between the Commissionerate of Collegiate Education, Government of Andhra Pradesh and the U.S. State Department, says: “Communicative approach to teaching English is the way to go. Language is for communication,” he says.
A passionate exponent of communicative approach to learning English, he says: “Learning English as a part of life rather than as a language works better.” In communicative approach, students ‘figure out and discover meanings as they go along.’ Your role is not to make the meaning all clear, but facilitate the meaning to emerge from the context.”
Students use English language in simulated real-life contexts such as how to shop or book tickets, enquire, and role-plays and problem-solving tasks.
They create imaginary dialogues for different contexts in real life, work in teams or pairs, and interact in English at the visceral level. It may be raw but it works and in due course, one achieves sophisticated communicative competence.
Listening to the language “works sublimely and the mind stores linguistic structures. After all, we speak our mother tongue fluently because we have been exposed to it since our childhood.”
G.B.S.N.P. VARMA
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